In Memoriam
Honoring Wilycub
Azim “Wilycub” Akberali
Our friend, staff artist and writer. Passed away January 2023.
The face many of us pictured across a decade in the forums. A lot of the beautiful art you have seen on this site over the years came from one person: a professional artist, a megafan of the ThunderCats, and one of the kindest people any of us had the good fortune to know. We knew him as Wilycub.
Our resident artist and writer
Wilycub joined the forums in October 2011 and never really left, more than three thousand posts across the years. In August 2014 he accepted the role of Staff Writer, and soon Staff Artist too, and from then on his work touched almost every corner of the site. If you were a regular, you may have had your own avatar illustrated by him. The custom ThunderCats emoticons in the forums were his. So were the holiday and anniversary banners on our social pages, and a wave of new character paintings that expanded the Classic Series Encyclopedia. He even repainted our banner, giving 1985 and 2011 Lion-O the classic promotional-poster treatment.
He was generous with all of it, always ready to take on a project for the love of the ThunderCats rather than anything else. To the whole team, he was simply a friend.
His artwork
More of Azim's work lives on his gallery under the name az-i-am.
His ThunderCats figure designs
Azim designed a run of LJN-style carded figures for ThunderCats characters the vintage line never made. He did this before AI apps made the trend popular, and before Super7 could get to them.
Beyond thundercats.org
Away from our little corner of the fandom, Azim was an accomplished comic-book artist. He was one of the founding members of Orang Utan Comics, and painted a series of striking fully-painted covers, along with interior work, for a number of Markosia titles. He worked on the Eagle Award nominated Eleventh Hour and earned an Eagle Award nomination in his own right, then went on to provide cover art for Alpha Gods, Hypergirl, and The Return of the Son of Eleventh Hour, plus projects at Tidalwave Productions including their Political Power: Barack Obama comic.
Markosia published a moving farewell to him when he passed. It is well worth reading.
From the Community
He was an incredibly kind man and a gifted artist, he was very thoughtful, supportive of me at times when I was struggling and generous with his time, advice and talents. I miss him, and I'm sad I never got to meet him in person, but grateful for the years we spent working together on our shared passion of the ThunderCats.
Mark (Grizzlor)
Azim was indeed a tremendously kind, thoughtful and humble man, atop his world-class artistic talents. He will be missed, and I will treasure the correspondence we shared over the years. His star shone bright.
Zack
I am honoured to have known him. He really meant the world to a niche community and his talents will live on in the impressive works he created. Rest peacefully my friend.
Egmond
It saddens me that I didn't get to know Azim better. He was a very talented guy, with a passion for his projects. His work as a 2D and 3D artist was inspirational, and it was always fun to chat with him about his process and what he had been up to.
He was always keen to hear about my projects, too. He was very interested in my custom figures, and the technology involved with my video projects. He was always polite, thoughtful and appreciative. I'm sure, with more time, we would have collaborated on some cool things. It's truly a shame his LJN style ThunderCats figure designs were never produced as a run.
As a moderator, he was always fair and considerate, and would go out of his way to help you. Just a kind soul taken far too soon.
Lee (Booshman)
His last gift
Before he passed, Azim was quietly working on one more gift for the site: high-resolution upgrades of the iconic ThunderCats promotional artwork, and brand new versions inspired by the 2011 series. We never got to finish that project together, but his fingerprints are all over this place, and they always will be.
These are pieces from that final project. Take any of them and give it a home on your desktop, the way he would have wanted.
Share a memory
If Wilycub's art, his words, or his kindness were part of your time in this community, we would love for you to share a memory of him with the rest of us.