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00:00:21,021 --> 00:00:23,153
[indistinct chatter]

2
00:00:23,327 --> 00:00:25,938
[Scott]
Like most comic nerds,
I would go to the comic shop,

3
00:00:26,113 --> 00:00:28,941
and I would flip through
pretty much every comic

4
00:00:29,116 --> 00:00:31,640
just to see if there was
some little gem somewhere.

5
00:00:32,467 --> 00:00:33,337
What is this?

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00:00:33,511 --> 00:00:34,425
It looks like some kind of

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00:00:34,599 --> 00:00:35,818
scrawny Doc Savage-y-looking guy

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00:00:35,992 --> 00:00:37,211
with a rocket pack.
And he's got that

9
00:00:37,385 --> 00:00:39,256
Commando Cody helmet.
This is amazing.

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00:00:39,430 --> 00:00:40,431
[Scott]
And I did something
that I don't think

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00:00:40,605 --> 00:00:41,432
I've ever done before.

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00:00:41,606 --> 00:00:42,738
I bought a book

13
00:00:42,912 --> 00:00:44,348
for the back cover.

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00:00:44,914 --> 00:00:47,047
[Jaime]
I saw the Rocketeer
and I was just like,

15
00:00:47,221 --> 00:00:48,831
"God, this guy can draw."

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00:00:49,701 --> 00:00:53,140
[Thomas]
This was a portal
into a world of imagination

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00:00:53,314 --> 00:00:57,535
and artistry that turned me on
in a way that nothing else has.

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00:00:58,754 --> 00:01:01,365
[Bob]
That was the world's
introduction to Dave,

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00:01:01,887 --> 00:01:03,541
and it's like, "Well where
the hell did he come from?"

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00:01:03,715 --> 00:01:06,240
[whimsical music]

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00:01:13,899 --> 00:01:15,423
[calm piano music]

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00:01:16,859 --> 00:01:19,862
[Dave]
I am a real perfectionist
to where I know

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what I want out of it,

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00:01:21,733 --> 00:01:23,953
and I demand everything
out of myself.

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I want to keep trying
new things, new angles,

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00:01:27,826 --> 00:01:30,220
new ways of telling a story.

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00:01:31,047 --> 00:01:33,571
[Rebecka]
Dave definitely lived his life
the way he drew.

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Everything had to be perfect
to a fault.

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[Glen]
To this day, I don't know
that anyone has achieved

30
00:01:41,492 --> 00:01:43,668
what he's achieved
with the brush.

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00:01:43,842 --> 00:01:46,323
Each character has a soul.

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00:01:46,497 --> 00:01:49,283
This is very difficult
for an artist to give a soul

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to the character you draw.

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[Nathan]
Every artist wants to make
a connection with people.

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They want to do their thing,
put it out there,

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and hope and pray
that somebody cares.

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[Adam]
Dave's work really
opened up my eyes

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00:02:02,861 --> 00:02:04,385
to a wider horizon.

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00:02:04,950 --> 00:02:06,343
[David]
Dave is really, in some ways,

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00:02:06,517 --> 00:02:08,650
single-handedly responsible
for bringing

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00:02:08,824 --> 00:02:10,391
the world's attention

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00:02:10,565 --> 00:02:12,523
back to Bettie Page.

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[Danny]
Like any artist and the reason

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he's getting
a documentary made about him,

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00:02:16,484 --> 00:02:18,268
is because his art says a lot.

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[soft music]

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00:02:32,717 --> 00:02:35,285
[Greg]
My dearest and very best friend,
Dave Stevens,

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00:02:35,459 --> 00:02:38,070
was born on July 29th, 1955,

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00:02:38,245 --> 00:02:39,724
in Southern California.

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00:02:39,898 --> 00:02:42,074
We started together
in kindergarten.

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00:02:42,249 --> 00:02:44,164
I didn't have a father
growing up,

52
00:02:44,338 --> 00:02:46,949
so Dad Stevens was pretty much
my father.

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00:02:47,863 --> 00:02:49,517
And Dave was like my brother.

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[William]
Dave's Dad was the sweetest,
nicest guy.

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00:02:52,346 --> 00:02:54,870
Dave got his tremendous,
good looks from his mom.

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00:02:55,871 --> 00:02:58,395
[John]
His parents were religious,
and he wasn't.

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00:02:58,569 --> 00:03:00,267
Oh, well,
I should rephrase that.

58
00:03:00,441 --> 00:03:01,833
He wasn't all that religious.

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00:03:02,443 --> 00:03:04,836
[Greg]
Dad Stevens was very stoic

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00:03:05,010 --> 00:03:07,143
and I think
that had an influence on David.

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00:03:07,709 --> 00:03:10,233
[Jennifer]
The art gene came from our dad.

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Dave had described him
as kind of a frustrated artist.

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00:03:13,845 --> 00:03:15,847
[Greg] Dave took it
to the[unintelligible],
whereas, you know,

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his dad was just doing it
as a hobby.

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00:03:18,110 --> 00:03:20,287
He was a unique character.

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00:03:20,461 --> 00:03:24,204
He had a vision
born of America's pop culture.

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[Dave]
As far back as I can remember,

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00:03:26,118 --> 00:03:28,686
I was only interested
in bizarre stuff...

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00:03:28,860 --> 00:03:30,079
[chuckles] you know,

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monsters and rocket ships

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00:03:31,994 --> 00:03:34,736
and things that aren't
really of this world.

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And of course, he loved to draw.
That was all he ever did.

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00:03:37,260 --> 00:03:40,002
First, I wanted to do cartoons,
moving comics,

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and then I wanted
to do comic-comics.

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00:03:42,309 --> 00:03:44,659
And then when I got older,
I wanted to do painting

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00:03:45,399 --> 00:03:47,139
and fine art
and become an artiste.

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I would go over to his house,
and he'd have some layout

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00:03:49,968 --> 00:03:51,535
and he would be complaining.
And I said,

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"What's wrong with this?
This is perfect."

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And he said, "No, it's not."

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00:03:54,625 --> 00:03:56,714
[Dave]
The only sort of ticket I had

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was the fact that I could draw.

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My freshman year of high school,

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my teacher would tell people,

85
00:04:01,632 --> 00:04:03,634
"Oh, yeah,
David's forte is the figure."

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00:04:03,808 --> 00:04:05,462
It was sort of duly noted

87
00:04:05,636 --> 00:04:08,465
by each successive teacher
in art that I had that,

88
00:04:08,639 --> 00:04:10,250
"Oh, watch this kid."

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00:04:10,815 --> 00:04:13,122
[Greg]
He made this for me
as kind of his going away.

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00:04:13,296 --> 00:04:16,343
He told me in parting that
he's gonna keep an eye on me.

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00:04:16,517 --> 00:04:18,475
I cherish this,
this is very important to me.

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[Dave]
In February or March of '72,
my family moved to San Diego.

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00:04:23,219 --> 00:04:27,354
I went to City College downtown
for a couple of semesters

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00:04:27,528 --> 00:04:28,964
and took some art classes.

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00:04:29,138 --> 00:04:31,271
I knew that I needed
more schooling.

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00:04:31,445 --> 00:04:33,142
There was a lot
of class assignments,

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00:04:33,316 --> 00:04:34,709
things that weren't necessarily

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00:04:34,883 --> 00:04:36,276
what he would be drawing

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if he had his choice.

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00:04:38,930 --> 00:04:40,541
There's no way
he would've decided,

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"Hey, I'm going to draw
a loaf of bread." [chuckles]

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[Dave]
You need to learn
about composition and design

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00:04:46,764 --> 00:04:48,418
and everything,
from the ground up.

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00:04:48,592 --> 00:04:50,899
I had no real drawing skills,
I could fake it,

105
00:04:51,073 --> 00:04:53,162
but I couldn't
really do anatomy.

106
00:04:53,336 --> 00:04:55,033
And I knew nothing
about perspective.

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I just was completely helpless.

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[David]
In San Diego,

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Dave was at those
early Comic-Con's

110
00:05:01,823 --> 00:05:05,435
and got to meet both--
some of his artistic heroes,

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00:05:05,609 --> 00:05:07,872
but then also other young guys
who sort of

112
00:05:08,046 --> 00:05:09,787
rose up in the business
with him.

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00:05:09,961 --> 00:05:12,268
One of the things
about Comic-Con is that

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people who might never
have met each other in life

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not only met,
but their whole lives

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changed because of

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being at that one event
for a few days.

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[Brinke]
When I first got involved
with the San Diego Comic-Con,

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I was 18 years old,

120
00:05:27,239 --> 00:05:29,764
and the first person I saw
was Dave Stevens.

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And I'm like, "Ooh, he's cute."

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Little did I know
that we would get married

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seven years later.

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I met Dave working
on the San Diego Comic-Con.

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We both did a lot of drawings
for the Program Book.

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Dave was someone I noticed
right away

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from the convention booklet.

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I was immediately taken
with his inking.

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[Dave]
I did little, tiny ads
for papers and stuff.

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You know, whoever would pay
for some kid

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that didn't really know
what he was doing.

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[Wray]
I also hired him to work for me.

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I had penciled a ad
for Bob's Comics.

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He, of course,
pulled it together

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00:06:04,755 --> 00:06:06,888
when he inked it
and just made it beautiful.

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[Scroggy]
Everybody, who ever met Dave

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in his early days

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recognized his talent,

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even though they were still
in a formative state.

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[Dave]
At the '73 Con, Neal Adams was

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doing these informal
portfolio reviews.

