Byrne to reward charity?

This sounds nice and all...

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/16/john-byrnes-offer

But, wouldn't it have made more money for whatever charity, if it had been all packaged into a nice sketchbook style publication, with a huge percentage of the haul going to the charity in question?

(And before anyone says anything about copyrights etc, there are plenty of published examples of sketchbook style books with Marvel and DC characters, there is a different set of rules when publishing historic or educational works.

This might be the nicest thing Byrne has done in a while, so I'm inclined to let it be.

Oh I agree. I only really posted this to get a reaction outta Paul, I missed the little guy.

Paul had a lot of stuff going on in his life, as I recall. I hope he's well.

The thing I most remember about Paul was that he would defend Byrne at great length at Comicon -- posting dozens of replies for days and weeks and months, taking on all critics -- but I don't think he said "Boo" at the actual John Byrne Forum. He didn't interact with the great man himself. Perhaps wisely! Byrne is notoriously rough on his biggest fans.

This looks like it's dedicated to archivists. 'You want the whole shebang, here it is.' I wouldn't say that's the best way to approach it, but I'm not Byrne and it's *his* legacy he's thinking about.

From memory, I recall him saying at one point on his board that he filled up a sketchbook or two with whatever he felt like drawing over the course of a year, and then at the end of the year, he burned it. As in, set it on fire and that art was gone forever. I was in my biggest Byrne-bashing phase at the time, and was totally appalled. The guy has one of my favorite traits in any artist in any medium - the need to produce new work regularly - and he gets rid of what might be his most interesting and/or personal art? If he had dinner in Windows On The World - the restaurant located at the top of the World Trade Center - and casually sketched the skyline as he looked at it, that would be an awesome picture. He could have drawn it on a napkin, and that would only increase the resale value. A napkin from the World Trade Center, showing the view from the top of the World Trade Center, drawn by John Byrne. I'm getting a woody just thinking about the possibility, and I've seen drawings Frank Miller made when he went out drinking in Hell's Kitchen with the guy who showed me the drawings.

Dave Sim has made the analogy that comic book artists are effectively drawing money. A finished comic book page which will be published makes them money, as does the sale of original art. [I like his line about how *somebody* sold early "Cerebus" pages cheap in order to pay for weed, but he won't name any names.] This extends to commissions, and early sketches or tracing papers. Sim used to throw away tracing papers until he realized the value of an archive, and since then has used them for sales, gifts, or payment to people who've done him a service. He put a lot of work into showing Cerebus as an old man [er, aardvark] and many papers are floating around because people helped Sim, and now they have original art he created for the character they liked.

It might be the best option Byrne has considered, it might be the best option he's able to consider. I don't care if he does it for charity or keep every penny for himself [although I'd hope he'd pay writers, scripters, inkers, etc. if they have any contribution to the finished work.]

Classy of Byrne to encourage charity, even if in his own trademarked curmudgeony way. Not very classy of Bleeding Cool to illustrate it with another picture of him from when he lost his teeth.

Sorry for my absenteeism, but stuff & such...yada yada, etcetera...

I decided to pop in & lo & behold something to "react" to...Albeit a bit late, but better late than later!

I certainly hope it doesn't spark any Comicon.com-like replies, but it just might. I also plan to address a post or two (with my usual mono-focus) over in the "Blacklisting the BEFORE WATCHMEN team" area, so stay tooned for that...or not!

In this particular case, I find it kind of sad (in a pathetic sense) that when JB does something in a positive sense, someone has to try to find the flaws. Bottom line is that a charity was donated to. JB instigated a fun way for his fans to donate to a just cause.

I don't think JB was thinking about any sort of "legacy."

In regards to JB's sketchbooks, here's a couple of quotes...

"As most of you know, it is not my habit to keep my sketchbooks."
"Sketchbooks are where I work out the kinks in my artistic muscles. They are not really meant for human consumption."

Oh, and in regards to JB's "lost teeth," they were removed prior to surgery...never lost.

Let slip the dogs of war!

Paul W. Sondersted, Jr. wrote:

I certainly hope it doesn't spark any Comicon.com-like replies,

Don't stress, that kinda thing doesn't happen here. Great to see you're still around, hope all is well! 

Good to hear from you, Paul!

Yeah, I had no idea of the story behind the photos of Byrne with missing teeth, so perhaps I phrased it poorly. Glad to hear he still has them.

The missing teeth thing can really be a bitch.

I had a missing front tooth for a few weeks (similarly between the removal of the old one and replacement with the new one screwed into the bone), I hated wearing the temporary partial they made, so for the few weeks between surgeries I looked like a hillbilly.

I gotta say, I got some truly horrible treatment from several store clerks and one particularly annoying Wendy's Drive through attendant during that time. I was seriously shocked how I had been spoken to and disrespected, until my wife reminded me about the missing tooth. I still don't see how that was any excuse, but it did explain it. Nothing like it had happened before and hasn't happened since the surgery.

Quote :

"As most of you know, it is not my habit to keep my sketchbooks."
"Sketchbooks are where I work out the kinks in my artistic muscles. They are not really meant for human consumption."

That's one thing in a medium where all the raw materials are locked away - recorded music or movies - or lost to the ages - radio, theater - but it's another where the individual creator could keep all of his individual creations, especially in a medium where creators so rarely keep their own creations. One mans' 'working out kinks' is another man's fuel for inspiration.

Byrne has the right to control and even destroy his own work. If he's not worried about his legacy, that's his own problem. That's fine by me. If he finds a way to support charity with the work he hasn't destroyed, good for him.

I am not a Gil Kane fan. This isn't to put down his ability, or deny anything he accomplished in the comic book field, I'm just not a fan. However, in an interview he did at the end of his career, (from memory) he described how he shot out of bed every morning and spent an hour or two drawing heads, or bodies or something else, *PRACTICING* how to draw. Comics isn't like music, where a competent guitarist practices a riff and figures out how to play it. Gil Kane was "making money", literally. Within a few weeks, Kane had produced a dozen pages of his "practicing", before sitting down to draw the work-for-hire superheroes he really didn't care for. Many artists - possibly including John Byrne; you'd have to ask him - would love to look at Gil Kane's practices. Musicians would love to hear Led Zeppelin rehearsals for the same reason, to say nothing of the fanboys. Byrne's treatment of his sketchbooks is roughly equivalent to printing money and then burning [lol!] it. He has the right of the creator to do so. He does not have the right of the fanbase. Franz Kafka wanted his works burned too.