detailed! For years I thought that they were working on a convention sketch, but as I found out a couple of years ago, it was, in fact, the cover to The Comics Journal #57, Summer 1980. odd that they'd be working on a published cover at a comic con!
That's me, off to the right, eagerly enjoying watching Austin at work. Even the pencil sketch that Byrne is working on in the first shot (likely later to be passed on to Austin) seems to be possibly a group shot, as if you zoom in and rotate the pic 180 degrees, you can see that there's more than just Wolverine there. The paper that Byrne is holding over the drawing, to prevent his hand from smudging it, looks like it's hiding Nightcrawler, as it appears to be his hand coming out from under it. What's odd, though, is that the pencil sketch appears to be the same image as the cover, yet Austin is also inking that same image. Strange. As if they were working on the same piece, like a recreation. John Byrne has a forum on his webpage and I think I'll have to ask about this, should he even remember. The photo of John Byrne in conversation, was after a talk he did. I only seem to remember being around for his talk just a little while. I don't remember any of what went on. It was at this same con that I got a Moon Knight sketch from Bill Sienkiewicz, which I then brought over to have inked by Joe Rubenstein. The two were working together on the character's appearences in the back of The Rampaging Hulk magazine. Moon Knight didn't yet have his own title.
2 comments:
In that first picture he is working on a Wolverine sketch that Austin later inked. It's on around 11 x 8 1/2 inch paper and a bigger Wolverine than the group shot, if you look closely that is obvious. Austin did use some marker on part of it because if I remember right it bled through to the other side. I bought it in downtown Toronto around 2003 from a non comic book shop that I saw it in one day. He had a Nightcrawler with Colossus? as well inked by Austin along with some other sketches.
I sold it on ebay I think a few years later and seeing that there is a photo of him with it in pencil maybe I should have kept it. In any case I tried to post this info on the Byrnerobotics site but it wont take my email. If you contact me I will send you an image of the inked version and your welcome to post it on the Robotics site if you like.
Take care.
Atilla
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