This man taught me how to draw.

Dave Cockrum died on Monday. This is particularly sad for me because as the title states, Cockrum taught me how to draw.

X-men was one of the first comics I really got into that wasn't of the 'kiddie' variety. It was also the first one that I knew all about, as in I knew the history of the characters and followed it the closest until it got too ridiculous, or I grew out of it. I don't remember which. Cockrum was my all time favorite X-Men artist, and his creation, Nightcrawler, was my all-time favorite X-Man character(followed closely by Longshot and Art Adams). Some time in the '80s, there was a four part mini series about Nightcrawler going to a parallel universes with Kitty's pet Dragon Lockheed. I read this series about a million times, and must have drawn and re-drawn every panel of every page. His art became the foundation for everything art related I have ever done since, no matter how hard Art School tried to beat it out of me.

He had a relatively short tenure with the X-Men, but his character and costume designs persist to this day. I followed his career pretty closely for a long time, and I remember that on the list for my hold slot at the Mile High Comics in Buckingham Square (slot 32. The lower the number, the cooler you were) I had written down "All Dave Cockrum".

He will be missed.