Tube Surfing: Remembering Michael Turner, Virgin’s Dan Dare Collection

Artist Michael Turner

Artist Michael Turner has passed: Artist Tim Perkins and other comics creators and web sites, including The Beat, have reported the sad news that US artist Michael Turner (Witchblade, Fathom and many superb covers for Marvel) has died aged just 37, after a long battle with cancer. Our sympathies to his family and friends. Tim’s post inlcudes some of Michael’s outstanding art.

“Michael was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma (a bone-based cancer that attacks the cartilage) in March of 2000, which ultimately cost him his right hip, a portion of his pelvis and several pounds of bone,” Tim notes. “He was very open about his cancer, making convention appearances throughout the entire time, and never giving in to the illness.

Fathom Volume 2 #11 Cover B Wizard World Texas Exclusive Michael Turner Cover

“His first break in comics came on the Witchblade comic for Marc Silvestri’s Top Cow studios, where his style was very reminiscent of the studio’s founder. In 2002 he formed his own imprint under the name of Aspen MLT Inc. where he worked on such titles as Soulfire, Ekos and the return of his earlier produced creator–owned title, Fathom.”

• Anyone wishing to make a charitable donation to please send to Michael Turner’s requested charities: The American Cancer Society or The Make-A-Wish Foundation

• Michael Turner, 21st April 1971 – 27th June 2008 | Wikipedia | Aspen Comics

Dan Dare Volume 1 Omnibus Hardcover (Virgin Comics, 2008) by Garth Ennis and Garth Erskine

Dan Dare Celebrated on MySpace: To celebrate the release of the over-sized Dan Dare Volume One Omnibus hardcover Dan Dare collection, MySpaceTV is airing an exclusive trailer of Virgin Comics take on the doughty pilot of the future. To view the bold, new trailer journey here.

The over-sized hardcover edition collects Virgin’s Dan Dare comic series, written by Garth Ennis with art by Gary Erskine.

Dan Dare was once a hero. He brokered peace with alien races, pushed the frontiers of space, and saved the planet from total annihilation… repeatedly. But now, his Space Fleet has disbanded, the United Nations has crumbled, his friends scattered to the solar winds. Britain is once again the world power, but Dare, disillusioned and disappointed by his once-precious home country, has quietly retired. But there’s trouble mustering in Deep Space. The H.M.S. Achilles is picking up strange signals when, suddenly, an enormous fleet of hostile ships ambush the destroyer. Now, as the crew struggles to stay alive, they realize with horror that the hostiles have brought a weapon of unimaginable power. Dan Dare, the pilot of the future, has been called out of retirement.

Whether you’re joining the adventure for the first time, or you’re already a Dan Dare fan, this hardcover collection of the entire seven-issue series is a perfect addition to any library…

• Pre-order the collection (out in October) from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

Learn to Draw Comics: Comic artist Al Davison (Spiral Cage, Sprial Dreams and many more great works) is hosting a five week life drawing class which begins on Wednesday, 9th July 2008.

The July 2008 issue of scifi webmag SFcrowsnest.com is now online. There are lots of goodies to read, including interviews with SF/F writers Robert J. Sawyer, Jacqueline Carey, Steven Erikson, Paul Kearney, Conrad Williams and Nancy Kress, articles in memory of Stan Winston and Algis Budrys, a movie review of the The Incredible Hulk, while author Philip Palmer reports back from the Cannes Film Festival with a fan’s eye on events.

US author L.E. Modesitt also asks what’s likely to last in the genre, and there’s more news and reviews of books, dvds, comics and magazines than you can shake a lightsabre at. Point your ordinance at www.SFcrowsnest.com

Talking of SF, Steve Holland’s Bear Alley is proving a treasure trove for fans of SF book cover art of late. One of his latest postings is devoted to John Harris, another illustrator being covered (albeit briefly) in Steve’s upcoming Sci-Fi Art book, so I won’t say much here. A very good book of his work came out in 2000, Mass, with text written by Ron Tiner, which offers a lot of insight into his thinking and techniques.

The Beat has published several new photos from Batman: Dark Knight, which has been dedicated to Heath Legder, who completed his role as The Joke shortly before his untimely death.

Talk about memorable reading. Over on blog London Loves Comics there’s a plug for the 1981 2000AD annual, which features the Mekon’s “10 ways to destroy the world”. One of them, which perhaps stuck in the mind of Garth Ennis when it came to the new Virgin Dan Dare series, is to introduce a black hole to the solar system and watch it such all the energy from the Earth…

Neil Gaiman offers a disturbing post, The New Paranoia, on the tricks authorities might get up to when you enter a country with your laptop. “I have friends who practice ultra-safe computing when crossing borders: examine their computers and you’ll find yourself on something almost data-free, so you’d not be looking at encrypted files, you’d simply not be looking at files – the same kinds of things that Cory Doctorow describes in Little Brother. And I’ve always thought they were being, well, silly.”

Then Neil read an article in the LA Times which reported that US Courts have ruled, as recently as this spring in a case stemming from a search at LAX, that there’s no need for warrants or suspicions when a person is seeking to enter the country because any “routine search” is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and started to worry… In effect, it’s like luggage: anything and everything in your laptop, cellphone, BlackBerry or digital camera can be examined and copied by US Customs and Border Protection agents. Read Neil’s full post

Finally for this TubeSurf, a quick reminder about the excellent Alan Moore interview published earlier this month on the Forbidden Planet International blog (part 1, part 2) and a plug for writer Pádraig Ó Méalóid’s Glycon live journal. It’s a fascinating repository of all things Alan Moore, including a lot of completely unavailable and extremely rare work, such as these incredible examples of Moore’s artwork for the From Hell series (thanks to Joe Gordon for the link).

UPDATE, Wednesday 15th January 2025: The Forbidden Planet International blog is, sadly, long gone, but there’s an unofficial archive of Alan Moore Interviews at alanmoore.org which will soon carry the interview first published in 2008 (Thanks to Pádraig Ó Méalóid for the link)



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