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He said,
"Are those your samples?"
And I said, "Yeah,

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but you-- you're getting ready
to leave. You don't have time."

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00:06:28,649 --> 00:06:31,086
And he says, "Well, will you
take the time I give you?"

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Neal Adams was enormously
discouraging to some people

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who he just simply felt
had no talent

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00:06:37,266 --> 00:06:39,007
and ought to be told
that bluntly.

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[Richard]
He came to some
black and white ink drawings

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and then I was astonished to see

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00:06:44,534 --> 00:06:46,449
that the artist was
Dave Stevens.

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[Dave]
He flipped through it, looking
and commenting on each piece,

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00:06:50,322 --> 00:06:52,934
and at the end of it, he said,
"You can ink for Marvel."

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00:06:53,108 --> 00:06:54,588
[chuckles]
Just, just like that.

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00:06:54,762 --> 00:06:56,328
He said,
"I'll send it back east."

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I think he was 18 at the time.

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00:06:58,592 --> 00:07:00,942
I was the grand old age
of 23 or 4,

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00:07:01,116 --> 00:07:03,727
and Dave caught his attention.

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00:07:03,901 --> 00:07:05,468
[Dave]
It took maybe a couple of months

159
00:07:05,642 --> 00:07:06,817
before I got the samples back.

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00:07:06,991 --> 00:07:07,949
There was no letter,

161
00:07:08,123 --> 00:07:09,385
just a note on the outside

162
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saying, "not ready," underlined.

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But at least I knew
that the stuff got looked at.

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I'm kind of glad
I didn't get any work then

165
00:07:17,567 --> 00:07:19,395
because I needed at least two
or three more years

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00:07:19,569 --> 00:07:21,702
to hone my chops with the brush.

167
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I just didn't have it.

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00:07:24,966 --> 00:07:27,664
My break into comics
was with Russ Manning.

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00:07:27,838 --> 00:07:31,059
He was looking for somebody
to assist on the Tarzanstrip,

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00:07:31,233 --> 00:07:33,670
so, I went up and he seemed
to think I'd fit the bill.

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[Wray]
Russ figured out early on
that Dave could ink

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the whole thing
and make him look better

173
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than he actually looked.

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I worked for him in 75

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00:07:41,373 --> 00:07:42,897
and part of 76.

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I suffer burnout really easily,
really quick.

177
00:07:45,900 --> 00:07:47,249
At that point,

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I was so completely
dried out and...

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[chuckles]  ...exhausted

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00:07:51,949 --> 00:07:53,342
after a year and a half of

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00:07:53,516 --> 00:07:55,126
deadline, deadline, deadline.

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00:07:55,300 --> 00:07:57,912
I just knew I didn't have
the temperament for it.

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00:07:58,086 --> 00:08:00,436
I just decided to turn
to film work

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00:08:00,610 --> 00:08:02,786
and storyboard gigs
and advertising.

185
00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,963
In fact, why I moved to LA
in the late '70s,

186
00:08:06,137 --> 00:08:08,749
it was the only kind of work
that I could get with my skills.

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00:08:11,099 --> 00:08:13,710
In all of my experiences
in animation,

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00:08:13,884 --> 00:08:16,713
I never had once,
say, anybody say,

189
00:08:16,887 --> 00:08:18,236
"Where'd you go to school?"

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00:08:18,410 --> 00:08:19,194
They want to see the work.

191
00:08:19,368 --> 00:08:20,412
And if it's good

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00:08:20,587 --> 00:08:21,849
and you don't seem like a nut,

193
00:08:22,023 --> 00:08:23,154
you've got the job.

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00:08:23,328 --> 00:08:24,460
[Dave]
I was 22 at the time

195
00:08:24,634 --> 00:08:26,027
when I started at Hanna-Barbera.

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00:08:26,201 --> 00:08:29,117
[Hanna-Barbera theme music]

197
00:08:29,987 --> 00:08:32,163
In animation, it didn't matter
where you came from

198
00:08:32,337 --> 00:08:34,426
as long as you could mimic
the style

199
00:08:34,601 --> 00:08:36,472
on whatever model sheet
you were looking at.

200
00:08:37,865 --> 00:08:40,911
[Mark]
It was a fun place to be
if you could deal with the fact

201
00:08:41,085 --> 00:08:43,087
that there was always someone
running around yelling,

202
00:08:43,261 --> 00:08:45,263
"Faster, cheaper,
faster, cheaper."

203
00:08:45,437 --> 00:08:48,615
A lot of artists were not happy
to be part of an assembly line.

204
00:08:49,354 --> 00:08:52,444
[Dave]
When I first was on my own
in Hollywood,

205
00:08:52,619 --> 00:08:55,143
I was all enthusiasm,
I was all gung ho,

206
00:08:55,317 --> 00:08:56,710
and if somebody said,
"Can you do this?"

207
00:08:56,884 --> 00:08:57,841
I would say, "Absolutely.

208
00:08:58,015 --> 00:08:59,408
[laughs]

209
00:08:59,582 --> 00:09:00,888
I can start today."

210
00:09:01,062 --> 00:09:02,324
[Wray]
When Dave was at Hanna-Barbera,

211
00:09:02,498 --> 00:09:03,804
he was doing the layout.

212
00:09:03,978 --> 00:09:05,849
And layout
in the animation process

213
00:09:06,023 --> 00:09:09,766
is a series of poses designed
for the animator to work from.

214
00:09:09,940 --> 00:09:11,638
[Shaw!]
Here's one of Dave's layouts.

215
00:09:11,812 --> 00:09:14,162
This shows
just how detailed Dave was

216
00:09:14,336 --> 00:09:17,382
because the typical layout
is more of a sketch,

217
00:09:17,557 --> 00:09:19,776
but there's no real flair to it
like this.

218
00:09:19,950 --> 00:09:22,649
Dave was the slowest guy
in the building

219
00:09:22,823 --> 00:09:24,781
and he would have been
the first one to tell you that.

220
00:09:24,955 --> 00:09:27,305
I'd be up visiting the guys
in the layout department.

221
00:09:27,479 --> 00:09:28,916
An artist would go,
"Oh, God I'm tired.

222
00:09:29,090 --> 00:09:30,874
I did 80 scenes yesterday."

223
00:09:31,048 --> 00:09:33,442
And somebody else would say,
"Oh, I did 60 scenes."

224
00:09:33,616 --> 00:09:36,010
And Dave would say,
"I did five."

225
00:09:37,228 --> 00:09:38,752
[Shaw!]
Dave wasn't goofing off.

226
00:09:38,926 --> 00:09:40,623
He was working as hard
as anybody

227
00:09:40,797 --> 00:09:43,278
and he got a lot of grief
from the other artists.

228
00:09:43,757 --> 00:09:48,631
The key was, he was by far
the producer's favorite artist.

229
00:09:49,632 --> 00:09:52,287
Doug Wildey
was an outstanding cartoonist

230
00:09:52,461 --> 00:09:54,289
who created Jonny Quest.

231
00:09:54,855 --> 00:09:56,596
He kind of became Dave's mentor.

232
00:09:56,770 --> 00:10:01,035
Doug had this real dry wit
and also was a bit cantankerous.

233
00:10:01,209 --> 00:10:02,471
He was a true curmudgeon.

234
00:10:03,037 --> 00:10:04,952
A lot of that rubbed off
on Dave.

235
00:10:05,474 --> 00:10:08,042
Fortunately, he was doing
non-creative stuff with

236
00:10:08,216 --> 00:10:11,045
a lot of like-minded,
extremely talented people,

237
00:10:11,219 --> 00:10:15,963
and all of them fed into Dave's
skill level and his goals.

238
00:10:16,137 --> 00:10:18,269
He was overqualified
for the job,

239
00:10:18,443 --> 00:10:20,010
but he liked the comradery

240
00:10:20,184 --> 00:10:21,882
of working alongside Russ Heath

241
00:10:22,056 --> 00:10:23,623
or a Mike Sekowsky

242
00:10:23,797 --> 00:10:25,102
or an Alex Toth.

243
00:10:25,799 --> 00:10:28,802
[Geofrey]
You can't imagine the talent
that they had there,

244
00:10:28,976 --> 00:10:30,107
but it never reflected
on the screen

245
00:10:30,281 --> 00:10:31,718
because they had to do them
so fast.

246
00:10:31,892 --> 00:10:32,806
And they were so cheap.

247
00:10:32,980 --> 00:10:34,721
But man, they had some guys.

248
00:10:34,895 --> 00:10:35,765
Phew.

249
00:10:36,418 --> 00:10:37,549
A lot of the comic book artists

250
00:10:37,724 --> 00:10:38,812
who worked at Hanna-Barbera,

251
00:10:38,986 --> 00:10:40,204
a great example of what

252
00:10:40,378 --> 00:10:41,771
Dave did not want to
grow up to be.

253
00:10:41,945 --> 00:10:43,991
Because there were
wonderful artists there

254
00:10:44,469 --> 00:10:47,777
who were spending their lives
chasing job after job,

255
00:10:47,951 --> 00:10:50,345
doing work that they had
no emotional interest in.

256
00:10:50,519 --> 00:10:53,391
One of the reasons I went back
to advertising was just,

257
00:10:53,565 --> 00:10:55,306
I got so fed up
and frustrated every time

258
00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:56,960
I went in to try
and get something

259
00:10:57,134 --> 00:10:59,702
past the directors
and past the animators.

260
00:10:59,876 --> 00:11:01,312
It's not really encouraging.

