Erin texted me and told me Michael Turner had died. She texted me on Saturday, June 28, and I was in the middle of sorting and pricing swap meet sale items, so I had forgotten all about it.

With all the pictures and posts about the San Diego Comic Con, it reminded me that one of my favorite comic book artists was gone. He had such a nice, flowing, romantic style of drawing comic book art that I immediately fell in love with it. The first time I noticed it was when he co-created Witchblade while at Top Cow Comics (with one of my other favorite comic book artists, Marc Silvestri). Turner then left Top Cow to start his own comic book company, Aspen Comics (Aspen MLT Inc.), in January 2003. There, he released comic books Fathom, Soulfire and Ekos.

In March 2000, he was diagnosed with bone cancer in his right pelvis, which is what led to his early departure from this world on June 27, 2008. He was only 37.

I started looking for Turner items on eBay, hoping to find an autographed something I could get. I never got to meet him, and never will. This saddens me. I really admired his work (and the daring act of leaving Top Cow, which led to lawsuits over rights to Fathom, Soulfire and Ekos, to start his own company) and feel like it will not be quite as fulfilling to go to the Comic Con and not get to meet him.