Dave Stevens interview from The Comics Journal (1987)

Fantagraphics published Gary Groth's 1987 interview with illustrator Dave Stevens, who died last week of luekemia.

You have your priorities. Well, to what do you attribute your preoccupation with cheesecake?

All I know is that I draw what I like. I like those images. I think I'm also taking delight in that I'm able to draw the female figure because when I was a kid I could never draw one for the life of me. Although mine are kind of interchangeable – the same basic baby face, big eyes, and similar bodies. It's just an image that I find real appealing and positive. I don't see anything negative about it or unhealthy. The proportions are sometimes stretched, but there's nothing really gross in those proportions. It's bouncy and it's cute and I find that women enjoy it, too. I've never had a gal come to me or write to me and say, "This is exploitive. This is ugly. I don't like it."

Is that right?

Yeah, I've never had any complaints.

Not even from Cat Yronwode?

Uhhh....

Or are you discounting her as a woman?

[Laughter.] In the beginning I had a little bit of a problem with her over Betty because Cat thought that I was swiping a Frazetta character who was a blonde. What she hooked into was that striped blouse Betty wore. That I definitely got from Frazetta, but Cat didn't realize that it was Betty Page that I was drawing, who was a real person. Cat kind of let me have it in print about stealing from another artist – I don't remember the context. As far as the pin-up art itself, I've never had anybody give me a hard time. The only time I did get one negative response was to that page of Betty in The Rocketeer when she was in the doorway. [Again, Rocketeer #2 from Pacific.] I got to admit that it was a little far. I should have had her at least in a negligee.

Link

• [prom77]

  The era of Dave Stevens (and for that matter, the above mentioned Cat Yronwode)–the Eclipse/Renegade/Aardvark Vanaheim black-and-white boom–is my personal comics golden age. It made the ascent of indie comics out of the morass of DC/Marvel crap possible.

  Pardon the florid tone, but I’m all broken up over this.

• [Santos]

  I have been looking for my copy of that issue. I have it in a plastic box somewhere along with some pristine posters and prints and the Glamour magazine Dave did a cover for. I mentioned it in my blog . And Dave knew Cat knew that Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, and Jack Kamen all used Betty as a model in various EC books. Dave knew this as well as Cat did. I wonder where Gary Groth got the idea she didn’t.

  Isn’t everyone tired of perpetuating the myth Girls are not as geeky about comics as Guys are.

• [Bonnie]

  Dave Stevens will certainly be missed by us all.

  While many fans might be familiar with “The Rocketeer” — the successful comic series created by Stevens, first published in 1982. A little-known fact to many Indiana Jones fans is that Stevens had actually done some storyboard work on “Raiders of the Lost Ark!”

  In addition to the truck fight sequence, Stevens also drafted the boards for a famous lost Shanghai scene from “Raiders” which was later re-purposed for “Temple of Doom.”

  You can read more about Steven’s work on Indy, as well as a rare Star Wars comic here:
  http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2008/03/13/rocketeer-creator-dave-stevens-dies/

• [Adam Stanhope]

  I went to college with Yronwode’s daughter Althea. We both lived in Berkeley’s Barrington Hall in 1989/90.

• [airship]

  “I should have had her at least in a negligee.”

  No, Dave, no you shouldn’t have.

  Rest in peace, buddy. ‘Good girls’ never looked so good.