261
00:11:01,922 --> 00:11:03,445
[Mark]
Dave had his whole career
ahead of him

262
00:11:03,619 --> 00:11:06,404
in a business which was becoming
more artist friendly.

263
00:11:07,144 --> 00:11:08,537
[Dave]
Comics were fun,

264
00:11:08,711 --> 00:11:09,973
but I certainly didn't want
to make it my

265
00:11:10,670 --> 00:11:11,627
life's work.

266
00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:14,586
I only got into it
when people would

267
00:11:14,761 --> 00:11:16,937
run into deadlines and
they would call me up and say,

268
00:11:17,111 --> 00:11:19,548
"Hey, can you take four pages
of this story,"

269
00:11:19,722 --> 00:11:20,767
you know, and I would fill in on

270
00:11:20,941 --> 00:11:23,117
Star Wars or whatever it was.

271
00:11:23,291 --> 00:11:25,597
[Wray]
Rick Hoberg did tight pencils
and I inked.

272
00:11:25,772 --> 00:11:27,512
We only had a week to do it so,

273
00:11:27,687 --> 00:11:29,514
lots of different people
worked on that job,

274
00:11:29,689 --> 00:11:31,255
but the main helper was Dave.

275
00:11:31,821 --> 00:11:34,302
We knew if he inked
the close ups of Mark Hamill,

276
00:11:34,476 --> 00:11:37,218
and Harrison Ford,
that they would be spot on.

277
00:11:37,392 --> 00:11:40,090
Dave's also inked Russ Manning
on the Star Warsstrips.

278
00:11:40,656 --> 00:11:42,179
[Dave]
Whenever I ink
somebody else's work,

279
00:11:42,353 --> 00:11:44,138
I don't just sit down
and mechanically

280
00:11:44,312 --> 00:11:45,661
go over the pencil lines.

281
00:11:45,835 --> 00:11:48,403
I'll go over it
and see what I think

282
00:11:48,577 --> 00:11:51,058
needs to be brought out
and what needs to be toned down

283
00:11:51,232 --> 00:11:53,800
and make it something
that I enjoy working on.

284
00:11:53,974 --> 00:11:55,453
And if it's bad drawing,
I will go back

285
00:11:55,627 --> 00:11:56,716
and erase all of the drawing.

286
00:11:56,890 --> 00:11:58,108
And if it's good drawing,

287
00:11:58,282 --> 00:11:59,544
I'll try and make it better.

288
00:12:00,197 --> 00:12:01,459
[Scroggy]
If you knew Dave's style

289
00:12:01,633 --> 00:12:03,287
you could really see
his rendering

290
00:12:03,461 --> 00:12:04,985
in those Star Warsstrips.

291
00:12:05,159 --> 00:12:07,204
[Dave]
The only time I had gone ahead

292
00:12:07,378 --> 00:12:09,641
and done anything in comics
at all

293
00:12:09,816 --> 00:12:12,296
after working for Russ was
Aurora for Sanrio.

294
00:12:12,470 --> 00:12:14,864
They were putting together
a book for Japanese audiences

295
00:12:15,038 --> 00:12:16,300
geared towards young girls.

296
00:12:16,474 --> 00:12:17,824
[Scroggy]
It was the first time

297
00:12:17,998 --> 00:12:20,130
Dave was being compensated
well enough

298
00:12:20,304 --> 00:12:22,611
to spend the time, to get

299
00:12:22,785 --> 00:12:25,266
the work to be the best
it could be.

300
00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:28,660
He proceeded to take so long
the company had gone belly up.

301
00:12:28,835 --> 00:12:30,053
The whole operation had stopped

302
00:12:30,227 --> 00:12:32,273
functioning long before
he turned it in.

303
00:12:34,797 --> 00:12:38,018
I started modeling for Dave
in 1977.

304
00:12:38,714 --> 00:12:42,718
I think that I was the first
model he'd ever worked with.

305
00:12:42,892 --> 00:12:47,636
[Scroggy]
For Dave, having Brinke Stevens
as the model was an inspiration,

306
00:12:48,942 --> 00:12:52,032
not only commercial reasons
but emotional reasons.

307
00:12:52,728 --> 00:12:55,513
That was certainly part
of the courting process.

308
00:12:55,687 --> 00:12:58,995
For a time, she was
the only female at Comic-Con.

309
00:12:59,822 --> 00:13:01,171
[Jackie]
Brinke was in charge
of the masquerade

310
00:13:01,345 --> 00:13:03,695
and she would put on
performances as

311
00:13:03,870 --> 00:13:05,132
the intermission.

312
00:13:06,046 --> 00:13:08,570
[William]
Dave noticed her
and they began a relationship.

313
00:13:08,744 --> 00:13:10,920
I don't know if she
exactly played hard to get,

314
00:13:11,094 --> 00:13:12,748
but it took him a while.

315
00:13:12,922 --> 00:13:14,968
[Brinke]
Dave had been in love
with me pretty much

316
00:13:15,142 --> 00:13:16,796
since the first time he saw me.

317
00:13:16,970 --> 00:13:19,624
I really felt
like I was a muse to him.

318
00:13:19,799 --> 00:13:21,713
He loved to photograph me.

319
00:13:23,411 --> 00:13:24,499
Most of the time though,

320
00:13:24,673 --> 00:13:27,545
he wanted me to model nude.

321
00:13:28,372 --> 00:13:30,026
He said it was so
that he could draw

322
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:32,159
on his own clothing later.

323
00:13:32,333 --> 00:13:34,552
But I think he just really
wanted to see me naked.

324
00:13:34,726 --> 00:13:35,597
[laughs]

325
00:13:36,163 --> 00:13:37,555
[Jennifer]
Before they got engaged,

326
00:13:37,729 --> 00:13:39,819
Dad was exasperated with him.
It was like

327
00:13:39,993 --> 00:13:42,734
marry the girl
or break up with her,

328
00:13:42,909 --> 00:13:44,475
make something happen.

329
00:13:46,477 --> 00:13:47,827
A few years ago,
I shared a studio

330
00:13:48,001 --> 00:13:50,046
with Bill Stout
and, uh, Richard Hescox

331
00:13:50,220 --> 00:13:52,353
and we worked together
very well.

332
00:13:52,962 --> 00:13:55,051
We were hoping
to have the West Coast version

333
00:13:55,225 --> 00:13:57,488
of the East Coast studio,
which had Jeff Jones,

334
00:13:57,662 --> 00:13:59,839
Bernie Wrightson, Barry Smith,
and Mike Kaluta.

335
00:14:00,491 --> 00:14:03,494
Bernie could draw like a king,
draw circles around the moon.

336
00:14:03,668 --> 00:14:06,846
We initially started talking
about sharing a studio together,

337
00:14:07,020 --> 00:14:07,934
he and I,

338
00:14:08,108 --> 00:14:10,153
but it was an economic necessity

339
00:14:10,327 --> 00:14:11,981
having other people
come in on it.

340
00:14:12,155 --> 00:14:13,548
We started to think, "Wow,

341
00:14:13,722 --> 00:14:15,376
this is something
kind of special happening."

342
00:14:15,550 --> 00:14:17,900
We decided, "How about we do
our own powerhouse team

343
00:14:18,074 --> 00:14:19,641
with us three guys?"

344
00:14:19,815 --> 00:14:21,817
It was just this
wonderful synthesis

345
00:14:21,991 --> 00:14:23,558
of our three different
personalities.

346
00:14:23,732 --> 00:14:26,604
It was, uh, inspirational
to be in the same room

347
00:14:26,778 --> 00:14:28,476
with two other artists
that you respect.

348
00:14:29,129 --> 00:14:31,914
You kind of bounce ideas
off of each other.

349
00:14:32,088 --> 00:14:33,873
We became
the hottest studio in LA.

350
00:14:35,352 --> 00:14:37,964
Top-name film directors,
actors, writers,

351
00:14:38,138 --> 00:14:40,444
magicians, musicians.

352
00:14:40,618 --> 00:14:43,273
They all wanted to see
the studio or hire
us to work for them.

353
00:14:43,447 --> 00:14:45,536
By virtue of the fact
that each one of you is

354
00:14:45,710 --> 00:14:47,016
very good at what he does,

355
00:14:47,190 --> 00:14:48,235
it keeps you on your toes.

356
00:14:48,409 --> 00:14:50,237
It makes you want
to do your best,

357
00:14:50,411 --> 00:14:51,368
your very best work.

358
00:14:51,542 --> 00:14:52,848
We were very open about

359
00:14:53,022 --> 00:14:54,110
criticizing each other's works.

360
00:14:54,284 --> 00:14:55,068
If something was wrong,

361
00:14:55,242 --> 00:14:56,112
we would tell you.

362
00:14:56,983 --> 00:14:58,332
[John]
Dave learned a lot
from those guys.

363
00:14:58,506 --> 00:15:00,116
But it did, I think,
bother him, you know,

364
00:15:00,290 --> 00:15:02,249
a little bit that he wasn't
professionally trained.

365
00:15:02,814 --> 00:15:05,600
[Richard]
Dave, of course,
started with his innate talent.

366
00:15:05,774 --> 00:15:06,818
It was there.

367
00:15:06,993 --> 00:15:08,385
It was enough for him

368
00:15:08,559 --> 00:15:11,258
to be self-taught
and still be good.

369
00:15:11,432 --> 00:15:14,522
Whether that led to him
feeling insecure,

370
00:15:15,088 --> 00:15:18,395
I'm not sure
that that was something
he should have worried about.

