I have no future as a forger

The number of hits on my blog spiked yesterday. SPIKED, really.

There was a 8000+% traffic increase.

Most of it was directed to where I posted the last six pieces of my 2016 Inktober drawings. Day 28 was “burn”, a prompt that compelled me to work on a black ink reproduction of John Byrne’s Jean Grey and Phoenix.

“Definitely a forged signature” determined John Byrne (THE John Byrne!) after linking to a page of results for the “dessin” (“drawing”) tag, and instructing to scroll down a bit.

The post title in the John Byrne Forum bugs me, though: “Forgery or Bad Inks?”

Obviously I don’t have a future in art or as a forger (if I wanted to), but “Bad inks”?! Pssh, that’s harsh.

Then, active Byrne Robotics Members of the forum, seemingly all male (Brian, Tim, Kevin, Steve, Matt and Peter, to date) went on about whether mine was a reproduction or a “re-creation”. I have to say the nuance is lost on me.

I have not registered to join them in the forum and further shave the yak or tell them that they’ve mis-gendered me with their myriad assumptions “he”, “the guy” or even “the devil” since one of them played the devil’s advocate :)