Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection

Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection (Kelvin Mao, 2022) I knew this movie was around, but I'd never gotten to see it until recently. Comic artist Dave Stevens was a favorite of mine, first becoming aware of his work writing and drawing with his own self-owned project "The Rocketeer". Even if you didn't know Stevens' comic, you might have heard of or even seen the movie based on it. As this documentary of his life-story mostly concerns his graphics output, it's going to be a bit "in the weeds." Cinematically, the doc is a labor of love, so it's not that impressive, other than the detail of the conversation of the talking heads (who are artists and thus regularly holed up in their studios) and models and of Stevens' family and friends. It's all laid out chronologically from his boyhood to his too-early death at 53, due to leukemia.

 

There were a lot of things about Stevens' work that spoke for itself. Number one, it was beautiful—the draftsmanship was nonpareil, with a detail that was rarely seen in comics, but then (2) it looked like the old Hal Foster strips combined with Will Eisner's sensibilities, with a pulpy, cartoon-y edge and an obvious love for 30's-40's design and architecture. It was nostalgic, but for a past that never existed but you kind of wish had. There was an odd comfort to it, like a nice, greasy lunch at an ancient deco-diner (where the milkshakes are served in the mixer).

Stevens' company logo

But, Stevens could be frustrating. He was a perfectionist with his art—and it showed!—which would mean he would blow past deadlines to finish it and cause delays in publishing. You anticipated a new "Rocketeer" chapter...and it wouldn't show up—like, for a year. But, when it DID show up, you devoured it, studied it, and carefully put it in a mylar sleeve for preservation. They were special enough to take care of. Once the series became popular, Stevens became more diligent and more demanding of himself.

He'd been working for Jack Kirby ("The King"), did some work on the "Star Wars" newspaper strip, as well as commercial art, before being offered the chance to do a back-up series for the "Starslayer" comic being done by Mike Grell for the newly started Pacific Comics. Grell's first story was originally to appear as a DC comic, got dropped, and with the page-count being a little low, Stevens was offered to do a fill-in series. With a wide-range of interests and reference material, Stevens created a Commando Cody-like character, "The Rocketeer". With its Gee Bee Racer, landmarks like the Chaplin Aerodrome and the Bulldog Cafe, winkingly-anonymous references to pulp-heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow and characters based on the images of pin-up girl Bettie Page (as the hero's girlfriend) and "Jonny Quest" co-creator Doug Wildey (as a mechanic pal) and with Rocketeer Cliff Secord based on himself, Stevens had his down-on-his luck pilot discover a mysterious advanced jet-pack that would allow him to fly solo through the skies, and getting himself into all sorts of troublesome adventures.

 

"The Rocketeer" feature became quite popular—probably to the detriment of Stevens' career—and the series, when it appeared, was always a best-seller, outlasting two of the comics companies that distributed it (probably a case of putting all your eggs in one basket, as companies would see the money roll in, but in a limited capacity as Stevens' perfectionism wreaked havoc on publishing schedules and those companies expanded their out-put with properties that didn't sell well, and eventually finances collapsed). Hollywood grabbed at the character—specifically Disney—as an "Indiana Jones"-style knock-off, and, for a time, Stevens was heavily involved with that. Plus, there were lawsuits because the property generated cash and the other way for comics companies to make money was gambling on litigation. "The Rocketeer" was Stevens' baby, and any parent will tell you how that complicates your life, overtakes your life, and becomes an obsession.

And Stevens' work became something of its own brand; he'd make art-prints (usually of the character based on Bettie Page) and "good-girl art" (as it's called) was one of his obsessions, plus he was in high demand for doing covers for other projects...because good covers sold comic books. And Stevens always drew good, striking covers...the kind fan-boys like. "Hmph".

 

One of the interesting things after his success was the re-emergence of Bettie Page, who had fallen on hard times and had no idea that Stevens had almost single-handedly revised interest in her and made her something of an icon. Once Page's whereabouts were discovered, Stevens immediately began arrangements to compensate her for the use of her past image (she refused to be photographed in her later years thinking she'd gained too much weight) and became something of an unofficial caretaker for her. I found that part of the story quite uncharacteristic of the industry and rather touching. Then, Stevens was diagnosed with leukemia and decided after a couple of decades of pencil and ink drawing that he would try and perfect his brush-work painting, something that he never felt he mastered to his exacting standards.

He finally succumbed to his leukemia March 11, 2008. In December of the same year, Page died. No coincidence to that. Stevens just died young.

But, he never lost his fans. Tribute issues of "The Rocketeer" and his other works have been going at a continuous rate by those in the comics industry who were friends or, at least, were influenced by his work and keep the flame alive.

