••

In the sense that he was asked or told to do it? No.

Wow. So, he just shows up at Marvel's offices and sees your pages and takes it upon himself to "correct" them? That's not so nice.

Was this common practice for artists and editors back then?

••

It was not UNcommon.

And, ordinarily, I would not even have thought anything of it -- except, as noted, in this instance it was rather odd to do art "corrections" on my "audition".

Brian: Wow. So, he just shows up at Marvel's offices and sees your pages and takes it upon himself to "correct" them? That's not so nice.

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Sounds like Cockrum even had enough pull to keep JB from doing covers back-in-the-day...

From "Comics Creators On X-Men" (Titan Books - 2006)...

Why did you leave X-Men?

Dave Cockrum: At the time, I was also going on staff at Marvel and I discovered that it's kind of difficult to take the train into New York, work eight hours, take the train home again and draw a comic book. So I gave up drawing for a while.

What were you doing on staff?

Dave Cockrum: Designing covers. That was a job I really enjoyed. They also came to me and asked me to design characters, some merchandising art, even a couple of concept pieces for possible Marvel TV series. John Romita was working full-time as a Art Director at the time and Marie Severin was Assistant Art Director. They had their hands full and needed a third party to come in and handle the covers.

Is that why you continued to do the covers for X-Men when Byrne was on the book?

Dave Cockrum: Yeah. Also, I'm afraid, it was a little malicious on my part, just not letting him do the covers. Byrne and I had a rivalry thing going.

�

••

Sadly, that "rivalry" ran in only one direction.

It took me years to figure it out -- decades, really. But Dave was not happy to be removed from UNCANNY, despite what I was told, and he evidently greatly resented the huge success the book went on to without him -- success which, as I have point out many times, FOLLOWED my run, but did not include it. In any case, Dave chose to focus his ire on me -- not, for instance, on Archie Goodwin, who was the EiC who engineered his removal. So be it. I have never said a bad word about Dave, or his work, and never would. It is only too unfortunate that I did not figure any of this out until Dave was gone.

Brian: Thanks, Nathan. What all does that book cover? I may have to look into finding it.

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It's basicly a big interview book. Includes: Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremount, JB(!), Alan Davis, Louise Simonson, Marc Silvestri, Bob Harris, Scott Lobdell, Chris Bachalo, Grant Morrison & Mark Miller. 

This is interesting...

From "Comics Creators On X-Men" (Titan Books - 2006)...

Stan Lee: I always wanted Magneto to turn out to be Professor X's brother.

Really?

Stan Lee: If I had stayed on the book, that's what I would have done.

Did you have more to his backstory?

Stan Lee: No, not really. If I did, I don't remember what it was. I probably just thought I'd make them brothers and work it out when the time came. I figured that I could come up with an explanation when I needed it: I always did. But I thought it would be fun if Professor Xavier and Magneto were brothers.