From Mike:

When I hopped on the internet this morning the last thing I expected to see was that Michael Turner had lost his long battle with cancer. I have been a fan of Michael's work for a long time and aside from that having met him a few times I can also add that he is one of the nicest comic pro's I've ever met.

My ever indulging wife went with me to Wizard World Philadelphia's first show several years back. We wandered around the various booths and I was like a little kid, gleefully walking from one section to the next. We found the Aspen comics booth and my wife asked me who the tall, good looking guy was. I told her I wasn't sure and we made our way over to the huge books filled with Michael's original art for what I guess had to have been Batman/Superman. So as we're flipping through the pages the very same tall, good looking guy walks over and starts to talk with us. About the show, the area...after a few minutes my wife asks him his name and he introduces himself as Michael Turner. Now to my wife, that means nothing, so she and he just continued chatting away. We probably talked to him for close to half an hour.

When we walked away from the Aspen booth I told my wife who he was and she said nice to see he wasn't just a talented artist but also a good guy. Now I wouldn't presume to say I have any more knowledge of Michael personally than that but I feel comfortable in saying that I found him to be charming, down to earth and just a nice guy.

I think comic books lost one of their brighter stars yesterday. And more importantly they lost one of their nicer people. Rest easy Michael. You will most definitely be missed.

From Julian:

I met Michael Turner several times during the Wizard World Chicago and Toronto Fan Expo. I liked some of his work. Never loved it, never disliked it but I'll say one thing: the man was a class act. He was one of the nicest, most humble and down to Earth people you'd meet at a con. He always made time to talk to fans, remembered people that he had met at previous cons and always had a smile on his face.

After the con was done for the day at a Toronto Fan Expo some friends and I went to grab a drink at a nearby pub and after a while we saw Turner and the Aspen crowd come in. A friend and I came up to him to say hi and ended up talking to him for a while. The friend that was with me is a very talented artist, for whom Turner was an inspiration that made him go back to art after leaving it for a while. Turner asked if he could see my friend's sketchbook and they sat down at the bar going through it, with Turner giving compliments, advice and criticism. Even some of his friends seemed annoyed the he was spending yet more time talking to fans and when they came up to him he just replied "Not now. I'm looking at a sketchbook."

Love or hate his art, one thing that no one can deny is that he was a really, really nice guy. He will be very missed.

Condolences to Michael's family can be sent to:

Aspen MLT, Inc.
C/O Michael Turner
5855 Green Valley Circle, Suite 111
Culver City, CA, 90230