Comic artist Dave Stevens dies

Created 'The Rocketeer'

By VARIETY STAFF

Comic book artist and illustrator Dave Stevens, who created "The Rocketeer," died on March 10, due to complications of leukemia. He was 52.

Stevens was also known for his classic pin-up style drawings and paintings, an interest which led to him almost single-handedly resurrecting the career of 1950s pin-up queen Bettie Page.

Born in Lynwood, Calif., he started out the Tarzan of the Apes and Star Wars newspaper comic strips. Stevens worked for a time at the Hanna-Barbera animation studios.

After leaving Hanna-Barbera, Stevens joined his friends, illustrator and film designer William Stout and science fiction paperback cover illustrator Richard Hescox, becoming a member of their art studio on La Brea Ave. in Los Angeles.

Stout also shared offices with Steven Spielberg at the time. On Stout's recommendation, Stevens was hired to storyboard the harrowing truck fight sequence for "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

With "The Rocketeer," first published in 1982 by Eclipse Comics and then by Comico and finally Dark Horse, Stevens successfully wove classic pulp fiction heroes like Doc Savage and the Shadow into his 1930s narrative. Stevens based the physical appearance of "The Rocketeer's" female lead on Page, whom Stevens later befriended, helping her to set up a licensing business so she could collect from publishers using her image.

The film rights to Dave's comic were purchased by the Walt Disney Company in the late 1980s. A full length live action feature film was released in 1991 directed by Joe Johnston, for which Stevens co-wrote the screenplay and was a co-producer.

He is survived by his mother and a sister.