Regarding the Lab Rats locked thread, here's the already open thread that he refers to:

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40873&PN=2&totPosts=7

wherein he also does not answer the question of why isn't he suing Disney over this.

But I think we can answer the question ourselves:

1) It has been long enough since Byrne's Lab Rats series that he has lost the trademark to the name, if he ever had it. And even DC has lost the trademark, if it was in their name.

2) Byrne doesn't want to sue Disney for any reason, for fear of a much more damaging judgment against him and his commissions business, Friedrich-style.

Yep on #2. If Disney takes this judgment wide-scale, Byrne will likely be one of the most deeply affected parties.

Wow! I'm...I'm flattered really.
JB must have read my post on the Kindle Fire here:
http://comicon.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=594192#Post594192

Not only is he making the jump to digital, he's also going amazon prime!
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=41154

JB--it's ok. It's totally in character for you not to give me any type of a nod of gratitude. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do though.
A few tips:
Try surfing the web while sitting on the toilet. I think you'll find it a totally liberating experience.

Try posting while sitting on the toilet. We'll never know. unless you want to share.

Check out the free app of the day every day.

Get a stylus pen for it.

Don't eat stuff like doritos or cheeto's and gunk up the screen.

Hey, um, Budman, most people don't eat cheeto's or doritos while taking a shit.

Try it. You'll like it.

Anybody here interested in Trio?
I would buy comics again if he did:
Batman
FF
Superman with the right inker
West Coast Avengers
Iron Man


I think that in order for him to return to those titles, his commsion requests need to dry up and IDW needs to put out a mandate that in order for his comics to be published, they have to sell above 3000. This will eventually pigeon hole him into returning to the big 2.

I have a few questions for John Byrne:

You've stated before that, for $20,000, you will create a complete, custom, 20 page comic story.

In fact, after the page of original art from the Death of Marvel Girl sold for about $20K, you stated that, for that amount, you would have done them an entire book.

Do you mean that you would do commissioned stories using Marvel and DC Characters?

Does the person who commissions you get the original artwork?

Do you feel that this violates copyright laws?

Have you withdrawn this offer in light of the current Gary Friedrich issue?

Some of your questions have already been answered HERE.

And perhaps more questions are answered HERE.

Interesting stuff.

The new issue of NEXT MEN: AFTERMATH #41 is out this week. They talk about it at the JBF at this link:

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=41221&PN=1&totPosts=141


***************** SPOILERS ************************





***************** SPOILERS ************************






***************** SPOILERS ************************






***************** SPOILERS ************************




This issue focuses on CrazyBeth, having lost her powers and mysteriously gone sane, running away from bug-eyed monsters out in the mysterious wasteland. They try to rape her rather than eat her. And as Byrne says in his very first post from the abovementioned JBF thread:



Yes, Byrne draws the monsters with visible penises. Silhouetted in shadow or partially obscured, but still explicit enough that the lack of a "For Mature Readers" tag on the cover seems like a mistake.

Beth gets rescued by some Civil War Union troops, but they immediately try to rape her too. She gets away in an off-panel scene, and sees some more monsters who appear to be a heart-warming family group. These monsters also get killed by the Union troops, but before the troops can rape Beth, they get killed by a flying superhero named Vanguard, who looks like a black Superman type.

Meanwhile, we get a few more scenes with both versions of Jasmine from last issue, the Jasmine who's lost in the wasteland (with a blue headband) and the Jasmine who's back in the Time Tower(with a black headband). We get confirmation of the implication from last issue, that Jasmine thinks the mysterious wasteland is a creation of Sandy, the superpowerful psychic from the old NEXT MEN series. Not confirmation that it really is Sandy, just confirmation that Jasmine thinks so.

There's also a scene of another version of Nathan and Beth, wearing clothes from the old NM series and still having their powers, also out in the wasteland, running across 1950s teenagers, dinosaurs, and WWII American soldiers. It seems safe to assume that all of these characters including this Beth and Nathan are projections from Sandy's mind, if Sandy really is behind all this.

Which raises the possibility that both the SaneCrazyBeth and the Jasmine who are out in the wasteland are also projections from Sandy's mind, and that the real CrazyBeth is hiding somewhere, maybe still in the Time Tower? Also, the Jasmine out in the wasteland does not know that Gil and Gillian are the same person, although she is wearing clothing from the Time Tower, which may fit with the Sandy hypothesis as well.

Also, there's another scene of the secret project from 1975, where we learn that the real Nathan is the head of the project. It now appears the the project is "scooping up" people who were involved in the Next Men project in the old timeline, although we still don't know why. I'm looking forward to the next issue, which looks like it will spend more time in 1975, based on the cover preview at the end of this issue.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this issue as much as the last one. The focus on bug-eyed monster penises and rape was arbitrary and off-putting. And I say that as somebody who likes Orc Stain, a series about a whole world organized around chopping off penises for trophies and barter. But there it works as part of the story. This just felt gratuitous and weird.

Maybe the problem is that there's been a breakdown in trust between Byrne as a creator and his audience, on both sides. I wasn't sure that Byrne really meant to include all those dick-shots until I read his comment in the JBF. I thought maybe he had meant them to be covered up with lettering or something, but the incompetent IDW production team (and they clearly are incompetent, based on the numerous typos and confusing balloon placements in this and every other issue) had let him down. And now that I know he did intend to include them, I still don't understand why. On the other hand, when one of the JBF posters didn't notice the penises and didn't understand Byrne's comment, Byrne didn't believe him:



Byrne was wrong, as evidenced by the following exchange:







So yeah, Byrne doesn't trust his audience. And while most of the JBF members still trust him, I have a hard time doing so anymore. But I still haven't totally given up, since I'm still looking forward to each new issue.

He's got a new thing soliciting this month called Trio. It's the superhero version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.