Wicked Byrne

After posting up John Byrnes comments about the death of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin last week, I ended up having a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine over the subject. His position was that the persona that John Byrne presents online is about publicity, not about who John Byrne really is. While I’m not ready to sing his praises, I do definitely realize that perhaps a call to boycott his books may not have been entirely necessary. In an attempt to look into the public persona of John Byrne I did some research into some of his other controversial quotes. Which are all collected right here:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Byrne

Public persona? That’s fine by me. My question is now, when choosing a public persona, wouldn’t you want to have one that would make people actually buy your comic books? I understand that by being controversial, he draws attention to himself. Heck, I’m sitting here talking about him aren’t I? Since his comments on the death of Steve Irwin a few weeks back, I’ve seen John Byrne’s name all over the internet. So yes, he’s definitely good at drawing attention to himself. The thing is, does any of this stuff he’s saying even come close to inspiring someone to buy his works? When I see a trailer for an awful movie that not only looks bad, but also insults me I don’t run out and see that movie. I avoid it and tell all my friends not to go see it. I don’t really even have a point, so I guess it’s time to move on. If John Byrne were smart he’d go over to Brooke Shield’s house and cook her a vegan omelet. That repairs even the most marred of reputations.


Somebody Save Me

With the new season debuting later this week, Smallville co-creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar were interviewed. When asked if they were at all worried over the fact that longtime Superman comic book fans were getting very irate over the shows massive departure from the comic book, Alfred Gough said “Wait a second, there’s a Superman comic book?”


Help wanted? You got that right.

As an aspiring comic book writer who possesses zero art skills, I find myself in constant need of artists. What’s a guy to do in this situation? Well, hopefully you know someone who is not only a great artist, but is a dedicated and professional one. Since that’s a rather rare scenario, you’re left with one real viable option:

www.digitalwebbing.com

Where you have MySpace to search for sex offenders and Craigs List to search for used bongs and gun cabinets (that one’s for Guthrie!), Digital Webbing is where you search for comic book collaborators. While it’s an amazing resource, it is only as reliable as the people who are on there answering ads. Which, sadly, are usually excited people who are years away from getting their skills up to the level of being able to do serious work and even more years away from being mature enough to understand what dedication and deadlines are all about. So when I took a last minute shot in the dark and posted an ad looking for an artist to pencil and ink one of my short scripts for inclusion in this years Stumblebum Studios anthology, I wasn’t expecting to really find anyone. The day the ad went up, my inbox was flooded with the expected and usual people wanting to draw my comic. People who were genuinely enthusiastic, but equally genuinely nowhere near ready to draw a comic book. Mix in the usual amount of people asking for ridiculous amounts of money in exchange for their service and I wasn’t feeling too hopeful that I was going to find anyone who could draw this comic, much less under the time crunch I was in.

Then came Garry Brown.

This guy is a great communicator, which is something most people aren’t. He was clear and concise in his emails, making it easy to understand where he stood on the project. He sent me a link to his website and I was blown away. The rest, they say, is history. Or at least it soon will be. Garry is hard at work on the last few pages of the story. He’s a stand up guy and a hell of an artist. If you’re interested in checking out more of his art, head over to:

http://www.thisismyboomstick.co.uk/

So thanks Garry. There are days that I get very burnt out on the process of trying to will a project into being. You’ve really made this project painless with your talent and speed.

Our story, “Until Proven Guilty” (which is lettered by the incredible Paul Milligan), will be available as part of the “Stumblebum Studios Presents Round Two” anthology. It will be for sale first at Wizard World Texas this November and then shortly after here on stumblebumstudios.com. As for Garry Brown, hopefully this isn’t the last project of mine you see him drawing.


Civil Bore

Continuing the rich tradition of being excited about big comic book events and then realizing they are total crap, I have to say that I am so done with Marvel’s Civil War. Writer Mark Millar, in a recent interview, when asked why he was doing certain things with characters and why heroes were acting out of character, he said because he always wanted to see those things happen in a comic book. Uh… yeah. Those of us who are paying attention were already aware that the motivations for each character in this book were, in most cases, completely opposite of what the characters real motivations would’ve been. But hey, how could we have a Captain America versus Spiderman fight otherwise? And really, who didn’t want to see Iron Man and Captain America fight? Believable reasons? Plot? Bah, get out of town. Iron Man versus Cap! Come on guys! Thanks to Mark Millar and Marvel’s love of money and total lack of caring for good stories, we’re getting the answers to the age old questions we never cared to ask. Like what happens if Thor shoots lightning through the chest of some character I’ve never even heard of? Civil War, more so than any of the mega events that have come before it, is a complete and total failure, in my opinion. But hey, we did get to see Cap fight Iron Man, right? Not because it made a great story or because it was the natural progression of the Marvel universe, but because Mark Millar “always wanted to see it happen”.

Oh, and because it’s netting Marvel millions of dollars in profit. That too.

If Marvel is going to keep me as a fan, they’re going to have to do one small thing. Start making good comics again.



If you know of any interesting news, rumors, lies, etc. about comics and think I should know about it too just email me at freejenkins@gmail.com

For links to my other articles and general info about my writing and my life, check me out at http://freejenkins.livejournal.com