371
00:15:18,569 --> 00:15:21,007
Gilbert and I was like,
"What do you need school for?
Just draw."

372
00:15:21,181 --> 00:15:24,053
That was, cause that was
where we came from.
"Just do it, man. Look here.

373
00:15:24,227 --> 00:15:25,750
There's your piece of paper,
there's your pencil,"

374
00:15:25,925 --> 00:15:26,838
and Dave was just like...

375
00:15:27,013 --> 00:15:28,318
[chuckles]

376
00:15:28,884 --> 00:15:31,104
[Dave]
I always felt
really, really outgunned

377
00:15:31,278 --> 00:15:34,281
by Stout and other artists
that could compose a scene

378
00:15:34,455 --> 00:15:36,413
and I really had
to struggle with it.

379
00:15:36,587 --> 00:15:38,502
I didn't really start
to smarten up

380
00:15:38,676 --> 00:15:41,636
about growing as an artist
until around the time

381
00:15:41,810 --> 00:15:43,986
I was doing storyboards
onRaiders.

382
00:15:44,900 --> 00:15:46,989
[William]
When I was working
on Conan the Barbarian

383
00:15:47,163 --> 00:15:49,861
and moonlighting
on Raiders of the Lost Ark,

384
00:15:50,036 --> 00:15:53,648
it quickly became clear that I
need to totally focus on Conan.

385
00:15:54,214 --> 00:15:57,173
I went to Steven, and I said,
"Look, I can recommend
a friend of mine to replace me.

386
00:15:57,347 --> 00:15:59,393
His name is Dave Stevens.
I think he'd do a great job.

387
00:16:00,263 --> 00:16:01,873
Plus, he loves that period
of time."

388
00:16:02,483 --> 00:16:03,919
Steven hired him on the spot

389
00:16:04,485 --> 00:16:06,922
and that's how Dave started
boarding for Spielberg.

390
00:16:07,096 --> 00:16:10,839
Dave's perfectionism
was certainly one of the things

391
00:16:11,013 --> 00:16:12,841
that I believe made him great.

392
00:16:13,015 --> 00:16:14,799
The only reason
it held him back,

393
00:16:14,974 --> 00:16:18,499
and he would always admit this,
he was not a fast artist.

394
00:16:18,673 --> 00:16:20,892
He was making it perfect
to his standard,

395
00:16:21,067 --> 00:16:22,633
and I don't know
if that ever happened.

396
00:16:23,199 --> 00:16:26,289
Every panel had to be
a work of art.

397
00:16:26,898 --> 00:16:30,163
[Dave]
Steven would hand me
his little X's and 0's

398
00:16:30,337 --> 00:16:32,600
and sticks and, and say
this is what I want the scene

399
00:16:32,774 --> 00:16:34,341
-to look like, and...
-[man 1] Mm-hmm.

400
00:16:34,515 --> 00:16:36,952
And then I would draw
all the action.

401
00:16:37,126 --> 00:16:39,563
[Richard]
Steven Spielberg would think
that they were great and say,

402
00:16:39,737 --> 00:16:41,087
"Oh, more detail, more detail.

403
00:16:41,261 --> 00:16:42,740
I want these
to be the best storyboards

404
00:16:42,914 --> 00:16:44,220
that have ever been drawn."

405
00:16:44,394 --> 00:16:46,875
Dave knew that was
because Steven Spielberg

406
00:16:47,049 --> 00:16:50,139
had every intention of taking
those storyboards home with him.

407
00:16:50,313 --> 00:16:51,836
Lucas would come and go,
"What are you doing?

408
00:16:52,011 --> 00:16:53,186
We got to, you know,
we got to, come on, come on.

409
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:54,491
These things are
just down and dirty."

410
00:16:54,665 --> 00:16:55,884
Which storyboards generally are,

411
00:16:56,058 --> 00:16:57,625
they, they don't
have to be pretty.

412
00:16:57,799 --> 00:16:59,453
So, he's between
the two of them.

413
00:16:59,627 --> 00:17:01,237
One to tell them to take longer
than the other one coming

414
00:17:01,411 --> 00:17:02,673
and telling him to hurry it up.

415
00:17:03,283 --> 00:17:04,545
It kind of made him
a little crazy.

416
00:17:09,245 --> 00:17:12,248
[Brinke]
He was making really
good money for a young man.

417
00:17:12,422 --> 00:17:13,641
And he said, "Let's get married.

418
00:17:13,815 --> 00:17:15,121
I can finally afford it now."

419
00:17:16,470 --> 00:17:18,733
[Jennifer]
The two of them enjoyed
playing house,

420
00:17:19,255 --> 00:17:21,083
but I don't think they ever
talked about

421
00:17:21,257 --> 00:17:22,563
what they really wanted

422
00:17:22,737 --> 00:17:24,608
out of a marriage
with one another.

423
00:17:26,132 --> 00:17:29,352
[Brinke]
Dave and I got married
in July of 1980.

424
00:17:29,961 --> 00:17:32,529
We had less than 40 people
at the wedding.

425
00:17:32,703 --> 00:17:34,227
We wrote our own vows,

426
00:17:34,401 --> 00:17:36,881
and my mother
made sandwiches later,

427
00:17:37,056 --> 00:17:38,666
which we ate back
at the apartment

428
00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:39,710
that we shared.

429
00:17:39,884 --> 00:17:41,538
So, it was pretty low-key,

430
00:17:41,712 --> 00:17:43,323
just really romantic.

431
00:17:44,802 --> 00:17:46,369
[John]
In the beginning,
I wasn't too sure of her

432
00:17:46,543 --> 00:17:48,067
'cause I thought she was taking
advantage of Dave.

433
00:17:48,241 --> 00:17:50,417
But Dave had a long talk with me
about her and said,

434
00:17:50,591 --> 00:17:52,462
"Look, this is the way it is."
I'm like, "Okay.

435
00:17:52,636 --> 00:17:54,247
As long as I know
you're not getting screwed over.

436
00:17:54,421 --> 00:17:55,770
Brinke's a nice person,

437
00:17:55,944 --> 00:17:57,772
I just didn't want
to see you get hurt."

438
00:17:58,338 --> 00:17:59,643
[Brinke]
As soon as we got married,

439
00:17:59,817 --> 00:18:00,775
things changed.

440
00:18:01,471 --> 00:18:03,212
Dave did not want me
to have a career.

441
00:18:04,779 --> 00:18:06,259
He wanted me to be a wife.

442
00:18:07,216 --> 00:18:10,176
[Jennifer]
There was a lot of conflict
from the get-go.

443
00:18:10,350 --> 00:18:12,178
I remember my parents
being on the phone

444
00:18:12,352 --> 00:18:13,875
with Dave a lot.

445
00:18:15,268 --> 00:18:16,573
Dave just talked about what a...

446
00:18:16,747 --> 00:18:18,749
[chuckles]
disaster their marriage was.

447
00:18:19,315 --> 00:18:22,362
[Brinke]
He especially didn't like me
having an acting career,

448
00:18:22,536 --> 00:18:24,842
doing glamor modeling
for photographers.

449
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:28,411
He just said, "We were young.
We shouldn't have done it."

450
00:18:28,977 --> 00:18:30,892
[Brinke]
I came home one day,
and they were

451
00:18:31,066 --> 00:18:32,502
carting Dave's furniture out.

452
00:18:33,590 --> 00:18:36,419
Dave said, "I'm leaving you
before you can leave me."

453
00:18:37,855 --> 00:18:38,726
And he did.

454
00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:43,818
Even though Dave and I
got divorced in 1982,

455
00:18:43,992 --> 00:18:46,037
we stayed best friends
and lovers

456
00:18:46,212 --> 00:18:47,822
for the rest of the 80's.

457
00:18:48,518 --> 00:18:50,520
I modeled a lot for him.

458
00:18:50,694 --> 00:18:54,568
And by leaving me,
he forced me to go out

459
00:18:54,742 --> 00:18:57,005
and make something of my life.

460
00:18:57,179 --> 00:18:59,268
Through the love
and the divorce,

461
00:19:00,008 --> 00:19:02,010
Dave got me where I am today.

462
00:19:02,184 --> 00:19:03,577
And I thank him for that.

463
00:19:08,277 --> 00:19:11,454
[Dave]
Between animation and
storyboarding and advertising,

464
00:19:11,628 --> 00:19:14,022
the question of comics
never came up again at all

465
00:19:14,196 --> 00:19:17,373
until the San Diego Con in '81.

466
00:19:17,547 --> 00:19:19,201
Dave knew Bill Schanes
and Steve Schanes

467
00:19:19,375 --> 00:19:20,637
from Pacific Comics

468
00:19:20,811 --> 00:19:22,900
from his association
with Comic-Con.

469
00:19:23,074 --> 00:19:25,903
[Dave]
They just had a book
that they were about to launch

470
00:19:26,077 --> 00:19:28,384
with Mike Grell
calledStarslayer,

471
00:19:28,558 --> 00:19:31,474
but I think it was short
by six pages.

472
00:19:31,648 --> 00:19:33,215
Prior to Pacific Comics,

473
00:19:33,389 --> 00:19:37,132
the comics world had been
very oppressive to creators.

474
00:19:37,306 --> 00:19:39,961
[Dave]
The Schanes' said,
"You sign this deal with us.

475
00:19:40,135 --> 00:19:42,790
It's only two installments
of half a dozen pages.

