Dave Cockrum: We Stand, Like, On The Shoulders Of Giants, Eh?

Illustration for The Uncanny Dave Cockrum: A Tribute (2004)
Art by Dave Sim
(Click Image To Enlarge)

DAVE SIM:
(from a letter to Clifford Meth, January 2004, reprinted in Dave Sim's Collected Letters 2004)

Well, here it is. I really didn't have any idea of what to do and started with Dave's signature and then incorporated the Cerebus as Wolverine as Bob and/or Doug [McKenzie] – realising that it was more of an editorial cartoon than the illustration I started out doing. As usually happens when it takes a few hours to do something doubts set in. Do people even remember The Great White North or Bob and Doug [McKenzie]? As was the case with most of my work on Cerebus, I just go with my own gut instinct and try to get it as close as I can to how I pictured it in my head. The original punch-line was going to be "which is why Cerebus is sitting here dressed like a bumblebee in an S & M porno flick, eh?" Which was probably too controversial and offensive. And then it was going to be "on accounta they wouldn't let Cerebus do the topic he wanted to do which was 'Why don't those hosers at Marvel give Dave Cockrum some work, eh?'" I still can't quite believe that there isn't a book somewhere in that pile of ---- they put out every month that couldn't benefit from Dave Cockrum's hand.

Dave Cockrum (1943-2006) was the comic book artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus, who made their debut in Giant-Size X-Men No. 1 (Summer 1975), and then in a relaunched Uncanny X-Men (beginning with issue #94).

Support the Dave & Paty Cockrum Scholarship at the Joe Kubert School by bidding on the sale of Swords Of Cerebus Vol 1-6 from Dave Cockrum's personal comics collection. (Bidding ends 16 January.)

(Post submitted by Sir Boltagon. Thanks!)