Your always nosey Fortress Keeper recently overheard the following conversation at his unfriendly, neighborhood comic-book shoppe:
Unfriendly Clerk #1: Marvel Comics are drawn so much better than DC’s.
Unfriendly Clerk #2: Yeah, but you know something? Michael Turner drew a beautiful Supergirl!
At the time, we were taken aback by the comment. To our eyes Michael Turner’s Supergirl barely resembled a living, breathing human, let alone a beautiful, healthy young girl.
Oh, well. Your humble host shook his head, purchased the final volume of Pretty Face and chalked down the incident to the widening generation gap between ourselves and the new breed of fans.
Still, despite our antipathy regarding the Mr. Turner’s undeniably popular work, we couldn’t help but be saddened by the news that he died over the weekend at the age of 37. His untimely passage reminds us there’s much, much more to life than whether or not an aging fan like ourselves thinks a superstar artist drew a decent Supergirl.
By all accounts, Turner endured a long battle against cancer with grace, humor and courage. He was well-liked by his contemporaries and never fell prey to the rock-star mentality that eventually tarnished the image of other Image super-stars.
Such qualities make debates over the qualities of his work … well, pretty irrelevant. Michael Turner sounds like a good person who found success in a field he loved. That’s more than many people achieve in twice the time.
One thing’s for sure: Thirty-seven is far too young to fall prey to such a horrible disease. Our thoughts are truly with Turner’s family and friends at this difficult time.
And as far as comic books go, we owe Mr. Turner a debt of gratitude for helping bring Kara Zor-El to life for a new generation of fans.
I stuck the same picture up on me own blog, and said pretty much what you’ve said here, Keeper. It’s a shame, truly. I’ll admit that I have never been the world’s biggest Michael Turner fan, but I think the comic community, pros and fans all in, are going to miss him. A lot. Rest in Peace, Michael.
I’m not terribly well informed on his movements with Fathom (and the associated companies), but I think the biggest tragedy might be that he never quite got to commit his goals and big ideas to paper. I’m not sure how legal proceedings interfered with that in the end, but it certainly seemed like those projects petered out to some degree.
It’s an admirable legacy that he was able to endure the many obstacles put before him, and his early years as a Witchblade artist left an undeniable print on the annals of times.
I just wonder about those more personal projects…
Very sad!
And I stuck the same pic on my Supergirl blog.
While I didn’t think Michael Turner’s art was great, it certainly brought a lot of attention and did help bring back Supergirl. I think that cover of Supergirl #1 is what people think of when thinking about this incarnation of Supergirl. That makes it an iconic image - even with huge eyes and rail-thin torso.
And he sounded like such a nice guy in a world of comic book divas.
My condolences to family.
Anj
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