Magneto Sighting in Belton, SC
posted on 24/7/04 at 20:09 by Paty

(excerpt)

UNCANNY DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE #1 (Jul 2004)

Anyway... even with the rudeness of decades making me look askance at it, I was willing to let Byrne be a part of the book.. who knew? maybe he actually liked Dave in spite of his behavior... I mean, he was arrogant and rude to his fans... why not his peers? So I told Cliff...sure... go ahead and find a spot if you can. The book at the time was deep into production with new stuff coming every day and night! having to be rearranged daily! LOL... then a day or so later, a correspondent who monitors Byrne's private website...where you can only talk about Byrne...and only in glowing terms if you don't want him to ban you! But it is HIS site and he can act as childish as he wants to, I guess... Anyway, my correspondent quoted me from a thread that was there. A member of the list had asked JB if he was gonna contribute to the book cuz this member had heard that literally EVERYONE was dying to contribute! JB said a grudging "yes" another fan asked if he would do colossus...and he said that was his intent...a bit more discussion followed with the upshot of the fans saying they loved Dave's work and he had contributed so much to the industry etc...which must a irked Byrne mightily since the rule is talk about Byrne only. So finally one fan posted a page of Cockrum pencils he had acquired with the reason ostensibly being that on the page was Kitty Pryde...a character that Byrne created. It is a beautiful piece, typical Dave tight and illustrative pencils of Kitty and two of the Imperial guard ladies bouncing around. How this person got what should have been inked pages is beyond me...but anyway...this was a lovely page. I went there and peeked in on it to verify what my correspondent told me. The fans were waxing ecstatic about it. Byrne's comment:

"Those are VERY tight pencils for Dave. One of the things that struck me, the first time I saw his pencils, was how many lines he put down. I called it the 1000 Lines Approach -- "If I put 1000 lines here, one of them will be in the right place." It makes for some really beautiful, illustrative pages, let me tell you, but they must have been a bear to ink!"

That's a direct word for word quote. Two insults to a compliment..typical Byrne behavior. which told me one thing. Byrne was getting in at the last minute to mollify his fans and to be included in a great book with the greats of the industry!

And guess what...he hit my PISS-LEVEL! I am a patient soul, who cuts people a great deal of slack... and that walking talking rectum more than he ever deserved...I even saved him from a beating once...even though he didn't know it... but that piece of backhanded snide comment took the cake. This from a so-called artist whose pencils look like a glorified coloring book and always have! He was the only artist whose work I complained about directly to Stan because i couldn't find any art worthy of going into the merchandising files.

I called Cliff and told him that under no conditions was the Byrne piece to sully real affection and respect with his hypocrisy! Cliff asked why I had changed my mind, and I told him of the thread and the quote. He said, with a grin you could hear over the phone, "You're the boss, Paty! You're gonna fret flack from this, y'know." I told him let the flack fly.. I would tell the world why I made the decision I did.

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