Mr. Stevens, You will be missed...
RIP, Dave.
Someone just emailed to tell me that comics artist Dave Stevens died yesterday. EDIT: from a rare form of leukaemia, apparently.
For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Mark Evanier reported that Dave Stevens died yesterday from leukemia.
Stevens has always been one of those artists that I’ll forget about for a while, then I’ll suddenly see something he’s drawn and instantly be reminded of how absolutely amazing he was. Like a lot of people my age, I first became aware of him from the movie version of The Rocketeer, which combined my love of jetpacks with my hatred of Nazis. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I vividly remember the accompanying strips from Disney Adventures and–as I’ve mentioned before–the Peter David adaptation where Russ Heath drew six panels of Jennifer Connelly putting on her stockings. That one will always hold a special place in my heart, but when I was finally able to track down some of Stevens’ originals, he pretty much kicked in the door and let me know that soon, I would become a man.
Let’s hear it for Dave Stevens, everybody. One of the greats.
The Rocketeer creator and artist extraordinaire Dave Stevens passed away earlier this week. While I never had the chance to meet him, The Rocketeer will always hold a special place in my heart, as it was one of the first movies my wife and I saw together when we first started dating. While she swooned over Billy Campbell and I swooned over Jennifer Connelly during the film, somehow we ended up swooning over each other afterwards.
A lot of comics folks have posted their thoughts and memories of Dave Stevens and his comic work over the last couple of days. Heidi MacDonald remembers him over at The Beat:
I have so many memories of Dave. Cat Yronwode once told me that Dave was unique among cartoonists because he wore clothes that fit him, which sounds like a sorry compliment, but Dave did stand out among the cartoonists of that time for paying a lot of attention to his appearance — Cliff Secord, the hero of the Rocketeer, was obviously based visually on Dave. It didn’t come off as vanity, but wanting to give an appearance that went with the art. It was part of his esthetic. Once he gave me a ride to a Golden Apple party in what I called “Old Betsy” his beloved vintage Ford. (I had no car when I first moved to LA and was always dependent on the kindness of friends.) Arriving in such a vehicle with a dashing, handsome man like Dave was the kind of thing that a girl writes about in her diary that night.
Dave was a lovely bloke.
Though he’s most widely known for the movie inspired by his ROCKETEER comic book (and, to give it its due, it’s one of the best comic book movies), Stevens should be remembered as one of the men who brought some real excitement and fun to comics back in the early days of the direct market. I remember seeing the ads for THE ROCKETEER before the comic even appeared in PACIFIC PRESENTS and getting jazzed by its obvious combination of heartfelt nostalgia and beautiful artwork.
If you haven’t read the ROCKETEER comics or seen the movie, you should turn this off and go do one or both.
We’ll miss you, Dave.
Dave was one of the most charming, genteel, and entertaining gentlemen of my acquaintance. Not only did he draw like a dream, he was dreamy, and I don’t know of any girl who didn’t have a big crush on him. The last time I saw him, we had booths across the aisle from one another, and I sighed at him all weekend long. If he ever looked my way and smiled, or said something sweet about what I was doing or wearing, I melted.
He had bright eyes, and a dazzling smile, and lovely manners.
I didn’t know Dave particularly well but in all our dealings he was a straight shooter and a nice guy. A few years ago I tried to intervene on his behalf to get a Rocketeer/Superman mini-series going after it had stalled out at DC years before. Dave mentioned it to me at a show and then sent along his initial proposal. It was, as you would expect, a fun period piece, involving the Mercury Theater’s famous War of the Worlds broadcast. Dave was going to write it and draw the covers. unfortunately it was not to be, the project fizzled again, this time for good.
I have a wonderful little Dave Stevens treasure, though. When we were doing Betty Page, he drew a small illo of her for the inside front cover. It was an adorable little cartoon, somewhat in a Bruce Timm style. I immediately fell in love with it. It had a playful, carefree quality that you never really saw in Dave’s work. It looked like it took him no time at all to do, and yet it was still so fantastic, it suggested that his work was so labored because he wanted it to be. That was just his way.
When I returned the artwork from the book to him, I put a note on the cartoon that said, “If you ever want to sell this, please call me.” It came back to the offices shortly after with a note that read: “It was already yours, Bubba!”
Again, that was Dave Stevens.
He had a few basic phrases he used when he signed books for fans. One of them was “Happy Landings!”
Happy landings, Dave. Happy Landings.
No comments:
Post a Comment