DAVE COCKRUM

INTERVIEW
by Jay Mckiernan

INTRO

While we may not do a lot of interviews here at X-World, we definately interview quality creators. Dave Cockrum just happens to be the artist who drew the first X book that I personally ever read, #99 back in 1976. He was then, and is now, my all-time favorite X artist. He created the look and defined many of our favorite X-men and women. Many xfans have a great appreciation for Dave's great creations, pages and memories. Please join Jay as he embarks with Dave on a journey of early recollections of his career, some of his favorite creations, and his future plans-Ken

First of all, let me thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this
interview.

What say we start at the very beginning. Could you please tell me what it was that first
got you interested in comics? Were you always drawn to this artistic style and which
creators inspired you when you were first putting pencil to paper?

**I first started reading comics when I was seven or eight years old, back in the early '50s. My folks were both teachers and they get me reading early. The first comic I remember was an issue of 'Boy Crimefighter' that my dad had confiscated from one of his students. Later, my folks subscribed to 'Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies', figuring it was a useful way to encourage my reading skills. Little did they know what they were starting.

When I first started drawing and noticing art styles, I guess Wally Wood was one of my earliest influences, and his work remains some of my favorite to this very day. Dick Dillin's work on Blackhawk stood out as well, kindling in me a lifelong love for the Black Knights. I caught the tail end of the Fawcett era too, and loved CC Beck's work on Captain Marvel (back when he was allowed to use his name as the title of his book) and Kurt Schaffenburger on Captain Marvel Jr. Much later, I searched out
back issues of Junior's book by Mac Raboy, whose work inspired and thrilled me with its skillful and beautiful line work. Joe Maneely's work on Atlas's (later Marvel) Black Knight remains a vivid memory of my early comic reading.
Later on, the silver age work of Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, Carmine Infantino, and Jack Kirby gave me very strong and positive influences.

You worked in a few studios early in your career - which ones and what effect did they
have on your later work?

Not 'a few'-I did work for Murphy Anderson in a studio situation for about a year. I did background inking for him, and learned a great deal about inking and professionalism. Murphy was, and is, a gentleman of the old school, and a wonderful teacher. I also did some work for Wally Wood on the newspaper western strip 'Shattuck', one of three strips he was producing for 'Overseas Weekly', a military newspaper. But I'm not sure you could call it 'studio work', as I never worked at his studio.
Come to think of it, I also did some background work for Tony DeZuniga, but again, rarely in his studio.

How did you get such an opportunity?

Fell into them, mostly, I guess. I think Julie Schwartz may have recommended me to Murphy Anderson. As I recall, I think it was Howie Chaykin who tipped me to the work with Wally Wood; he was giving up penciling the Shattuck strip and suggested I should call Woody about taking over. I don't recall how I got the work with Tony DeZuniga, it's been a long time. Probably, somebody at DC recommended me.

I guess that it's safe to say that your first big break came on the Legion of Super-Heroes.
When you first took over the pencils on that title, what were your immediate goals?

Not to do work that sucked. Seriously, I was so tickled to get the assignment that I annoyed the hell out of some of my artist friends, gushing about getting a superhero strip. But I saw the Legion as a chance to show off what I could do, and have a hell of a lot of fun doing it. I was heavily into Science Fiction, and of course, superheroes. The Legion was the perfect strip for me.

How much freedom did you have on this lesser-selling comic? Was there pressure from
above to make it profitable or did they leave you alone to see what you could do?

Oh, no, I never felt any pressure to make it pay. The strip was on its last legs, a dying, occasional back-up feature in Superboy. That's why they let me have it. Nobody gave it much chance of surviving, and nobody else wanted it. I certainly couldn't do it any harm. So they just kind of turned me loose, and were pleasantly surprised to see that I was turning in some nice work.

You redesigned a lot of super-hero costumes when you first took over the Legion. Was
that simply your desire to have a greater influence on the book or was DC looking to
move this book into the 70's?

The new costumes were entirely my idea. I was bored with the old ones, most of which were simply bad imitations of Superboy's costume. I actually faced considerable resistance from editor Murray Boltinoff, who was very conservative, and was afraid that any changes might damage the sales of the Superboy title. As a matter of fact, after introducing a number of new costumes, Murray told me to stop. The Legion had begun showing some rise in popularity, and he was afraid that if I kept tampering with it, the readers would take offense. I had to sneak in the last few new designs, and tip off the colorist as to their color schemes, without Murray noticing.

How daunting was the fact that you had to draw such a large cast?

I was young and enthusiastic, and stupid enough to be willing to do it. My problem was that scripter Cary Bates hated to use more than four or five characters at a time, so I rarely got to do group shots.