The documentary is full of those friends like Jim Silke, Bruce Timm (who created the Batman: The Animated Series), William Stout, Mark Evanier, and scores of others he crossed paths with, be they comics professionals, models...even Rocketeer star Billy Campbell and director Joe Johnston weigh in. Their stories are varied, funny, ribald, exasperated (but in a good, laughing way) and always fond. Very fond, in point of fact.

I "met" him once and I may have mentioned this story before. He had family in Portland and he'd occasionally show up at the Rose City Comics Convention to do panels, run a table, sign things for fans and, one year, I was one those. I brought a promotional poster he'd done for The Rocketeer and I waited, a surprisingly short time, for him to sign it for me. And yes, he was even meticulous about that, taking minutes to sign his name "just so" and telling me (in deadly earnest) "Now...make sure you wait a little bit because the paper has a high gloss finish and you should allow the ink to dry before it touches anything because it's kind of nappy right now and it'll smudge..." I assured him I would and immediately took it to my car to lay it out flat so it would dry the way he wanted it to. That poster hung in the studio I worked in for many years, and one day I did a voice-over session with John Corbett, who was quite the "break-out star" on the TV series Northern Exposure. He was studying his script, looked up and got a little wistful when he saw the poster. "I was this close to getting that role" he said. Then, went back to the script with a laconic "Aw, but Billy did a great job!" Nice.

 

One wonders what Stevens would have made of the documentary. One imagines that, with his discriminating perfectionist hand in it, it wouldn't have been released yet. As it is, you can find it with a simple search on You Tube.

One thing's for sure. Stevens would have hated—absolutely hated—the poster for the film.*

Stevens (in the flying suit next to "Hitler) filming his cameo for The Rocketeer.

He played a volunteer for a German rocket-pack prototype...which ends up exploding. 

* Of course, for attracting a larger audience, it had to have "The Rocketeer" and Dave's Bettie on it. But I would have preferred, and up until a few minutes ago I was using for the poster image, something like the image below (which has neither). But it's "pure Dave".

The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer (Joe Johnston, 1991) Graphic artist Dave Stevens was handed an assignment for a new comic book*—he'd get to create an eight-page second feature of his own devising and do anything he wanted with it. For Stevens, that meant it had to have a pulp-fiction atmosphere, a late 1930's Los Angeles locale, an art-deco look, and characters with which he was familiar enough to draw. He based the hero on himself, his mechanical engineer Peavey on Doug Wildey (who'd created "Jonny Quest") and for the hero's girlfriend, a forgotten pin-up girl of the 40's and 50's, "Bettie" Page.**

That second feature, "The Rocketeer," quickly eclipsed the comic's title character, and moved to its own publication that, due to Stevens' fastidious attention to artistic detail, came out only infrequently. But the elements were there to attract Disney, looking for a comic-book hero that could economically catch the wave of the recent burgeoning comic-book movie trend and match the box office returns of the "Batman" series.

Even though "The Rocketeer" didn't have the Caped Crusader's cache of cultural iconography (That's Adam West-speak for recognition by the general public), the cult-status of the comic and the script's deep-dish banquet of 30's flotsam (Rocket-packs, Flying Gee-Bee's, Nazi's, gangsters, ugly goons, "good" girls, Howard Hughes, zeppelins, Erroll Flynn swinishness, and the Griffith observatory and an art-deco finish) looked like it was going to be 1991's "sure thing" at the box-office. So confident that it would soar on plumes of flame into the stratosphere, Disney honcho's put out a "memo" saying that this was "the way" they were going to make movies: good properties, well-cast with cheap stars—they were going to put all the money up there on the screen. 

That would have been a good plan if only The Rocketeer hadn't flamed out and fallen to Earth. The Rocketeer under-performed badly at the time of its release.

It became popular on the rental circuit, but the damage was done. No sequels (a trilogy was planned), the other studios chortled about Disney's memo hubris, and went back to paying stars (and their agents) $20 million for a movie (and Disney took to raiding already established franchises to create pre-fabricated tent-poles for their releases—first, The Muppets, then Marvel, then Lucasfilm, and even re-making live-action versions of their own animated features).

Too bad. The Rocketeer is a flawed adaptation of a wonderful property, but if it had inspired similar "value" films, it would have been worth it. The thing is, its heart is in the right place, it's sweet and affectionate about the period it's in, the romance is chaste and makes no concessions to modern audiences, the players are adept—Billy Campbell was born to play "The Rocketeer," he looks just like Dave Stevens—and any movie with Alan Arkin and Paul Sorvino, AND Terry O'Quinn, it goes without saying that they're always enjoyable...plus, Timothy Dalton got to bust up his Bond image a bit.

