Monday, December 04, 2006

DAVE COCKRUM PASSED AWAY

Ah, man!!!

The Comic World has lost one of their legends: DAVE COCKRUM. Dave passed away last week (sunday) at the age of 63 after a long battle with diabetes.

Fans know and love Cockrum primarily for his huge contribution to the X-MEN Mythos. Its a little known fact that at one point sales of The X-Men were so poor Marvel cancelled the book. Then came COCKRUM and writer Len Wein in 1975. With "Giant-Size X-Men #1" they brought back the X-Men all-new and all-different, adding many of their own created characters to the comic like Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus. It was an instant hit and classic which brought back the X-Men to a monthly comic. This began a new era of X-Men that not only changed the comic title, but all comics in mainstream. Just about any team-book out there now is still emulating the groundwork layed out by Cockrum and Wein.

Cockrum was a huge comic lover himself (a fan as well as a professional) and maintained that fun, playful love of the medium til the end - his family stated he died in his favorite chair at home in his Superman pajamas and covered by his Batman blanket. And was cremated in his Green Lantern shirt. Awesome.

I could go on and on about the man, his work and passion for comics and fans...

Like I said, the Comic World has lost one of its Greats.

Recommended X-MEN reading:

Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 and 2

Dave Cockrum tribute site

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*thanks, Meghan & Maker for the story while I was out.

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