476
00:19:42,964 --> 00:19:44,879
How tough could it be?
And you'd own it."

477
00:19:45,053 --> 00:19:48,622
I wouldn't have to surrender up
in perpetuity all rights.

478
00:19:48,796 --> 00:19:50,711
What are the ingredients
of success?

479
00:19:50,885 --> 00:19:52,321
It's the artist,
it's the creator,

480
00:19:52,495 --> 00:19:53,844
it's the characters,
it's the setting,

481
00:19:54,018 --> 00:19:55,933
it's how it's presented,
it's the time

482
00:19:56,107 --> 00:19:57,848
that it's unleashed
on the world.

483
00:20:00,590 --> 00:20:03,593
[John]
He liked serials.
He liked he adventure theme.

484
00:20:03,767 --> 00:20:05,639
The good guy getting
the girl in the end,

485
00:20:05,813 --> 00:20:07,858
and he incorporated
that whole thing into his comic.

486
00:20:08,032 --> 00:20:12,080
Jungle Girls, Mask Villains,
Rocket Men.

487
00:20:13,168 --> 00:20:15,823
[Richard]
Commander Cody,
Sky Marshal of the Universe.

488
00:20:19,653 --> 00:20:23,613
I grew up on those
and Rocket Man was my hero

489
00:20:23,787 --> 00:20:27,400
when I was about five.
You know, I made a little mask
and flew around the backyard

490
00:20:27,574 --> 00:20:29,402
like everybody did, I'm sure.

491
00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:32,187
We were also young and clueless

492
00:20:32,361 --> 00:20:34,798
that Dave thought
it was in the public domain,

493
00:20:34,972 --> 00:20:36,757
but none of us were sure.

494
00:20:36,931 --> 00:20:38,367
So Dave said,
"Well, I'll take it home

495
00:20:38,541 --> 00:20:40,935
and fix it up,
so we don't sued."

496
00:20:41,109 --> 00:20:44,025
[Wray]
He probably looked at something
like Commander Cody and said,

497
00:20:44,199 --> 00:20:46,462
"I really loved that as a kid,
but it sure looks dorky now,

498
00:20:46,636 --> 00:20:48,812
how can I take it and do it
for today's generation?"

499
00:20:49,857 --> 00:20:51,424
[Dave]
It's about a pilot, an aviator,

500
00:20:51,598 --> 00:20:55,602
who stumbles onto a device
in the pre-war years

501
00:20:55,776 --> 00:20:57,952
that enables him to fly
without a plane.

502
00:20:58,648 --> 00:21:01,738
I wanted to base it in more
of a real world.

503
00:21:01,912 --> 00:21:05,351
Just normal people
with this one gadget
thrown into the mix,

504
00:21:05,525 --> 00:21:07,048
and how would these people
respond

505
00:21:07,222 --> 00:21:08,528
and deal with it.

506
00:21:08,702 --> 00:21:10,530
He took everything
that he liked.

507
00:21:10,704 --> 00:21:15,099
The cars, the airplanes,
the movie serial aspect.

508
00:21:15,274 --> 00:21:17,232
That taught me that you can put

509
00:21:17,406 --> 00:21:20,714
what you kind of love
all into one, one work.

510
00:21:20,888 --> 00:21:25,022
I felt that maybe if I could
put together a good enough idea,

511
00:21:25,196 --> 00:21:27,416
the Rocketeermay have a chance

512
00:21:27,590 --> 00:21:28,983
and again it may not.

513
00:21:30,767 --> 00:21:31,899
[Richard]
All of us artists,

514
00:21:32,073 --> 00:21:33,857
we're egocentric because

515
00:21:34,031 --> 00:21:36,251
we actually think other people
might want to see what we do.

516
00:21:36,425 --> 00:21:38,340
Then every time we're
in the middle of a painting

517
00:21:38,514 --> 00:21:41,082
or a drawing,
it's like, is that good enough?

518
00:21:41,256 --> 00:21:43,258
[Dave]
I work until I get
a good drawing.

519
00:21:43,432 --> 00:21:45,913
Sometimes it takes one day,
two days, three days, four days.

520
00:21:46,087 --> 00:21:47,610
You know, it depends
on what the drawing is

521
00:21:47,784 --> 00:21:49,177
and how much trouble
I am having with it.

522
00:21:50,265 --> 00:21:52,789
[Scroggy]
Dave said
his harsh self-criticism

523
00:21:52,963 --> 00:21:56,489
of his drawing came
from the flashes of inspiration

524
00:21:56,663 --> 00:21:58,708
where he saw
how good it could be.

525
00:21:58,882 --> 00:22:00,319
[Jim]
It's a tremendous amount of work

526
00:22:00,493 --> 00:22:03,670
and more work
than comic books deserve.

527
00:22:03,844 --> 00:22:07,456
Comic books are not made
to be fine art pieces.

528
00:22:08,152 --> 00:22:09,415
[John]
Oh, my God.

529
00:22:09,589 --> 00:22:11,068
He would noodle out something
on a page

530
00:22:11,242 --> 00:22:12,331
and go,
"Wow, that's pretty good."

531
00:22:12,983 --> 00:22:14,855
Then, he'll do it like
ten minutes. [gibberish]

532
00:22:15,029 --> 00:22:16,770
"Okay. I want the pose like this
to look like that."

533
00:22:16,944 --> 00:22:20,556
Six months later, it's like,
"I'm still inking the eyebrow

534
00:22:20,730 --> 00:22:23,342
and I'm erasing it
every other day
and re-inking it." That's like,

535
00:22:23,516 --> 00:22:25,735
"Ohhh, you're killing me."

536
00:22:25,909 --> 00:22:28,695
So yeah,
his process was very lengthy.

537
00:22:30,827 --> 00:22:32,786
[Michael]
You know when it's right,
you know when it's not right.

538
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,441
It may not be wrong
or bad, but you go,

539
00:22:36,050 --> 00:22:37,443
hmm, something.

540
00:22:40,315 --> 00:22:42,186
[Thomas]
Dave was making his art
for himself.

541
00:22:42,361 --> 00:22:45,102
He wanted it to be the way
that he wanted it to be.

542
00:22:45,276 --> 00:22:47,104
And he worked best
with no deadlines

543
00:22:47,278 --> 00:22:49,759
and no, um, expectations.

544
00:22:50,499 --> 00:22:52,414
[Wray]
Being an artist,
a lot of that is kind of like

545
00:22:52,588 --> 00:22:55,025
living a fantasy world
of what you really want to be.

546
00:22:55,591 --> 00:22:57,158
You're not gonna be
an adventurer,

547
00:22:57,332 --> 00:22:59,639
so you draw adventures. Maybe
you won't make movies,

548
00:22:59,813 --> 00:23:02,119
but you'll make your own little
movies on your comic book page.

549
00:23:02,293 --> 00:23:03,991
It's wonderful
to entertain children

550
00:23:04,165 --> 00:23:05,558
with children's books,

551
00:23:05,732 --> 00:23:08,778
but if you can entertain
and enthrall an adult

552
00:23:08,952 --> 00:23:11,738
over and over and over again,
there's no price on that.

553
00:23:11,912 --> 00:23:15,002
I would get a new issue
of the Rocketeer.I'd read it,

554
00:23:15,176 --> 00:23:19,354
and then I'd go back
and just each page, take it in,

555
00:23:19,528 --> 00:23:21,312
just enjoying it.

556
00:23:21,487 --> 00:23:24,794
I think and I hope I'm catering
to a different audience.

557
00:23:25,360 --> 00:23:27,623
People who just want to read
something that's kind of fun.

558
00:23:27,797 --> 00:23:30,757
It was, uh,
an immediate success.

559
00:23:31,888 --> 00:23:33,455
[man 2]
Hey, it's the Rocketeer.

560
00:23:34,500 --> 00:23:38,765
[Scroggy]
It started off as popular
as you could imagine

561
00:23:38,939 --> 00:23:40,114
and grew from there.

562
00:23:41,202 --> 00:23:45,249
One of our real supporters
was a comic store in Las Vegas.

563
00:23:45,815 --> 00:23:47,208
[William]
Dave was going to do
guest signings

564
00:23:47,382 --> 00:23:48,949
there of his Rocketeerstuff.

565
00:23:49,123 --> 00:23:51,125
The time Dave was supposed
to be there had passed,

566
00:23:51,299 --> 00:23:52,474
and they were waiting.
"Where's Dave? Where's Dave?
Where's Dave?"

567
00:23:52,648 --> 00:23:54,215
[Scroggy]
Dave decided he was going to

568
00:23:54,389 --> 00:23:56,043
dress for the occasion.

569
00:23:56,217 --> 00:23:57,261
Suddenly, in the distance,
they see

570
00:23:57,436 --> 00:24:00,134
this beautifully
restored '30s car

571
00:24:00,308 --> 00:24:02,179
with Dave dressed
as The Rocketeer

572
00:24:02,353 --> 00:24:03,790
riding on the sideboards.

573
00:24:03,964 --> 00:24:05,313
And I thought,
"Man, that's really

574
00:24:05,487 --> 00:24:07,533
a fantastic way to enter."

575
00:24:07,707 --> 00:24:10,710
[Jim]
Nobody that I'd seen
has had as much fun with it

576
00:24:10,884 --> 00:24:12,276
as Dave did.

577
00:24:12,451 --> 00:24:14,931
Dave's aesthetics was all
in storytelling.

578
00:24:15,105 --> 00:24:17,238
That's why the characters
in there were,
there were unique.

