Controversial creator John Byrne made his only convention appearance this year at the Mid Ohio Con in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend. To his fans’ chagrin, the event was advertised as his last appearance...ever. Fans seemed to forget their sadness as they sat down for an hour long questions and answer session with the man himself. Byrne covered everything from future X-Men plans to Christopher Reeve, to how he draws his pages.

The first question posed to the current Doom Patrol writer/artist was a simple, if not frequent one: would he ever, given the chance, write and draw the X-Men. Byrne responded with a simple “no” and moved on to other questions, though - in response to a later question regarding his and other creators’ departures from Marvel Byrne replied “I didn’t leave Marvel, Marvel left me and I presume that Marvel will come back someday.” Byrne explained that Marvel moves in cycles; he can’t work with the people in some but leaves the possibility for returning under another cycle open.

Never being one to shy away from controversy, Byrne went on to diagnose the biggest problem with the comic industry as an influx of prima donnas who can’t get past their own egos and get their work done on time. In addition, he finds the killing of characters selfish on the part of the creators because they are preventing future readers from enjoying their exploits, assuming they aren’t brought back to life, of course.

In response to comments he made about Christopher Reeve on the internet, Byrne explained: “I’ve gotten tired of people calling Christopher Reeve a hero. A really terrible thing happened to him and our society can’t deal with it when terrible things happened so we try to make out that it isn’t a terrible thing - ‘It’s an uplifting thing. He’s a hero.’ He’s not a hero, he’s in hell.” Byrne went on to clarify that he was not attacking Reeve, but the misuse of the English language.

In addition to hyping his current projects, Byrne commented on his recent JLA collaboration with former Uncanny X-Men writing partner Chris Claremont, which he says wasn’t really a collaboration at all, but in fact was rather a chilled enterprise. “The whole thing was virtually done when Mike Carlin said ‘Let’s get Claremont to script it’ and I went ‘Oh god no!’” Personal opinions aside, Byrne passed the finished pages onto Claremont for scripting. The duo never even talked on the phone during the process.

Remembering their time together on Uncanny, Byrne remembers: “My favorite Chris-ism was always when Cyclopes was going ‘ahh’ [points of to the side as if in fear] and there’d be a huge balloon coming in from off panel” referring to Claremont’s tendency towards lengthy word balloons.

After explaining how he deals with world events like 9-11 in his work through metaphor, Byrne talked about wide sweeping comic events like DC’s Identity Crisis and Marvel’s Avengers Disassembled. To the audience’s surprise he has not read them but that doesn’t stop him from having an opinion on them. “DC’s going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff like that [IC] over the next year, kind of sweeping over the whole reality and I get nervous about that.” What rattles Byrne’s nerves is the affect these events will have on the accessibility of comics to new readers, he said. Why would they want to jump into a multi issue story if they’ve already missed the first few issues?

Reputation aside, Byrne claims to be a team player. He draws characters like everyone else is drawing them at the time, not wanted to make waves in the design process. He also said that he tries to set creators that follow him on books up well instead of sabotaging them by adding all kinds of crazy elements to books before leaving. He may not like the continuity rules he plays by, like when he wanted the cop that shoots Batman in the JLA arc to be Harvey Bullock, but couldn’t because Bullock is no longer on the force, but he does his best.

Byrne’s current work excites him and his fans as much as his previous work which is evident in the way he talks about Doom Patrol and Blood of the Demon. He finds himself drawn to Doom Patrol, which is promised 18 issues, because, as he said, “they’re just so basic.” The writer enjoys exploring the team’s powers and pulling old tricks like time travel out of his creative hat. While describing his approach to the Demon, Byrne jokes “I’m shamelessly ripping off Angel.” Byrne said he even wonders whether Angel creator Joss Whedon had Demon on the brain when creating his vampire with a soul. Regardless, Byrne hopes Blood of the Demon will find a solid fanbase that will carry it past it’s promised 12 issue run.

Byrne ended the session by giving fans a mental glimpse into the artistic side of his creative process by relating that he draws his pages out of order in order to keep himself interested. He also has recently forsaken the thumbnail sketch approach for drawing the whole page right away in order to translate what he sees into his head onto the Bristol board.

John Byrne’s Q and A was both informative and entertaining, with the creator answering every question honestly and with as much passion as he puts into his work. To answer the short questions - he’s had the most fun writing She-Hulk, wants a crack at Hawkman and Dr. Strange, and no, he doesn’t have a favorite inker.