Dave Cockrum
A nice piece about Dave, who died this week, on CNN.com. As most of you know, he and Len Wein co-created the “new” X-Men.
Dave and I only did a couple of stories together. It’s probably been the better part of thirty years since I last spoke to him or his wife Paty, but I always liked both of them. It would be difficult to find two more sincere lovers, or lovers of comics.
December 3rd, 2006 at 9:03 AM
Marvel made MILLIONS off of Dave Cockrum, yet they were content to not include him at all in the profits.
Without Dave, the X-Men books would not have been No. 1 for thw last quarter century and the movies never would have happened.
My thanks go out to Clifford Meth (and Neal Adams) for making Marvel cough up a pitance of their X-Money to help Dave die in dignity.
Meth is a class/hardass act.
Joe Brusky
December 4th, 2006 at 7:13 AM
Bah. Publishing companies are just like movie studios. They want to use your name to make money, and then they don’t want to share any of it with you.
He seemed to die happy, and I guess that’s all that any of us can ask for. Glad you had an opportunity to meet him Mr. Gerber, even if it was only briefly.
December 4th, 2006 at 6:21 PM
I liked that his art was utterly unlike every other artist of the time, focusing more on mood and texture than on shape and movement, very fluid. My very first reaction to Byrne replacing him on X-Men was “This won’t last.”
Steve, what stories did you do with him? I never saw those.
December 5th, 2006 at 5:36 PM
RE: John Byrne
While I did see his talent from his early work, John Byrne had some major technical problems (for example, a combination of being unable to properly draw limbs in deep perspective combined with an insistance on trying to do so, often). Luckily for him, while you have to be born with talent, skills can be learned.