579
00:24:18,021 --> 00:24:19,719
[Glen]
Cliff was a reluctant hero.

580
00:24:19,893 --> 00:24:21,634
He was kind of bratty
and selfish

581
00:24:21,808 --> 00:24:23,157
and then kind of ended up

582
00:24:23,331 --> 00:24:25,159
being a good person
in spite of himself.

583
00:24:26,465 --> 00:24:28,728
[Dave]
You know, somebody who's really
not that special,

584
00:24:28,902 --> 00:24:31,382
but has a-- an inherent quality
that's good,

585
00:24:31,557 --> 00:24:33,428
and I think everybody does.
And every now and then

586
00:24:33,602 --> 00:24:34,995
when put to the test,

587
00:24:35,169 --> 00:24:36,475
it shows.

588
00:24:36,649 --> 00:24:38,041
And he doesn't have
any superpower,

589
00:24:38,215 --> 00:24:40,304
but he comes through
with a little...

590
00:24:40,479 --> 00:24:42,350
[chuckles]
broken arm here and there.

591
00:24:43,873 --> 00:24:46,136
[Bruce] That's the thing
that kind of makes him
an interesting character.

592
00:24:46,310 --> 00:24:47,311
He's a schmuck.

593
00:24:47,486 --> 00:24:48,574
You know, Cliff is a schmuck.

594
00:24:48,748 --> 00:24:50,793
He's this very self-centered guy

595
00:24:50,967 --> 00:24:51,881
and he's kind of scrawny

596
00:24:52,055 --> 00:24:52,969
and he's good-looking like Dave,

597
00:24:53,143 --> 00:24:54,057
and he looks like Dave,

598
00:24:54,231 --> 00:24:54,971
he looks like a young Dave,

599
00:24:55,145 --> 00:24:56,756
but he's not a hero.

600
00:24:56,973 --> 00:24:58,584
[Mark]
The early sketches,
with the helmet off,

601
00:24:58,758 --> 00:25:00,542
he didn't look that much
like Dave.

602
00:25:00,716 --> 00:25:01,935
With every proceeding sketch

603
00:25:02,109 --> 00:25:03,980
he looked a little more
like Dave.

604
00:25:04,154 --> 00:25:07,331
The Rocketeer, even though
it was about a rocket pack,

605
00:25:07,506 --> 00:25:09,638
was really the story of us.

606
00:25:11,074 --> 00:25:13,903
Minus the rocket pack,
this is Dave Steven's life.

607
00:25:15,688 --> 00:25:17,559
He put the people
and the things he liked into it.

608
00:25:18,125 --> 00:25:21,868
Doug Wildey is Peevy,
and of course Bettie Page.

609
00:25:22,695 --> 00:25:24,435
If the character
was Dave Stevens,

610
00:25:24,610 --> 00:25:26,699
the ideal woman was Bettie Page.

611
00:25:26,873 --> 00:25:28,918
He was fascinated by the 1940s,

612
00:25:29,092 --> 00:25:31,530
1950s model, Bettie Page.

613
00:25:31,704 --> 00:25:34,184
And Bettie Page
had been totally forgotten
by everybody.

614
00:25:34,358 --> 00:25:36,491
He used her as, um, as the image

615
00:25:36,665 --> 00:25:38,667
for the Rocketeer's girlfriend,

616
00:25:38,841 --> 00:25:39,668
Bettie.

617
00:25:41,148 --> 00:25:45,065
She's been
my ideal female figure

618
00:25:45,239 --> 00:25:46,675
since I was a kid.

619
00:25:48,068 --> 00:25:50,940
[Brinke]
I really had no idea
who Bettie Page was.

620
00:25:51,550 --> 00:25:55,510
Then Dave showed me
some 1950s pinup magazines
that she was in,

621
00:25:55,684 --> 00:25:56,946
and I got it.

622
00:25:57,730 --> 00:25:59,035
[Michael]
I don't know what he was seeing

623
00:25:59,209 --> 00:26:00,559
or what he was experiencing,
except that

624
00:26:00,733 --> 00:26:02,169
I knew it was genuine,

625
00:26:02,691 --> 00:26:04,127
absolutely genuine.

626
00:26:05,041 --> 00:26:07,653
[Olivia]
Bettie's like the beginning
of it all.

627
00:26:07,827 --> 00:26:10,830
Marilyn Monroe had predecessors,
but Bettie didn't.

628
00:26:12,571 --> 00:26:16,662
She brought a whole new
sexuality to the forefront,

629
00:26:16,836 --> 00:26:19,795
and then became
a cult type of personality

630
00:26:19,969 --> 00:26:22,102
during the '70s and '80s.

631
00:26:22,668 --> 00:26:24,713
[Brinke]
She had a playful,

632
00:26:24,887 --> 00:26:27,368
but sultry, girl-next-door
kind of quality.

633
00:26:27,542 --> 00:26:29,283
She looked like
she'd be equally good

634
00:26:29,457 --> 00:26:31,111
in the bedroom
as in the kitchen.

635
00:26:32,416 --> 00:26:34,680
For me, it was like,
"Who is this woman?

636
00:26:34,854 --> 00:26:37,247
God, she's got like
the brightest smile

637
00:26:37,421 --> 00:26:41,164
and the most wholesome attitude
I've ever seen for a gal who did

638
00:26:41,338 --> 00:26:42,426
skin flicks and burlesque.

639
00:26:43,253 --> 00:26:44,864
[Olivia]
She's playing it to the hilt,

640
00:26:45,038 --> 00:26:47,736
and she's doing it
with great sense of humor.

641
00:26:48,389 --> 00:26:50,130
[Richard]
Being around Dave,
you couldn't help

642
00:26:50,304 --> 00:26:54,047
but seeing photographs of her
and you couldn't help seeing

643
00:26:54,221 --> 00:26:56,397
her show up
in his drawing of women.

644
00:26:57,050 --> 00:26:58,791
[Dave]
For something
that I originally started

645
00:26:58,965 --> 00:27:01,054
as a kind of a little
private thing for me, you know,

646
00:27:01,228 --> 00:27:03,012
I know it's Bettie Page.
[chuckles]

647
00:27:03,186 --> 00:27:05,406
Uh, ended up to where

648
00:27:05,580 --> 00:27:07,756
most of the mail, it seems like
every other letter,

649
00:27:07,930 --> 00:27:09,192
mentions her by name.

650
00:27:09,366 --> 00:27:10,803
Even a lot of the younger kids
know her.

651
00:27:10,977 --> 00:27:12,456
[Chris]
I would probably have to say

652
00:27:12,631 --> 00:27:16,896
I first became aware
of Bettie Page from Dave's work.

653
00:27:17,070 --> 00:27:20,290
I never even knew
who she was or had seen
a photograph of her or anything.

654
00:27:20,987 --> 00:27:22,858
[Laura]
I remember seeing
Dave's art first,

655
00:27:23,032 --> 00:27:24,599
before I realized
Bettie Page was an actual

656
00:27:24,773 --> 00:27:26,427
human being
and not a pinup girl,

657
00:27:26,601 --> 00:27:28,516
you know,
not somebody's fantasy artwork.

658
00:27:29,082 --> 00:27:31,824
[Geofrey]
Most people knew her
from the Rocketeer.

659
00:27:32,651 --> 00:27:33,826
And for them
to suddenly discover

660
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:35,654
that she actually existed.

661
00:27:37,090 --> 00:27:38,352
A lot of these fans,
that would be like finding out

662
00:27:38,526 --> 00:27:41,181
Spiderman really did exist.

663
00:27:42,530 --> 00:27:45,359
[Adam]
Sometimes you wander
into these truths backwards.

664
00:27:45,533 --> 00:27:46,882
And then all of a sudden,
you realize

665
00:27:47,056 --> 00:27:48,188
she's been
in front of your eyeballs

666
00:27:48,362 --> 00:27:49,232
forever.

667
00:27:53,976 --> 00:27:55,369
[Dave]
Steve Schanes called me
and says,

668
00:27:55,543 --> 00:27:56,979
"We have a lot
of fan mail here."

669
00:27:57,153 --> 00:27:59,025
[chuckles]

670
00:27:59,199 --> 00:28:01,636
When he told me that look,
these people are all assuming

671
00:28:01,810 --> 00:28:03,420
that there's going
to be follow-up.

672
00:28:03,594 --> 00:28:06,728
I wasn't prepared to do that
even for one more.

673
00:28:07,207 --> 00:28:09,557
Well, to the Schaneses,
I mean, they smelled profit,

674
00:28:09,731 --> 00:28:11,690
if they could convince me
to do it.

675
00:28:12,778 --> 00:28:14,083
[Michael]
His astoundment

676
00:28:14,257 --> 00:28:16,607
went to the fact
that he had to produce more.

677
00:28:16,782 --> 00:28:19,349
There wasn't enough Rocketeer

678
00:28:19,523 --> 00:28:22,396
to support
an ongoing periodical,

679
00:28:22,570 --> 00:28:24,224
let alone monthly.

680
00:28:24,398 --> 00:28:26,356
For Dave to maintain anything

681
00:28:26,530 --> 00:28:28,054
remotely approaching
that schedule

682
00:28:28,228 --> 00:28:29,577
was just impossible.

683
00:28:29,751 --> 00:28:32,058
They just say,
give us any Rocketeer

684
00:28:32,232 --> 00:28:33,581
by such and such a date.

685
00:28:33,755 --> 00:28:34,669
[chuckles]

686
00:28:34,843 --> 00:28:36,366
And, and I never do.

