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".