For those in the know, yes, this is slightly old news, but dammit... I'm a busy guy.
Building walls, running 4E games, Playing Civilization and Naruto Demos...
Anyways, Michael Turner was a comic book artist with a rare bone cancer that passed away a week or so ago.
I just wanted to share a personal experience of mine with the man.
You may not know who Michael Turner is or was, but when I ran my comic shop, I can tell you that his variant cover art books sold literally off the wall as soon as we would put them in a bag and board. Some of them were priced at $200 or more, and they flew off; you had to buy 50 copies of a $3.99 book, and people would preorder them like nuts.
A few examples of his work:
She's a wonder...
I would gladly give over the access codes for you.
Limited edition print on wall of this? Check. CGC graded copy of book on wall? Check.
See, he does more than cheesecake. I just happen to LIKE cheesecake.
This is a favorite, as an ex of mine dressed up with this costume for halloween, and then I played Darkseid and used her for my evil machinations.
So that will give you an idea of his work. Three years ago, at the Baltimore Comic Con, I was there attending a Diamond (the national comic distributor) Workshop scheduled to coincide with the con. One of my employees, a most excellent friend who shall be referred to as TrialAccess, couldn't make it to go with us. And he LOVES MT, more than I do.
So I thought, since I had some free time at the Con, that I would stand in line for one of his signings and do something special for him. You see, where I was living at the time (Omaha, NE) is devoid of Chick-Fil-A. TrialAccess and I had a standing pact that whenever we went somewhere there was a CFA, we would bring a sandwich or nuggets back for the other. 3-day CFA is still better than NO CFA. Everyone knows that.
So I hatched a plan with the help of my friend Dave, and we went and purchased a CFA Sandwich. Now take a close look at the wrapper here:
As you can see, the logo is written across the middle in the front, and the back. The rest is white space.
So, before the line actually started moving, I started chatting with Turner about TrialAccess and how he couldn't make it, and what my master plan was: To have every major artist and writer in attendance sign/doodle/draw on this bag for him. I told him I had just seen a questionnaire in Wizard with him about what the oddest thing he'd ever signed was, and I also told him now he'd have a new story. He thought it was hilarious, and drew a sunflower girl smiley face on the back with a quick quote: Mark didn't have enough money for a custom piece, so this is as close as you get!
Epic!
Michael sent out a message to several of the other artists for me, and I got rushed through several of the lines, since I had over 25 artists and writers to see. He even tried to help me get the Comic Guarantee Company (CGC) to slab it in glass and seal it!!!! (they wouldn't bite, pardon the pun) but we were laughing our asses off as we speculated if he opened the sandwich wrapper whether it would lose value.
In the end, besides MT's original sunflower girl illustration, TrialAccess got a wrapper that had the flash streaking away by J.G. Jones with the caption (hate to eat and run!) and the sandwich falling to the ground, the Luna Brothers doing an illustration, Marv Wolfman signing the bag and writing an epic line about hunger, Jimmy Palmiotti doing a sketch and over twenty other signings and illustrations.
When I gave it to him, he totally freaked out and bounced around the place for hours. I then warned him if he opened it and ate the sandwich, the bag would devalue. He looked like he was about to cry. Needless to say, it is actually under glass now on his wall.
But that's my fond memory of Michael Turner, this guy who was deadly sick, still out pounding the pavement, colostomy bag hanging next to him; joking and laughing about the thing he loved to do with the people who loved him.
I hope he's finally at peace.
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Now I want some Chick-fil-a.
aww, mark, thanks for posting this story. i'm working on art for his obit at my work and it made me feel a bit better reading your post. so sad he passed, but he was sick for so long.
We dont have Chik-fil-a here, so I'll have to settle for a Mcdonald's ripoff
Cool story, thanks for sharing. A great artist, indeed.
Thanks for sharing this, great story.
Great story man, I read about his passing but I didn't know of his work, thanks for enlightening me.
Michael Turner did sick work and the world will miss it along as him as a person. God bless friend.
Very nice man. Being in the toy industry I had the opportunity to meet Mike a few times and even play poker with him once or twice. He really was an amazing person.
I agree, it was very sad to hear of his passing, but just looking at the pic I had posted above (pre-illness) and he was so much thinner and so sick; but still taking time out of his day to speak with people and show the obvious love he had for what he did...
He's definitely going to be missed.