Photo from CBR

I bet Jack Kirby gets really annoyed when youngsters like Mike Wieringo and Michael Turner show up to sketch with him. I imagine him saying something like this in a disgruntled voice, “Dammit kid, get back down there to your drafting table! You’ve got more comics to draw!”

At only 37 years old, Michael Turner joined Kirby and Wieringo Friday night, June 27 at Santa Monica hospital in California. His long battle with cancer, chondrosarcoma in his right pelvis, finally ended. He will be sorely missed.

When I was starting out as a colorist with UDON, I made the rounds at a Wizard World Philadelphia convention and was fortunate enough to shake hands with Michael Turner at the Aspen booth. Sometimes meeting your heroes can be a real disappointment. You can usually tell when they’re just trying to blow you off or being polite for appearance’s sake. Not Mike. He was such a genuine guy. I only met him briefly, but for that short moment, he was just as interested in me as I was in him. Comics is so full of egos and elitism that it’s astonishing to meet people like Mike. I came away from that encounter with such a positive outlook on the industry. He inspired me to just get out there and fucking well draw.

Dustin Nguyen wrote a nice remembrance of Turner:

As many people as i know in comics, i cant say i know many of them personally, and i’ll be honest, i never knew Mike more than just a few weekends a year. But Mike, i loved and i know the industry needed a person like that, and the world will miss a person like him. To pass away having achieved so much and being loved by so many, i’d say he won in the end.

You can send condolences to Turner’s family via:

Aspen MLT, Inc.
C/O Michael Turner
5855 Green Valley Circle, Suite 111
Culver City, CA, 90230

Aspen also encourages fans and well wishers to send donations to the American Cancer Society and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

[Via Comic Book Resources]

Share This

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under News, Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.