Who was your favorite Legionnaire to draw and why?

It would be a toss-up between Phantom Girl and Shadow Lass. I'd probably give the edge to Phantom Girl.

Least favorite and why?

Cosmic Boy, I guess. I never liked him and his pink costume-but I never changed the costume because I somehow felt that he and it deserved each other.

You're probably sitting there wondering why an interviewer for an X-site is asking so
many Legion questions. Well, I'm probably an even bigger Legion fan, and you are the
artist who co-created my favorite - Wildfire. Could you tell me what into that character
and what you were trying to do with this new hero?

I wanted to introduce a new Legionnaire, and I presented four new character designs. Wildfire (then called 'Starfire'), a green bird-girl named Quetzal, a guy named Typhoon who manipulated the weather, and a blue, furry, prehensile-tailed guy named…Nightcrawler. Nightie was rejected by Murray Boltinoff because he was too funny looking. Mustn't offend the readers (that's why it took so long to get a black character in the Legion). Ditto Quetzal. I'm not sure why Typhoon didn't make it, but we settled on Starfire, except they wouldn't let me call him that because there were something like three or four other Starfires in the DC universe. When Cary Bates wrote the intro story, he called him 'ERG-1'. Don't ask me why. When he returned and was inducted into the Legion, I renamed him 'Wildfire'.
Meanwhile, Nightcrawler went on to become an X-Man, and so did Quetzal and Typhoon-sort of.

Let's move forward - you left DC over a dispute concerning returned artwork and
headed to Marvel. Was there a particular book that you were looking to do or were you
more concerned with simply getting a job?

At that point I just wanted work. Although at the time, the Avengers was my favorite book, and I hoped to get a chance to work on it. I did-penciling two issues of Giant-Size Avengers and inking some six issues of the regular title.

You're handed the X-Men relaunch. I will have to assume that you had no idea that it would become so popular, but did you have an inkling that you were working on a special book?

It was certainly special for me. It was my opportunity to, basically, start a book from scratch, and go wherever I wanted (in tandem with Chris Claremont, of course). No idea it would take off and generate an entire mutant empire for Marvel, though.

You've created the looks for some of the most famous characters in comics. Could you
tell us what went into the creation of these characters and how they came to be? I'll just
list off the names and if you could comment on them, that would be great.

Storm:

Quetzal and Typhoon combined, mutated into a character called 'The Black Cat' (not the one in Spider-Man), and renamed Storm. There was some question that her white hair might make people think she was an old grandmother superhero. <snort>

Nightcrawler:

Nightcrawler dated back to my fan days in the Navy. I'd come up with a character called 'The Intruder', a cross between Batman and the Punisher (although the Punisher hadn't been created yet). Nightcrawler-heavily influenced by DC's 'Creeper'-- was his sidekick, a demon who'd screwed up on a mission from hell. Rather than go back and face punishment, he hung around with the Intruder, ran headfirst down vertical walls, and howled at the moon. When Kirby's demon made his debut, I dropped the whole demon angle.
When we decided to use him for X-Men, obviously he became a mutant. I wanted to establish that his mother was human, but his father was Nightmare (from Dr. Strange). They wouldn't let me do that, they said that would make him a hybrid, not a mutant.

Colossus:

Way back when I was in college I came up with a character called 'Mr. Steel'. Colossus was an update and redesign of that character. Originally, he was intended to be the star of the book. That's why he got center stage on a lot of the early covers-big, strong guy, primary colors, etc. Somehow, he never got the development the others did.

You also had to update and adapt some of the characters' looks and costumes. Which
ones did you have the most influence on and what changes did you bring to the book?

Someone-either Roy Thomas or Len Wein, I don't recall after all these years-said that Cyclops needed to look stronger, more imposing, since he was going to lead the new group, and these guys were starting off with a lot more flash and bang than the original team. I gave him the bigger visor and the buccaneer boots.
I had a major part in making Jean Grey into Phoenix; Chris wanted to work her back into the book, but she was way outclassed by the new guys. There was a bit of hassle about giving her a new costume, though; Archie Goodwin-by then, Editor in Chief-had to be harangued, pleaded and begged into allowing us to do so.

My favorite design was similar to the green costume, but it was white and gold and had a short off-the-shoulder cape (a la the original Captain Marvel) with a gold phoenix on it. Archie wouldn't ok it. He felt that the white costume on the crappy newsprint we were using then would allow you to read the opposite side of the page through her.

When I went to green and gold he finally assented, but told me to lose the cape.

