Dave Cockrum, best known as the designer of and co-creator of the New X-Men (re: international team as of Giant Size X-Men # 1 {1975}) passed away Sunday night from complications due to diabetes.
Initially, Cockrum was only the relaunched X-Men titles for the first fourteen issues (#94-#107) before being succeeded by John Byrne. Cockrum retured to do X-Men for another two years (1981-1983) before leaving to work on other projects.
Many of the concepts and character designs Cockrum pioneered made their way into movies, animated TV series, and video games. Indeed, until the mid-1990s, Cockrum's designs remained the standard for most of the X-Men characters including Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Phoenix (Jean Grey).
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=92222
Mr. Cockrum had been in ill health for years but his death comes as a blow to friends, family, and fans. It was unfortunate that his poor health prevented him from doing much, if any, comic book work for the last few years of his life. It's only recently that his efforts on X-Men were recognized by higher-ups at Marvel Comics and that financial reward was granted to Mr. Cockrum to help offset high medical costs.
In the last two years, a benefit sketchbook was also sold to help pay Cockrum's medical bills, too.
Cockrum is generally remembered as a good guy and fan-favorite at conventions.
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This is a big blow to long-time comic book fans and fans of an earlier, more innocent era of comics and the X-Men in particular.
While I've preferred the Byrne era of Uncanny X-Men (108-143) to Cockrum's for as long as I can remember, I've always respected Cockrum''s contributions to the success of the comic and its spin-offs. There's no question that I VERY MUCH prefer his designs -- as funky and wild by today's standards as they may seem -- to the darker and less charismatic character designs of today.
My personal favorite comic of Cockrum's is the abruptly terminated Futurians series. That concept had potential that was never fully realized from the out-of-print graphic novel and short-lived comic (4 issues).
If only somebody could revive THAT concept and be sure that Mr. Cockrum's widow got the rightful royalties his estate would be due...
There's no question that under the terms of his Marvel work-for-hire contract that Mr. Cockrum received very little financial reward for X-Men designs and concepts that have earned Marvel Entertainment tens upon tens of millions of dollars over the past 30+ years.