687
00:28:36,540 --> 00:28:38,891
We always blow the deadline
by at least a month.

688
00:28:39,065 --> 00:28:42,372
Part of the frustration
we had with Dave's speed

689
00:28:42,546 --> 00:28:46,725
was because the market
was clamoring for more.

690
00:28:46,899 --> 00:28:48,509
[Mark]
We had to say,
please turn the work in,

691
00:28:48,683 --> 00:28:50,598
please turn the work in,
we must turn the work in.

692
00:28:51,468 --> 00:28:53,253
That was what you did
as Dave's editor.

693
00:28:53,732 --> 00:28:54,863
[Scroggy]
We tried threats.

694
00:28:55,037 --> 00:28:57,692
We tried cajoling.
We tried bribery.

695
00:28:57,866 --> 00:29:00,782
And Dave was just immune to it.

696
00:29:00,956 --> 00:29:03,611
He had almost finished
an entire Rocketeerstory,

697
00:29:03,785 --> 00:29:06,614
and there's one panel left
that had a bulldog in it

698
00:29:06,788 --> 00:29:09,878
and that bulldog was completely
inked except for one leg.

699
00:29:10,052 --> 00:29:12,533
He must have gone back
to that paw

700
00:29:12,707 --> 00:29:14,753
I don't know how many times
and redrawn it

701
00:29:14,927 --> 00:29:16,624
because he wasn't happy with it.

702
00:29:17,625 --> 00:29:20,149
His favorite drawing tool
was his eraser.

703
00:29:20,323 --> 00:29:22,848
[William]
It was just driving me nuts.
I was like, "Dave, just ink it.

704
00:29:23,022 --> 00:29:25,024
Just ink it. You,
you'll be done with the book.

705
00:29:25,198 --> 00:29:27,374
[Richard]
"Just finish it
and you'll get paid."

706
00:29:27,548 --> 00:29:28,854
Clearly, he would have been
more productive

707
00:29:29,028 --> 00:29:31,073
if he could just kind
of let things go,

708
00:29:31,247 --> 00:29:32,596
but then he wouldn't be Dave.

709
00:29:32,771 --> 00:29:34,424
That's part of what makes
his stuff so good,

710
00:29:34,598 --> 00:29:36,644
is how kind of polished
and beautiful it is.

711
00:29:36,818 --> 00:29:38,907
It's like a, like a diamond, you
know? You can't rush a diamond.

712
00:29:39,081 --> 00:29:40,822
[Richard]
Later when people
were appreciating

713
00:29:40,996 --> 00:29:43,172
his perfectionism,
it was paying off.

714
00:29:43,346 --> 00:29:45,218
It was in the earlier days
when he was trying to be

715
00:29:45,392 --> 00:29:48,395
"a comic book artist"
that it held him up.

716
00:29:49,265 --> 00:29:52,181
As time went on,
especially with comics,

717
00:29:52,355 --> 00:29:54,488
he just became more
and more frustrated,

718
00:29:54,662 --> 00:29:57,143
wanting to make sure
that everything was there.

719
00:29:57,317 --> 00:30:00,233
[Dave] The only grief
I've had really has been
on the printing end of it.

720
00:30:00,407 --> 00:30:02,409
It's a trash medium. [chuckles]

721
00:30:02,583 --> 00:30:04,237
Newsprint, toilet paper

722
00:30:04,411 --> 00:30:07,544
with water down color
and water down inks. So...

723
00:30:08,154 --> 00:30:09,590
I just have to take what I get

724
00:30:09,764 --> 00:30:12,332
and hope it comes out,
at least readable.

725
00:30:12,506 --> 00:30:13,768
The joke on Dave is

726
00:30:13,942 --> 00:30:16,640
his fixation on an end result.

727
00:30:16,815 --> 00:30:18,207
He spent months

728
00:30:18,381 --> 00:30:20,688
to get the right color paint
for his bathroom.

729
00:30:20,862 --> 00:30:23,256
Meanwhile,
he's putting off deadlines

730
00:30:23,430 --> 00:30:24,910
and he's putting off work

731
00:30:25,084 --> 00:30:27,477
and he's avoiding work
is what it amounted to.

732
00:30:27,651 --> 00:30:29,653
But it had to be right.

733
00:30:30,524 --> 00:30:33,048
[Thomas]
You sense that Dave
had the reputation

734
00:30:33,222 --> 00:30:35,094
of being so slow,
and so meticulous

735
00:30:35,268 --> 00:30:38,532
that some people were reluctant
to hire him.

736
00:30:38,706 --> 00:30:41,143
And I'm sure that
he lost a lot of gigs that way.

737
00:30:41,752 --> 00:30:42,579
[Dave]
I kept telling them,

738
00:30:42,753 --> 00:30:43,754
"Look, at best

739
00:30:43,929 --> 00:30:44,843
it's going to be bimonthly

740
00:30:45,017 --> 00:30:46,366
and maybe not even that."

741
00:30:47,106 --> 00:30:49,586
They didn't understand
why I didn't just quit...

742
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:51,762
-[chuckles]
all my other freelance gigs
-[interviewer laughs]

743
00:30:51,937 --> 00:30:53,590
and do nothing but this strip.

744
00:30:53,764 --> 00:30:56,985
And I kept thinking,
well, it's simple economics.

745
00:30:57,159 --> 00:30:58,552
I would starve.

746
00:30:59,466 --> 00:31:02,164
I think for everything
it was $150 a page,

747
00:31:02,338 --> 00:31:05,428
the writing,
the penciling, the inking,
the coloring, all of it.

748
00:31:06,125 --> 00:31:09,345
Those early days
were kind of like
the wild, wild west for comics.

749
00:31:09,519 --> 00:31:11,739
The publishers were working
a lot of my shoestrings.

750
00:31:11,913 --> 00:31:13,349
I mean they had some money,

751
00:31:13,523 --> 00:31:15,525
but they went out
on that proverbial ledge like,

752
00:31:15,699 --> 00:31:17,179
"I'm going to publish
ten titles"

753
00:31:17,353 --> 00:31:20,052
and if seven click
then we're good,

754
00:31:20,226 --> 00:31:22,489
but if only four click
we're screwed.

755
00:31:23,229 --> 00:31:25,579
[Schreck]
Pacific was distributing
their own books,

756
00:31:25,753 --> 00:31:27,537
which is a bad thing to do.

757
00:31:27,711 --> 00:31:29,931
[Dave]
Eventually it all caught up
with them

758
00:31:30,105 --> 00:31:34,936
and they just imploded,
you know, bankruptcy.
This is in '84.

759
00:31:35,110 --> 00:31:38,374
Within a matter
of several months,
Eclipse contacted me.

760
00:31:38,548 --> 00:31:41,769
They ended up publishing
the last issue as a one-off.

761
00:31:41,943 --> 00:31:43,814
People kept bugging him
about making

762
00:31:43,989 --> 00:31:45,077
a Rocketeercollection

763
00:31:45,251 --> 00:31:47,122
out of those short chapters.

764
00:31:47,296 --> 00:31:49,820
Dave didn't think
he could do it by himself.

765
00:31:49,995 --> 00:31:52,736
He called me Hurricane Hernandez
because he would say,

766
00:31:52,911 --> 00:31:54,042
"Draw this,"
and I would draw it,

767
00:31:54,216 --> 00:31:55,826
and then he'd go,
"Oh, you're done."

768
00:31:56,001 --> 00:31:58,133
[chuckles]
One of the pages he gave me

769
00:31:58,307 --> 00:32:01,963
was Betty tied up
in the back of a car.
I remember asking him,

770
00:32:02,137 --> 00:32:04,574
"You don't want to draw Betty
tied up?" [chuckles]

771
00:32:04,748 --> 00:32:07,838
And he was like,
"No, no, it's great.
It's great. Go ahead."

772
00:32:08,013 --> 00:32:11,059
I was like, "I thought
this would have been
your favorite page."

773
00:32:12,931 --> 00:32:16,195
[Jessie]
Dave needed a production artist
for the hardback Rocketeer.

774
00:32:16,369 --> 00:32:18,545
I describe it
as being a midwife.

775
00:32:18,719 --> 00:32:22,070
Dave has done all the work
of producing this baby

776
00:32:22,244 --> 00:32:24,290
and he just needs a little help
delivering it.

777
00:32:24,464 --> 00:32:25,595
And that's what I did.

778
00:32:25,769 --> 00:32:26,857
Dave was getting ready

779
00:32:27,032 --> 00:32:29,425
to re-color the collection.

780
00:32:29,599 --> 00:32:32,428
So, he needed somebody
to work cheap and fast

781
00:32:32,602 --> 00:32:34,343
and he gave me a page
to try out.

782
00:32:34,517 --> 00:32:36,780
And he said, "Don't get fancy.
Don't try to show off."

783
00:32:36,955 --> 00:32:40,001
And then I immediately
did exactly th--
exactly the opposite.

784
00:32:40,175 --> 00:32:42,090
He looked at it and he went,
"Yeah, you really
screwed it up."

785
00:32:42,264 --> 00:32:43,613
[chuckles]

786
00:32:43,787 --> 00:32:45,050
The rest of the page
looked kind of okay.

787
00:32:45,224 --> 00:32:47,182
He said, "I think
we can work with this.

788
00:32:47,356 --> 00:32:48,705
Yeah, you've got the job
if you want it."

789
00:32:48,879 --> 00:32:49,706
I was like, "Hey! I'm working

790
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:50,707
with Dave Stevens."

