In Memoriam

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.

14 thoughts on “In Memoriam

  1. Jesus Christ, Chris. I might have weel have been punched in the kidneys. I worked in a comic shop from 1990-1993, the Dave Stevens era, kinda. Son of a bitch. Thanks for posting…

  2. I’m lucky; I fell in love with The Rocketeer as it came out, issue-by-issue; and then got to enjoy the movie adaptation after the series had finished up.

    Several times, I thought Stevens one of the luckiest comics talents: he got to see his work translated satisfactorily to the screen.

    Luck’s relative, though.

  3. I discovered Dave Stevens’ work in the very early 80’s (1981?) with some Pacific comics (ALIEN WORLDS, etc…) and a few other things.

    I have been a fan ever since.

    He’s always been one of the short-list of comic-artists who inspire me, and then make me feel inadequate with my own work, while all the while making me feel strange about being turned on by a drawing of a hot chick.

    THAT’s power.

    ~P~
    P-TOR

  4. “Isn’t the photographer in the scene (ah yes, that scene…) supposed to be Stevens?”

    Not that I know of.
    I understand it, he used himself as a model for the HERO of the strip; Cliff Secord.

    He supposedly used friends and family as models for all of the characters.

    I’m unsure who that was referenced for that photographer character.

    ~P~

  5. Yeah, the self-portrait on the cover of The Comic Journal was much more Cliff-like. Too soon to have left and sadly too few comics from this talented artist.

  6. Dave knew how to draw in a way that didn’t rely on gimmicks or stylistic tricks to hide things he couldn’t draw. His women were sexy, yet realistic.

  7. As an aside, Mark has one of the crummiest duties in the industry. It always falls to him to pass on news like this.

  8. Wow this is sad. One of the first comics I got at the IGA (a grocey store) was the movie versions of the Rocketeer followed by an X-Men comic. It is really sad to know this guy changed my life by helping to create my love of comics and I had no idea who he really was.

    Bless him and his family.

  9. Damn :-(
    I first remember him from some of his early Pacific work (pre-Rocketeer)

  10. Dave knew how to draw in a way that didn’t rely on gimmicks or stylistic tricks to hide things he couldn’t draw. His women were sexy, yet realistic.

    Yeah. I have no doubt that he used a lot of photo reference for his work–because when you’re drawing Bettie Page, why wouldn’t you–but his art doesn’t look photo-referenced. It just looks like really beautiful comic art.

  11. He supposedly used friends and family as models for all of the characters.

    As I understand it, he used Doug Wildey (the illustrator and co-creator of Jonny Quest) as the model for Peevy.

  12. Now there’s a man not afraid of a little well-rendered cheesecake in his work. Bravo, and all the toolsacks who can’t draw proper female anatomy to save their lives, take some notes.