Honoring Gene Colan & Dave Cockrum

Dan Bertwell sent me the below letter and HERO assures me this is on the up and up. So I support these efforts and hope many of you will, too:

My name is Dan Bertwell and I am running two marathons within the first two weeks of October to raise money for the Hero Initiative. Comics were an escape for me when I was very young and I latched onto the X-Men, Colossus in particular, right away. I stopped collecting when I became a teenager (mostly for financial reasons) and got back into it while in my twenties. Soon after I returned I was saddened to hear that Dave Cockrum, who had created many of the characters and drawn many of the stories that I loved so much, had passed away. His family mentioned in his obituary that, rather than sending flowers, fans should make donations to the Hero Initiative. This was the first I’d heard of the charity.

The Hero Initiative is a non-profit with a very simple purpose: to assist comic creators in need. Like many people, I’ve seen the Hero table at various cons in the past few years, and I’ve donated some cash into the collection jars that they set up. Earlier this year I decided that I’d like to run another marathon but wanted this run to benefit others as well as myself. I decided to run for the Hero Initiative because I wanted to give back to the comic community.

The recent passing of Gene Colan cemented in my mind that I should run two marathons and dedicate them to Mr. ockrum and Mr. Colan and all of the creators that have brought so many great stories into my life. I’ll run the New Hampshire Marathon on October 1 and the Hartford Marathon on October 15 and I hope very much that anyone able to donate will do so by going to http://www.razoo.com/marathondan.

All told, between training and the races, I’m going to run somewhere between 500 and 600 miles. I hope that all that work can help out some creators in need.