Art For Art’s Sake #218: Dave Stevens — The Risqué And The Rocketeer

It’s another week, so it’s another Art For Art’s Sake, with a weekly tour around the very best sequential art I’ve seen…all ending with the work of Dave Stevens.

Wren McDonald – ‘One of my pieces for GOOD FOR HEALTH BAD FOR EDUCATION: an AKIRA fanzine – also available as a 17” X 11” risograph print. Up in the shop!‘

Comic Art #80 (1991) cover by Jaime Hernandez

Mister Miracle #4, 1971, cover by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta

She-Hulk #8, cover by Michael Dowling

Michael Golden – Man-Thing

… and another Man-Thing from Frank Cho

Steve Rude – Zatanna

Simon Gane – Elektra

40 years and more old now (which makes me feel VERY old) – The New Mutants arrived at Marvel with Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (1982) – art by co-creator Bob McLeod

Dark Horse Presents #19 (1988) – cover by Geof Darrow

And something a little more recent… Geoff Darrow’s variant cover for Wolverine #300

And of course, something that detailed deserves a few blow ups…

Multiple Man – Tom Raney

Kevin Eastman – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #04

George Pratt – Animal Man cover

Jonah Hex by Darwyn Cooke

The great Guido Crepax –

Various beautiful bits of Alex Nino –

Conan by Pablo Marcos

And equally beautiful Conan artwork by Mahmud Asrar…

 

And we’ll end here this week with the wonderful artwork of Dave Stevens (1955-2008). Best known for creating The Rocketeer, his glamour style artwork and pin-ups, and for not exactly having the most prolific output, Stevens. But what he did make was just sublime, so smooth of line, such life in all his work – sometimes perfection takes that little bit longer and Stevens always gave his all to whatever he was working on.

Stevens first published Rocketeer story came in 1982 as the back-up tales in issues #2 and #3 of Mike Grell’s Pacific Comics’ Starslayer series. The second two parts came in Pacific Presents #1 and #2 and then concluded in The Rocketeer #1. After that, we had a long wait until Comico published issues 1 and 2 of the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine in 1988/90 and a third published by Dark Horse in 1995.

Of course, Stevens had a very successful career outside of comics in advertising and illustration and he was also involved in the production of the 1991 Rocketeer movie (a very underrated movie if you ask me.)

Obviously, pick up whatever of his works you can find – IDW did a great complete Rocketeer collection – but also do yourselves a favour and check out the documentary “Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection.”

“Dave had more artistic integrity than anyone I’ve ever known. He always marched to his own drummer whether it benefited him financially or not. He turned down many lucrative job offers—including a monthly pin-up assignment for Playboy offered by Hugh Hefner as a replacement for their regular Alberto Vargas feature—when they didn’t jibe with his own highly personal vision of what he should be doing. As a businessman, Dave often drove his close friends nuts. We’d watch in astonishment at the riches passing him by.” – William Stout

“Well, I do expect a lot of myself. I’m a harsh critic because I know what I’m capable of. I have hit those occasional peaks amongst the valleys, but the peaks are so few—things like genuine flashes of virtuoso brush inking, like I’ve never executed before or since—I can count on one hand the number of jobs where I’ve been able to hit that mark. The same with penciling. Sometimes it just flows, but more often than not, it’s pure physical and spiritual torment just to get something decent on paper. I often get very discouraged with the whole creative process.” – Dave Stevens