I was shocked when I read that Micheal Turner had passed away on Friday night at the age of only 37 years. Honestly, I thought I was thinking of the wrong person, that there was some other, older, Micheal Turner that I had not known about. I didn’t even know he had cancer.

Micheal Turner has been a bog part of the comic world these last few years, especially in the comic blogosphere, where his work often caused controversy. Whether it was the size of Power Girl’s chest, the absence of feet or the Thing’s jaw, people were always talking about Micheal’s work and, sadly, these last few years have been filled with a lot of negativity. I don’t think it’s fair to pretend those controversies never existed (well, whining about the Thing’s jaw was pretty stupid), but it is good to see that, now that we know what we’ve lost in Turner, there are only good things to say about him.

While I never followed his work closely, I have always loved the way he would render his characters. I remember being a kid, copying the lines from Fathom concept stetches from a Wizard magazine because I loved how Turner was able to make the characters seem both fluid and whole at the same time. Turner’s work was never very “realistic” but you could really get a sense of completeness from his drawings. His work was strong and dynamic and it’s a real shame to be losing out on that strength in the future.