The white costume did finally make an appearance in X-Men, however, when Kitty Pryde was playing with the Shi'ar costume projector while being held prisoner aboard a Shi'ar spacecraft.

What kind of working relationship did you have with Chris Claremont in those days?

Pretty good. Chris and I worked together well. I liked him, I assume he liked me. I would sometimes not want to draw some idea or other he threw out, and we'd kick it around until it became something we would both agree on.

Could you explain the creative process that you went through during those days? Were
you following the distinct 'Marvel style' or were you using something different?

Yes, in that I was drawing from a plot-which Chris and I worked out together-but in terms of art style, I borrowed influences from Marvel, DC, and non-comics sources. Nobody told me 'Draw like Marvel Comics', but I guess my work fit well enough into the Marvel framework that it was accepted as is.

In a move that probably baffled most people at the time, you left this book to start work
on 'John Carter, Warlord of Mars'. I'm guessing that you're a big fan of the Edgar Rice
Burroughs sagas. What about those stories do you love so much?

I didn't leave the book to do JCWoF. I left the book because I was burned out and accepted a staff position. The John Carter thing just happened along, and I got involved because Marv Wolfman and I had done some preliminary work on a John Carter book for Burroughs Inc. I had designed characters and actually had penciled three pages of the first issue before they told us to stop, because they'd licensed the property to Marvel.
And yes, I practically grew up on the Barsoom stories. My father had a large number of the old, hardcover Grosset & Dulap editions from the '30s and '40s, and I found them when I was about eight years old. The Barsoomian stuff was far and away my favorite; I spend my childhood years roaming the dead sea bottoms of Barsoom. However, it was a source of frustration that I found books two through five right away, but the first, 'Princess of Mars' remained hidden for several years.
There was a time when you could read me a quote from one of the Barsoomian books and I could tell you which one it came from.

Would you say that the 'space opera' element of those classics is something that you've
brought to your comic work as well?

Absolutely. I loved Burroughs' storytelling, and there's still a lot of it in my own.

John Byrne leaves the X-Men and you come back to the title you helped relaunch - how
different was it the second time around?

Well, for one thing, when I left the book the first time, Wolverine was a nasty little psycho whom I'd just as soon not draw. When I came back he was a well rounded, interesting character with a lot of honor and dignity, and I liked him very much.

By this point in time, the X-Men were starting to reach higher sales figures and receive
much critical acclaim - was there more pressure on you to follow such a popular artist
and maintain the high quality of the books?

Nobody leaned on me as such, except in terms of the monthly schedule. X-Men had been a bimonthly book when I left it. I'm not the fastest artist in the world; it was a real struggle for me to meet deadlines, and sometimes I didn't. There were three or four fill-in issues during my second run on the book, as I recall-although a couple of them were due to the fact that they sprung X-Men #150 on me as a double issue, without warning me.

During this second run, 'Kitty's Fairy Tale' appeared. Since you used that universe for
your Nightcrawler mini-series, I'm guessing that it's one of your favorite stories. How
did that idea come to be and what about it did you enjoy so much?

I had been rereading the old Tower 'T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents' series, one of my very favorite '60s series. There's a story in one issue where one of the supporting characters, Weed (always had a cigarette butt in his mouth), told a fairy tale to his niece and nephew, featuring the other Agents. It was funny as hell. I suggested to Chris that maybe we could do something like that. He loved the idea, and we ran with it. Unfortunately, we wanted to do a two-issue story or a double-sized issue, and editorial said no. They didn't feel the story was strong enough to string out over two issues, and they wouldn't ok a double issue without additional time to advertise it.

You second exit from the X-Men came mid-storyline and somewhat out of nowhere.
What happened? Did you leave to work on another book or did editorial decide that it
was time for a change?

Almost a year earlier, I had run a proposal past Jim Shooter for my Futurians graphic novel. It sat on his desk for that whole year. About the time the X-Men were trapped on the Brood homeworld, Shooter finally said, 'Ok, you can do it if you want to'. I didn't know what to do; I wanted to do the Futurians, but I didn't really want to leave X-Men, I was still having fun with it. At an X-Men plotting session, Chris and editor Ann Nocenti asked me about the Futurians, and as I was describing the characters and storyline I started jumping up and down, waving my hands, making sound effects, and in general acting like a lunatic. They decided I was more interested in Futurians than in X-Men, and talked me into leaving the book. I sometimes wonder if it wasn't a good way of getting me to leave so they could choose a faster and more malleable artist.
The funny thing is that once I gave the book up, for a while they couldn't find anyone who wanted to take over. Nobody wanted to draw all those characters. Marvel hadn't yet started paying royalties, a major inducement to take up a tough book; once the royalties started, artists were clamoring to do the book. X-Men brought in more royalties than any other Marvel book. If I'd known that, you wouldn't have pried me off with a crowbar.

