Posted in: Comics | Tagged: acts of vengeance, auction, Comics, ebay, john byrne

Is This A Fake? Or Is It The Real John Byrne?

John Byrne posted, warning people of a seller selling work that, according to John Byrne was not his.

He wrote;

Sharp eyes among you will recognize it as based on a promo piece I did for the "Acts of Vengeance" crossover. But that's ALL it is, "based on", as in copied from. There's no work actually by me in that piece. No pencils. No contribution whatsoever. Just another imitation of my art, like dozens we've seen before on the web.

I have notified the auction house and asked them to change their listing accordingly.

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I wonder if it's going to take an Act of Congress to stop this sort of thing. For any piece of art — ANY piece of art — to be described as an "original" by a specific artist, that artist must have actually, physically worked on the piece.

Taking a copy of some promo art, or a commission piece, or a convention sketch, or a cover, or a splash, or anything else I might have done, and painting or inking or coloring over it does not create a "collaboration", and it does not create a piece of which any part can be considered a "John Byrne Original".

There have certainly been a number of such items sold by people trying to trade in on an artist's popularity. Take some pencil scans, ink them themselves, and pass them off as original art by the original creator, plus their inking skills

But this isn't exactly that.

The artwork was originally created by Marvel, commissioned by Marvel advertising manager at the time to advertise the comic book crossover, Fabian Nicieza, the original being given away as a prize. The auction describes it thus;

Offered here is art penciled by Byrne and painted by Mark McNabb. Also included is the actual poster and the letter that was sent out. Mixed media on paper, art measures 16"x23" and all items are in overall Very Fine condition.

Here's the poster and the winning confirmation letter.

I talked to Fabian Nicieza, who told me;

John did the black and white art off my rough comp and I am pretty sure I remember Mark McNabb did the blue line coloring job (that was all pre-computer coloring), which is what looks like is being auctioned off. Mark did a few pieces for me around that time.

I am pretty sure that I didn't use the black plate in the final poster, running it only as Mark's full colors, though I did use John's black and white art for the house ad.

That is not John Byrne's actual art being auctioned off, but a full color painting Mark did on what was basically a blue line copy of John's original B&W artwork.

The auction is an incorrect description, in that John Byrne's original pencils and/or inks are not underneath the paint. But it is not fair to dismiss it as just another recreation by some wannabe. It was an official santioned and published piece of Marvel work.

And, of course, with more pencillers seeing their pencils reproduced and then inked on separate boards for publication… is their worth also less? Or dismissible as fraud if sold using the penciller's name?

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