Art For Art’s Sake # 118: “Rocket Man, Burning Out His Fuse Up Here Alone”

by Richard Bruton

Art For Art’s Sake – guiding you through the world of comic art, one week’s great artwork at a time…this week all ending with a longer look at Dave Steven’s Rocketeer…

But we begin with a little bit of John McCrea – who’s really knocking it out of the park with his commissions:

“Just finished the Alan Moore/Alan Davis Captain Britain book, god what a joy, sadly I cannot find my Panini reprint of the Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe original run- I love it so much! Anyway, here’s a commission I did a while back mashing OG Cap with the Fury n Spidey.”

Chris Weston – Exclusive cover for the “Spider” hardback

Andi Watson – The Hellboy gang…

Brett Ewins‘ stunning work on Judge Anderson –

Norman Lee – another great Brit comic artist of old – cover of Spellbound #8 (1976)

America Chavez and Kate Bishop – Kevin Wada –

Alex Toth – splash to Drag Cartoons #6 (1964)

All-Star Western #5 – Neal Adams –

Batman & Catwoman #6 – variant by Travis Charest –

Constantine – Richard Piers Rayner –

Robin variant cover – Francis Manapul –

Skottie Young – Shang Chi #5

Julian Totino Tedesco – Spider-Man #61 variant cover –

Sam & Max by Steve Purcell –

Frank Quitely – Joker –

Kevin Maguire – Defenders

Vincente Valentine – Etrigan The Demon –

And finally, we’ll end with a longer look at Dave Stevens’ classic creation, The Rocketeer. Yes, Stevens wasn’t exactly the fastest of artists (I still remember waiting soooo long for issues to come out), but his artwork was always an absolute joy to see.

His Rocketeer first appeared in Starslayer #2 (1982) before what can only be described as an erratic publishing schedule, eventually making enough for two graphic novels, before his sad and way too early death from leukaemia in 2008.