Let's talk about the Nightcrawler mini-series as well. This was very different from what
was happening in the books and had a very light, jovial tone. Were you wanting to tell a
straight-up adventure that was 'fun'?

The Nightcrawler mini-series was done in my natural story-telling style. Comics to me as a fan were entertainment. I mentioned T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents before-nearly all of those stories were told in the same sort of style in which I approached 'Nightcrawler'. I loved that stuff. That's the way I like to tell a story. My 'Futurians' had more drama in it, the storyline called for it, but I put a lot of humor in too.

How much resistance did you get concerning the book? Was Marvel worried that you
were another artist who couldn't write?

If they were worried about that, they never said it to my face. Ann Nocenti was my editor on the mini-series, and although she exercised a stern editorial hand in a couple of places (Nightcrawler being a pirate and not having any qualms about it; she was right, of course, and I changed it), I was pretty much left to my own devices once a plot had been ok'd.

This series was quite the personal affair, with your wife handling the coloring chores.
How much did you enjoy doing this and what about it lets everyone know that it's a
Dave Cockrum book?

It was a major hoot! If nothing else, the humor and my handling of Nightcrawler established it as a 'Dave Cockrum book'. It was pretty common knowledge in those days that Nightcrawler was me, or at least my alter ego in the books. I was having a blast.

Once again, I'm curious about who you liked to draw the most of the X-Men and why?

Nightcrawler and Storm. Nightcrawler because, as I said, he was me. I could vicariously bounce off walls and bamf and have adventures with the X-Men and romance beautiful alien princesses and just generally have a merry old time.
Storm, because she was absolutely drop dead gorgeous, she was smart and dignified, and she could throw lightning bolts and raise hurricanes, and she had those gorgeous long legs and all that flowing white hair. Call me a chauvinist if you like, but drawing Storm was just about the most fun a boy could have while fully dressed.

And who was your least favorite and why?

I'm not sure I had a least favorite. Both Wolverine and Kitty Pryde qualified at one time or another, but both of them became characters I could enjoy working with. I already said about Wolverine-I thought he was just a nasty little psycho-but my objection to Kitty was simply that I thought she didn't fit with the group. That's why she was sick in bed the first two or three issues of my second tour on the book. However, when I started dressing her in the outlandish costumes and roller skates, suddenly she was fun to draw. You could do all sorts of nonsensical stuff with her and say 'What the hell, she's a kid'.

You continued writing with 'The Futurians". Had you been wanting to tell this story for a
long time? Where did this story come from?

Once I decided I wanted to try my hand at doing a graphic novel, and once the characters were firmly set in my mind, the rest of the story just kind of fell into place. I sat down and typed out the plot over several days, and then drew out the entire story in thumbnails-72 pages of them. I can see influences in Futurians from favorite old SciFi novels, most notably Arthur C. Clarke's 'The City and the Stars', a book I've loved since my early teens. In fact, I'm occasionally embarrassed at some of the unconscious pilferage from 'City-'
: for instance, I have a character, a Scientist-General named Callistrax. There's a minor character in 'City-' named 'Callitrax'. I first discovered that several years after Futurians was published, and let out with a very loud 'OOPS!' My apologies to Mr. Clarke, any similarities to his fine book were unintentional.

Are there any more Futurians stories waiting to be told? Are they any coming soon?

Yes, and possibly. There are plans and negotiations going on even as we speak that may further the Futurians' brief career. The only thing I can actually mention at this point is that they are being reprinted in France right now.

The second issue of three (they've combined all existing Futurians material into three volumes) is about to be released. This may lead to new material produced for the European market, and if the work is done, I can probably find an American publisher too.

You've said before that you loved reading Blackhawk when you were a kid and that
you've always loved warplanes. Were you ever able to use that interest in comics or
have you considered a new project with those ideas?

Well, I did actually get to do a little Blackhawk work. I did a number of covers for DC, and two short 'Combat Diary' stories as backup features. I was actually offered the book at one point, but my page rate at DC was something like $30 a page less than at Marvel, and DC wouldn't raise it for a second-class book like they considered Blackhawk to be. For Superman, yes, but not for Blackhawk. I would have been giving them every third page or so, free. I had to turn it down, and Dan Spiegel was given the book.
Of course, I penciled the two-issue 'Skywolf' story which ran in Marvel Fanfare, and used one of my favorite Planes That Never Made It (refitted with jet engines), the Vought F5F-1 'Flying Flapjack' as the Wolves' mounts. And aircraft frequently turned up (often, alas, wrecked) in X-Men.
I've played around with ideas for a new flying strip, and who knows, something might materialize some day.

