Dave Cockrum Appreciation Thread

[Paiute 1]

I was going back through some of my old stuff and came across the Cockrum drawn LSH back-ups in Superboy and realised what a great talent he was.

I realize that most people remember him as an artist but he was a very good Inker. Check out his Avengers stuff and you will see that anybody wheather it was Buckler, Starlin, Tuska, Heck, J. Buscema or Brown he realy enchanced there artwork.

He seemed to run out of steam after his early success; his second run on the X-men wasent up to par with his first, but I certanley always injoyed his fast paced story-telling.

Dude your missed.

[Paiute 1]

Nobody else has an opinion about Mr. Cockrum?

Another artist I think he only inked a couple of times was Gil Kane, thier warlord of Mars looked preety good.

Cockrum always looked best when he inked himself except Giant Size Avengers #2. Some of his greatness shone throgh but not enough. Than Giant Size X-men came out and he looked great again. I really liked McCleod and got used to Grainger but Charimonte and Green and other inkers did not do such a good job.

When he returned for his second run, Rubinstein was okay but I've never been a fan of Wiacek.

[dan bailey]

I know him mainly from the LOSH backups you mention, as well as his first X-Men run (I don't think I knew he had a 2nd, since I stopped reading the title around # ... 110? something like that). One of the greatest cosume designers ever, I think it can be safely said.

Looking back, I'm guessing he would've been one of the first pro artists to come out of the fanzine scene ...

[spoon_jenkins]

Unfortunately, Cockrum's work on X-Men probably gets overshadowed because his two runs bookended the more famous John Byrne run. I agree with Pauite 1 that Cockrum's first X-Men run was better than his second one. His first X-Men run deserves more attention. Some of it is really beautiful (like the splash page of Uncanny X-Men #101), and the stories are foundational for the whole Claremont run. I'm not too enthusiastic about Cockrum's second X-Men run, but it does have its good points. Lee Forrester is my second favorite love interest for Cyclops after Jean Grey.

I like his other early Marvel work and his LSH stuff as well.

[Simon Garth]

I was a real Cockrum fanboy for a while, mainly based on the spot illos he did for FOOM, and his first X-Men run.

However, I was really over it by the end of that X-men run, and was delighted when he was replaced by Byrne - not sure if it was the inker or the pencils, but the line work was so much heavier.

I utterly loathed his second run on X-men, for exactly the same reason - went from really fine lines and a somewhat more realistic and restrained style to a very heavy-lined cartoony style with much less subtlety to the facial expressions.

[Paiute 1]

I forgot he inked himself on #100 and the great Bob Layton inked #105.

Garth has a good point on his second run. I don't know if was inkers or the start of his illness but something was off.

[Shellhead]

Cockrum was also a writer, at least on Futurians. That was some of his best, all-around work, especially on the short-lived series. I firmly believe that Claremont owes a large debt to both Cockrum and then Byrne for making the X-Men great, though the second Cockrum run wasn't so good.