Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer died Monday...

Dave Stevens, creator of The Rocketeer and "Good Girl" artist extrordinaire lost his battle with leukemia and has died at the age of 52.

Mark Evanier has written a wonderful tribute to his friend here:
http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2008_03_11.html#014911

I envy all who got to know him other than the occasional fan-boy handshake and grin--but his work and influence will live on.  He, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Michael Golden and Bill Stout are four guys I absolutely geek out over (and probably will for the rest of time).

His participation in that amazing comics renaissance of the late seventies and early eighties has extended far beyond his own work and his own wonderful friendships.  To say he was an inspiration to the Comics world as a whole (even to people who didn't know who he was) is a vast understatement. 
If you don't know who he is I can bring you up to speed with two things:
First of all is the Rocketeer.  If you don't know what that is then I would say Bettie Page.  
Dave Stevens, through his comic The Rocketeer, returned art-deco influenced lines to comics, the love of old airplanes, did more than anyone else to bring Ms. Page back into the limelight as the chief priestess of Pinup queens (spawning thousands of imitators and pretty much the retro fetish as it exists today).  The only thing he didn't have in her character were the tattoos and the rockabilly boyfriends.

Dave Stevens was the model for The Rocketeer, Cliff Secord, himself.
Dave Stevens was RETRO.

It is possible that we would have Mark Schultz and all the great retro artists without Dave, I mean we would have Michael Wm. Kaluta and Stephen Hickman to be sure, but I think we would be lacking that indescribable "thing" that was present in his work, that meticulousness over every facet of his work, from the lines to the color to the printing.  His craft.

The San Diego Comic Con was a small convention when he started going there and it grew up around him, as it has done with everyone who has gone to that show--it seemingly grows every year.  Heck, the show has doubled since my first SDCC and that was only back in 2001! 

But this year it will feel smaller, incomplete.

It is always something when a master is taken from us, in any craft.  But, he leaves us the way we all hope to be missed, with a drawing on the table and people desperately wanting more.

Doesn't change that fact that it sucks.

Jeff Carlisle
www.jeffcarlisle.com