Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Dave Stevens RIP

Just heard that artist Dave Stevens passed away last week.

Stevens wrote and drew The Rocketeer comic that got made into a film back in '91 starring Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton.

Stevens had a love for the old pulps and his illustation style reflected that. He also had a soft spot for Bettie Page, basing The Rocketeer's girlfriend on her.

Here's a gallery of his artwork. There's a fair amount of cheesecake stuff here which may be NSFW.

3 comments:

Quentin S. Crisp said...

Just read this obituary:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-stevens13mar13,0,6959684.story

Quoting from the article:

"Bettie was a look, a standard of beauty that I spotted as an adolescent," Stevens told the Post-Intelligencer.

The attention the retired Page received because of the comic helped revive interest in her. Stevens paid Page to use her likeness and helped her get paid by publishers who used her image, friends said.

Artist and subject became friends, which led Stevens to marvel: "After years of fantasizing about this woman, I'm now driving her to cash her Social Security checks."

Stuart Young said...

This was a nice, touching story until I ruined it by thinking, "Hmm, I wonder if he shagged her?"

Quentin S. Crisp said...

Always the way.