Illustrator that helped popularize X-Men passes

Queasy

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COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- Wearing Superman pajamas and covered with his Batman blanket, comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum died Sunday.

The 63-year-old overhauled the X-Men comic and helped popularize the relatively obscure Marvel Comics in the 1970s. He helped turn the title into a publishing sensation and major film franchise.

Cockrum died in his favorite chair at his home in Belton, South Carolina, after a long battle with diabetes and related complications, his wife Paty Cockrum said Tuesday.

At Cockrum's request, there will be no public services and his body will be cremated, according to Cox Funeral Home. His ashes will be spread on his property. A family friend said he will be cremated in a Green Lantern shirt.

At Marvel Comics, Cockrum and writer Len Wein were handed the X-Men. The comic had been created in 1963 as a group of young outcasts enrolled in an academy for mutants. The premise had failed to capture fans.

Cockrum and Wein added their own heroes to the comic and published "Giant-Size X-Men No. 1" in 1975. Many signature characters Cockrum designed and co-created -- such as Storm, Mystique, Nightcrawler and Colossus -- went on to become part of the "X-Men" films starring Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry.

Cockrum received no movie royalties, said family friend Clifford Meth, who organized efforts to help Cockrum and his family during his protracted medical care.

"Dave saw the movie and he cried -- not because he was bitter," Meth said. "He cried because his characters were on screen and they were living."

Cockrum was born in Pendleton, Oregon, the son of an Air Force officer. He set aside his interest in art while serving in Vietnam for the U.S. Navy.

He moved to New York after leaving the service and got his big break in the early 1970s, drawing the Legion of Super-Heroes for DC Comics before moving to Marvel.

In January 2004, Cockrum moved to South Carolina after being hospitalized for bacterial pneumonia. As his diabetes progressed, his drawings became limited.

His last drawing was a sketch for a fan, who attended a small comic book convention in Greenville, Paty Cockrum said.

Meth said Cockrum will be remembered as "a comic incarnate."

"He had a genuine love for comics and for science fiction and for fantasy, and he lived in it," Meth said. "He loved his work."
 

Queasy

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Aug 24, 2001
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NY Times obituary

Dave Cockrum, an illustrator who in the mid-1970s helped invent a dynamic new look and intriguing new characters for the moribund ?X-Men? comics, paving the way for what became America?s most popular comic books and a billion-dollar movie empire, died on Nov. 26 at his home in Belpon, S.C. He was 63.

The cause was complications of diabetes, Andrea Kline, his former wife, said.

The X-Men are mutants who as a result of a sudden leap in evolution are born with latent superhuman abilities that usually manifest themselves at puberty. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two creative legends at Marvel Comics, created the odd group in 1963, but by 1970, fan interest, never great, had petered out. Marvel put new X-Men adventures on hiatus.

Enter Mr. Cockrum, who with the writer Len Wein, under the direction of the editor Roy Thomas, was assigned to restart the series in 1975. After an issue and a half, Chris Claremont replaced Mr. Wein.

New international characters with strange new powers sprang to life. They included Thunderbird, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Storm, and they joined compelling standbys like Wolverine to eventually be the heroes of a dozen comic book titles, cartoons and video games, as well as three movies that have together brought in more than $1 billion in worldwide box office receipts.

Mr. Cockrum saw the characters as dark and appealingly dramatic; they became weathered adults instead of smooth-faced children. Comics Reporter noted the handsomeness of both men and women, as well as an overall ?sumptuous, late-?70s cinema style.?

Clifford Meth, who has written extensively about comic-book art, said Mr. Cockrum created a new look for superheroes, featuring wide shoulder lapels, big belts and buccaneer boots.

?It was space opera,? he said. ?It wasn?t just Spandex anymore.?

Neal Adams, a well-known illustrator who drew the X-Men before the hiatus, said Mr. Cockrum created ?just crazy characters.? He said Mr. Cockrum and Mr. Claremont had so much fun during their collaboration that they were like ?two kids in a playground.?

David Emmett Cockrum was born in Pendleton, Ore., on Nov. 12, 1943. He grew up loving comic books, but his father, a colonel in the Air Force, disapproved of them, Ms. Kline said.

Mr. Cockrum majored in fine arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, but left before he graduated to join the Navy. He was assigned to Guam, where worked as a captain?s secretary. He used his spare time to paint colorful emblems on fighter planes and to dream up interesting characters that later appeared in comic books.

Ms. Kline said Mr. Cockrum created and named Nightcrawler, who has blue fur, is acrobatic and can teleport, while on Guam. The character was first imagined as a demon dedicated to doing good deeds to avoid being sent back to hell. Another character, Storm, whose superpowers are flying and manipulating the weather, is played by Halle Berry in the X-Men movies.

After his discharge from the Air Force in the early 1970s, Mr. Cockrum moved to New York, where he worked as an inker, who refines the art of the original artist, called a penciller. He did this for Murphy Anderson, who created the modern look of Superman, Batman, Flash and other characters at DC Comics.

DC made him the first artist, or penciller, in redefining the DC team the Legion of Super-Heroes. His costumes and style for the group persisted into the 1980s.

After a dispute with DC, Mr. Cockrum moved to its archcompetitor, Marvel. His first assignment was as an inker on ?The Avengers,? and then, in 1974, he became the penciller on the publication ?Giant-Size X-Men? No. 1, working with Mr. Wein.

?Giant-Size? referred to the length of the comic book, not to the dimensions of its characters. The extra pages were necessary for the huge cast Mr. Cockrum dreamed up, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2000.

Mr. Cockrum?s rendering of Wolverine is scheduled to be used on a postage stamp next year.

Mr. Cockrum is survived by his wife, Paty, his son, Ivan Sean, of Seattle, and his stepsons Lauren and Philip Greer, both of whom live in upstate New York, Ms. Kline said.

He worked less often as his health deteriorated. By 2004, he was in a Veterans Administration hospital in the Bronx, and in financial straits. Mr. Adams led a drive to persuade Marvel to share some of the riches it had generated from his characters.

Though the company contended it owed him nothing because he worked as freelancer, it paid him $200,000 and royalties for one character, Nightcrawler, his earliest, according to The Comics Journal. The terms were not officially revealed.

While not confirming or denying the $200,000 figure, Mr. Adams said Mr. Cockrum deserved more.

?They took his characters and made an industry out of them,? he said.
 

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
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Cockrum received no movie royalties, said family friend Clifford Meth, who organized efforts to help Cockrum and his family during his protracted medical care.

"Dave saw the movie and he cried -- not because he was bitter," Meth said. "He cried because his characters were on screen and they were living."

it sucks that he didn't receive royalties but to really care about your work that much must be awesome. To me, someone like that is truly someone to admire.
 

Queasy

Moderator<br>Console Gaming
Aug 24, 2001
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Originally posted by: pontifex
Cockrum received no movie royalties, said family friend Clifford Meth, who organized efforts to help Cockrum and his family during his protracted medical care.

"Dave saw the movie and he cried -- not because he was bitter," Meth said. "He cried because his characters were on screen and they were living."

it sucks that he didn't receive royalties but to really care about your work that much must be awesome. To me, someone like that is truly someone to admire.

That's pretty common with the two big comic houses. The people that create the characters don't own them in anyway, DC or Marvel does. That's the reason some of the most talented/popular artists broke away in the 90s to form Image.
 

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
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Originally posted by: MisterJackson
Originally posted by: pontifex
Originally posted by: lokiju
Interesting last name...

can't we at least have one somewhat serious thread without people doing this kind of sh!t?

You ask too much of ATOT. You should know this.

yeah...unfortunately i do know this. one can only hope though, right?