RIP Michael Turner

 

Comic artist Michael Turner as died after a long battle with cancer at the way-too-young age of 37.

I’d love to make this just a plain, pure tribute to the man, but I don’t think that’s gonna be possible. Honestly, I just didn’t enjoy most of Turner’s artwork. I mean, it was obvious that he had really strong artistic chops. Look at this cover he did for “Teen Titans.”

 

I think it’s just beautifully done. Yeah, you get a little Buttcrack Theatre from Starfire, but it’s far, far from the worst art we’ve ever seen of her. The rest of them, Cyborg, Raven, Superboy, Robin, Kid Flash, Changeling, even the all-too-frequently-fetishized Wonder Girl, they all look great.

But Turner would also produce work like this:

 

That’s preliminary artwork from one of the “Justice League of America” covers from last year, and it got rightly and loudly criticized by almost everyone. It’s emblematic of a lot of my problems with Turner’s style — heavily plasticized figures, bad anatomy, vacant and identical faces on women.

And I’m gonna stop with the criticism right there. From everything else I’ve heard of him, Turner was an enthusiastic, good-natured, fun guy to be around, who didn’t deserve all the pain from his health troubles, and who definitely did deserve a tremendous amount of respect for continuing to produce artwork even after multiple painful surgeries. Just about everything about his life story is pretty inspiring, and his death, like Mike Wieringo’s last year, comes way, way too soon, and is going to be very keenly felt over the coming years.

Raise your glasses, folks. Here’s to him.