You've said that you can't seem to get any work from the big two companies - is there a
creator owned project in your near future? Have you given any thought to doing a
project through Image or self-publishing a book yourself?

I have a strip in development, titled 'T.H.U.G.S.', which stands for 'Tough Huge Ugly GoonS'. It's about a repo agency which uses monsters as their repo men. There are five of them-Slasher, Basher, Thrasher, Scungili and Bruce. They work for the Luten Pillage Repo Agency, and they've been known to wreck an entire house in order to repossess a rental TV. Their boss is Lucrezia Louise (DON'T call her LuLu) Pillage, who inherited the business from her father, Luten Pillage. The boys are terrified of LuLu, who's a cute, petite blond with an explosive temper that rates about 8.5 on the Richter scale.
My son, Ivan, is also working up a concept for a SciFi series on which we hope to collaborate. It's a dark, gritty noir sort of book, which is a real departure for me. I'm not sure how well I can do noir, but it'll be interesting to find out.
I have spoken to Jim Valentino at Image, and he was interested in considering any proposals I showed him; however, the way Image works is prohibitive as far as I'm concerned. They want the creator to present them with the finished product-preferably enough to run several issues-and the creator is paid from the sales. I'm not one of these guys who's made a mint out of comics. I need to be paid a page rate while I'm working. It helps to keep a roof over my family's head and food on the table.

Is there one book out there that you've always wanted to do? One character?

I can't really limit it to one, because there are several books I've ached to do my whole career. But if I did have to say one, it would be Hawkman. He's been my favorite since Brave & Bold #34 first went on sale. But I also want to draw Flash, Green Lantern, Atom (silver age), Blackhawk and Shazam.
All DC characters. Funny, that. Actually, I'd also love to draw Captain America, Fighting American and the Simon/Kirby version of the Shield (the DoubleLife of Private Strong). And maybe the old Atlas Black Knight.

When you look back over your distinguished career, what stands out as a great highlight
for you?

Well, the Futurians graphic novel has to be the high point. I wrote it, drew it, and my wife, Paty, colored it. If I could letter worth a damn, I'd have lettered it. Basically, that was MY project from start to finish, with some welcome editorial input from Al Milgrom, and I'm quite proud of it.

Is there anything that you wish you could go back and change?

Well, I sure wouldn't have given up the X-Men. And I sure wouldn't have taken Futurians away from Marvel to do the series, just because I was promised pie-in-the-sky money for it.

Finally, I was wondering if you could give up a little insight into how the creative process
works for you. Could you explain how you go about laying out, pencilling, and inking a
single page of artwork. I think there are tons of artists out there who would love to hear
what goes into the creation of one of your pages.

Well, of course, it partly depends on whether I'm working from a plot or a script. A script tells me straightaway what's on the page and how much copy there is. Working from a plot (which is what I prefer), I read through and mark off with a pencil how much I estimate will go on each page (trying to see scenes in my mind, judging whether I can get a big action scene here, needing several conversation/exposition panels there, etc.). I then
Break each page unit up into panel units, again estimating how many and what type/shape/content.
Then I sit down and do the whole story in thumbnails. Other artists I know have done it the same way, but many of them then blow up the thumbnails and lightbox, or project them on the blank page for copying. I don't have the facilities for doing that, and anyway, working on a lightbox for any length of time gives me headaches. So I eyeball the thumbnails, and copy them onto a full size page.
I usually use blue pencil because there's less erasing afterward. At one time, I would go on and finish in black pencil, but I realized that since I was doing comprehensive blue pencils first (not to mention the thumbnails), I was essentially drawing the story two or even three times. I quit finishing in black.

Also do you have any projects currently in the pipeline or future plans?

I'm just getting started on a five part Elvira story for Claypool Comics, for whom I did 'Soulsearchers and Company' for about three years.

Thank you very much for your time and energy and I hope I haven't asked too many
annoying questions. I think I speak for a lot of comic fans who would love to see your
work back in print and I'd like to commend you on some excellent comics throughout
the years.

Thanks-my pleasure.

X-World is now accepting commission requests for Dave Cockrum!

White Phoenix as recreated for X-World by Dave Cockrum. This is the original costume Dave designed that Marvel turned down!

VISIT DAVE'S WEBSITE AT www.davecockrum.com

DISCUSS THIS INTERVIEW OR DAVE'S ARTWORK AT OUR X-Forum!

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