It is 1938. A down-on-his-heels "fly-boy" Cliff Secord (Campbell) has just managed to screw up his flying career by crashing his stunt-plane at an aerodrome just outside of Los Angeles. Luck falls in his lap when he discovers a rocket-powered jet-pack (recently stolen by mafia gangsters from engineers at Hughes Aircraft at the behest of the Nazi's). With the help of his mechanic-mentor Peavey (Arkin), Cliff is able to get the pack working and even enhancing some features so he becomes his own one-man airplane. Howard Hughes (O'Quinn), however, thinking the prototype destroyed in the attempt, scraps the project now knowing that it is of interest to Germany for their war effort.

Complicating matters is "Jennie" Blake, a hopelessly aspiring actress (she was an "art-photo" model in the comics, but...Disney), who happens to be Cliff's somewhat-serious-if-he'd-get-serious-girl-friend. As long as Cliff is gainfully employed, she takes him seriously, so he lies to her about crashing his plane. Visiting her on the set where she's working as an extra, he tells her about finding the rocket-pack, a conversation that is overheard by the film's star Neville Sinclair (Dalton), who is a secret Nazi agent and who engineered the stealing of the jet-pack at the behest of Hitler's regime as a possible tool for invading America.*** 

Sinclair, being a talented, but no-good-snake and now knowing the prototype exists, takes an interest in Miss Blake (which she mistakes for a career opportunity). This does two things: it makes Jennie an innocent victim of the plot of the movie and an unsuspecting damsel-in-distress; it makes Cliff insanely jealous of a much more privileged rival who might take his girl away. Neither one suspects that both of them are at the center of a much wider conspiracy that would have world-wide complications if they come about. Actually, it's kind of neat how it comes about, like a superhero-Hitchcock film.  

The movie only really takes off, logically enough, when the rocket-pack fires, then things zip, zoom, loop-dee-loop and go slightly out-of-control in a giddy display of pyrotechnics. The rest of the time the film stays firmly rooted to Earth, refusing to soar. Oh, Dalton has fun with his role—he was always better suited playing bad-guys, anyway—And Jennifer Connelly adds some brief spark to her role as "Jennie," Cliff's naively ambitious actress girl-friend. 

That's the problem. Sweet as it is, The Rocketeer could use some spice, which Disney was just too timid to provide. "Jennie" was "Bettie" in the comics, specifically "Bettie" Page, who was far more world-wise and ambitious than the screen incarnation could capture. There was a bit of the real Page's persona in the original character, all too aware that she was the type of girl "men like," and all too willing to exploit her looks to be exploited. That was way too hot for Disney, who gussied Connelly up from head to toe, effectively neutering her character. That the real "Bettie" Page was still alive at the time, and fully capable of contacting lawyers, probably influenced Disney's decision, as well.

Plus...Disney.

And that's too bad. The Rocketeer takes chances, but it still feels "safe," something the comic was having too good a time to worry about. Perhaps the difficulties the filmmakers were having trying to get the story onto the screen half-way resembling Stevens' vision of things (they wanted it contemporary, they wanted Cliff to wear a space helmet (toy potential, merchandising...blah blah blah), made them thankful for small victories along the way to devote more energy to the project.

It was The Rocketeer, however, that convinced Marvel to give the challenging role of directing the first Captain America story for the screen to director Joe Johnson, a job he pulled off with flying red, white and blue colors. 

And, supposedly, Disney is working on a re-boot, called The Rocketeers. We'll see. 

Dave Stevens, died after a long fight with leukemia, at the too-young age of 52.

Page, Stevens and Wildey

(Stevens' models for "Bettie", Cliff, and Peavey)

* Mike Grell's "Starslayer" #2 featured the first appearance of "The Rocketeer"

** She wouldn't stay forgotten for long. The Rocketeer re-generated interest in her long career as a photographer's model, and "nudie" dancer, and she was able to see some money from the marketing of her image.  The Notorious Bettie Page is based on her life.  She didn't like it much, reportedly. An old review of it will be up in the future.

*** Amusingly, there is a Disney-animated "propaganda film" that is shown at one point in the movie, and in its "live" footage, the hapless German test-pilot who gets scorched in their pack's first attempt is played by "Rocketeer" creator Dave Stevens.

I "met" Dave Stevens (actually I was one of zillions at a comic-con he was appearing at) and he signed a promotional poster he had done for the film. He was as fastidious about the signature as he was about his work: "Now...make sure you wait a little bit because the paper has a high gloss finish and you should allow the ink to dry before it touches anything  because it's kind of nappy right now and it'll smudge..."

Thanks, Dave.