Issue 4 - Uncle Elvis and tips from Byrne to would be comic artists

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It seems like fans of John Byrne like to find any reason to attack the man. Here a mystery writer (George Something?)  wrote in to chastise Byrne on aligning himself  with "so called animal rights activist nuts". The writer is referring to something he read in JBNM #1. Okay, I didn't even notice anything that would suggest this and if so, why does something a character do in a book always have to reflect the authors personal beliefs? Does Bret Easton Ellis have a soft spot for serial killers because he wrote American Psycho?


NEXT!


Something I have learned from recently starting to read the letter columns of pre-internet comic books is the existence of comic book letter hacks. These are people who would prolifically write thoughtful letters to the editors of comic books. These letters would then of coarse be published in letter columns like JBNM Next! column. Some of these people included T.M. Maple, Elizabeth Holden and Uncle Elvis.

The second letter of the issue is from none other then Uncle Elvis. This thread here will give you a bit of an idea on who Uncle Elvis was.Letter pages served as a way to connect with the creators and share opinions on storylines, etc before we had such venues as blogs and internet forums.

On page 2 Byrne quotes Paula Abdul, "you may find yourself taking one step forward and two steps back". That's funny...

This issues "A flame about this high..." gives us some interesting tips from a master.

"As I was taking my shower this morning - most of my better ideas come to me in the shower - I realized there was a correlation between good comic book art that really gets the job done and the five "w;s" of journalism: Who, What, Where, When and Why. A comic artist who is doing the job properly should be devoting a great deal of energy to rendering the writer redundant. Virtually everything a reader needs to know should be in the pictures, and this is where the Five W's come in."

 It's an interesting read and good advice to any would be comic artist. That's now. If you read this blog and enjoy it let me know. If you read this blog and think it's stupid you can still let me know.

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