791
00:32:50,881 --> 00:32:52,709
So, so, that was awesome.

792
00:32:53,493 --> 00:32:54,929
[Jaime]
I helped him finish the book.

793
00:32:55,103 --> 00:32:57,584
I stayed at his house
for two or three days

794
00:32:57,758 --> 00:32:59,760
and we just drew back-to-back.

795
00:33:00,761 --> 00:33:02,371
And all the work paid off.

796
00:33:02,545 --> 00:33:04,852
The Rocketeer Graphic Album
sold out,

797
00:33:05,026 --> 00:33:06,462
and Dave won awards.

798
00:33:10,336 --> 00:33:12,294
[Bruce]
Right after he started getting
famous and more popular,

799
00:33:12,468 --> 00:33:14,557
he was doing lots
and lots of covers.

800
00:33:14,731 --> 00:33:16,603
And it seemed like every time
he did a cover,

801
00:33:16,777 --> 00:33:18,083
he would, like, top himself.

802
00:33:18,953 --> 00:33:21,129
One of my favorite pieces
of Dave's was

803
00:33:21,303 --> 00:33:22,826
the cover he did for Sheena.

804
00:33:23,392 --> 00:33:25,612
It was arguably
one of the best covers

805
00:33:25,786 --> 00:33:27,092
Dave ever did.

806
00:33:29,877 --> 00:33:33,446
My favorite is that cover
for Crossfire and Rainbow.

807
00:33:34,012 --> 00:33:34,882
Has girls.

808
00:33:35,056 --> 00:33:36,188
Has a celebrity humor,

809
00:33:36,362 --> 00:33:37,102
a serious inking.

810
00:33:37,276 --> 00:33:38,407
He's got it all.

811
00:33:39,060 --> 00:33:40,322
[Maria]
Planet Comics One.

812
00:33:41,062 --> 00:33:43,978
It's absolutely great because
of all the facial expressions,

813
00:33:44,152 --> 00:33:45,632
the body language.

814
00:33:47,547 --> 00:33:48,635
[Wray]
Alien Worlds.

815
00:33:49,157 --> 00:33:50,724
He used my sister as the model,

816
00:33:50,898 --> 00:33:53,031
where the girl's climbing out
of their crashed rocket.

817
00:33:55,772 --> 00:33:58,384
The Airboycover with
Valkyrie, that was amazing.

818
00:34:00,821 --> 00:34:04,042
The Marilyn Monroe cover
of Crossfireis astonishing.

819
00:34:05,521 --> 00:34:06,870
[Olivia]
There's a lot that I adored.

820
00:34:07,610 --> 00:34:09,482
I love Dave's Vampirella.

821
00:34:11,701 --> 00:34:13,703
The Mr. Monstercover
is gorgeous.

822
00:34:15,096 --> 00:34:17,142
That is a favorite of mine.

823
00:34:17,968 --> 00:34:21,189
DNAgent'scover
with Rainbow with her legs up.

824
00:34:21,363 --> 00:34:24,410
It's so simple,
but it's so beautiful.

825
00:34:24,584 --> 00:34:26,238
Her hair,
and the expression on her face.

826
00:34:26,412 --> 00:34:27,413
And that's one of the things

827
00:34:27,587 --> 00:34:29,067
that first spoke to me is like,

828
00:34:29,241 --> 00:34:31,504
"Wow, if you really have
a good grasp of character,

829
00:34:31,678 --> 00:34:33,854
and you've got the skill set,
you can just make a, a drawing

830
00:34:34,028 --> 00:34:36,813
of somebody just sitting there,
sing.

831
00:34:36,987 --> 00:34:38,424
[Mark]
It is so perfect in every way.

832
00:34:38,598 --> 00:34:40,817
Every eyelash is exactly right.

833
00:34:40,991 --> 00:34:43,124
There is no way you could
improve that drawing,

834
00:34:43,298 --> 00:34:44,604
although I'm sure
given enough time,

835
00:34:44,778 --> 00:34:46,345
Dave would have thought
of hundreds.

836
00:34:48,521 --> 00:34:51,698
[Bob]
There were some shenanigans
going on at Eclipse,

837
00:34:52,177 --> 00:34:55,049
and it left a real bad taste
in Dave's mouth.

838
00:34:55,789 --> 00:34:58,313
[Dave]
I did a smattering of covers
and then left

839
00:34:58,487 --> 00:34:59,314
as soon as I could.

840
00:35:00,185 --> 00:35:03,884
Comico came along in '87 or '88?

841
00:35:04,058 --> 00:35:06,539
Bob Schreck was the editor,
and he had contacted me

842
00:35:06,713 --> 00:35:09,107
because we had known
each other. And he said, "Look,
these guys will publish it,

843
00:35:09,281 --> 00:35:11,587
and they seem solid."
[chuckles]

844
00:35:11,761 --> 00:35:14,155
We're like, "Yeah,
the Rocketeer, Dave Stevens.

845
00:35:14,329 --> 00:35:16,288
I don't have to think
about this. Let's go."

846
00:35:16,897 --> 00:35:18,855
[Adam]
The Rocketeer Adventure
Magazinefrom Comico

847
00:35:19,029 --> 00:35:21,119
was the first new
Rocketeerstory
in several years.

848
00:35:21,728 --> 00:35:24,426
[Dave]
Comico paid okay
for those days,

849
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:28,474
but there was never any backend
in terms of royalties
or anything like that.

850
00:35:28,648 --> 00:35:30,040
[Schreck]
It was another one
of those things

851
00:35:30,215 --> 00:35:32,782
where we thought we knew
everything was happening,

852
00:35:32,956 --> 00:35:34,088
but, uh, you know...

853
00:35:34,262 --> 00:35:35,872
we hit that wall
and that was it.

854
00:35:36,046 --> 00:35:38,614
The finances were gone,
and we folded.

855
00:35:38,788 --> 00:35:40,007
[Dave]
After Comico went bust

856
00:35:40,181 --> 00:35:41,008
and this guy came in

857
00:35:41,182 --> 00:35:42,140
and seized their assets

858
00:35:42,314 --> 00:35:43,358
or purchased them

859
00:35:43,532 --> 00:35:45,012
and started kind of soliciting

860
00:35:45,186 --> 00:35:46,622
for additionalRocketeer books,

861
00:35:46,796 --> 00:35:48,668
that he hadn't even talked
to me about.

862
00:35:48,842 --> 00:35:51,279
[David]
Dave's work was creator-owned.
He wasn't going to

863
00:35:51,453 --> 00:35:53,020
just work for just some guy

864
00:35:53,194 --> 00:35:55,675
who happened
to buy the name Comico.

865
00:35:55,849 --> 00:35:57,807
[Dave chuckles]
He was just a clueless guy.

866
00:35:57,981 --> 00:35:59,766
He had no rights
to the character at all,

867
00:35:59,940 --> 00:36:00,941
contractually.

868
00:36:01,115 --> 00:36:02,725
The last issue I was working on

869
00:36:02,899 --> 00:36:03,857
went in a drawer,

870
00:36:04,031 --> 00:36:05,206
until this guy went away.

871
00:36:08,383 --> 00:36:10,080
[John]
I said, "Geez,
why don't we do a pinup?

872
00:36:10,255 --> 00:36:12,431
We can sell it as a print,
and we can make some money."

873
00:36:12,605 --> 00:36:14,868
Oh, he was excited about that.
"Sure. Let's do it."

874
00:36:15,042 --> 00:36:16,609
He got his models
and took photos

875
00:36:16,783 --> 00:36:18,306
and did Bettie's Bath.

876
00:36:20,569 --> 00:36:22,180
[Michael]
I admire Betty's Bath.

877
00:36:22,354 --> 00:36:23,790
Especially if you get
to see the original

878
00:36:23,964 --> 00:36:26,009
and you get to look
into those eyes and going,

879
00:36:27,141 --> 00:36:28,142
"Whoa..."

880
00:36:28,316 --> 00:36:30,362
Dave was a master

881
00:36:30,536 --> 00:36:33,191
of respectfully
portraying women,

882
00:36:33,365 --> 00:36:35,671
and even with Betty's Bath,
where she's naked

883
00:36:35,845 --> 00:36:36,759
but she's covered up.

884
00:36:36,933 --> 00:36:38,108
Is it sexual?

885
00:36:40,023 --> 00:36:41,938
I don't know, I don't care.

886
00:36:42,112 --> 00:36:44,027
It's so good
that it doesn't really matter.

887
00:36:44,202 --> 00:36:46,334
One time, Dave says to me,

888
00:36:46,508 --> 00:36:48,815
"Hey, would you like
to see the perfect female body?"

889
00:36:48,989 --> 00:36:52,297
We went to this shabby,
crummy little dive,

890
00:36:52,471 --> 00:36:55,909
and there were beautiful women
walking around in bikinis
or less.

891
00:36:56,083 --> 00:36:57,606
Finally, I said,
"Okay, I give up.

892
00:36:57,780 --> 00:37:00,305
Which one is it?"
He said, "It's not one.

893
00:37:00,479 --> 00:37:04,831
Imagine that girl's legs,
and that girl's torso."

894
00:37:05,005 --> 00:37:07,137
[Dave]
It's not one model
but a couple.

895
00:37:07,312 --> 00:37:09,444
And you're taking
the best aspects of each.

896
00:37:09,618 --> 00:37:11,751
And just Frankenstein
this thing together.

897
00:37:11,925 --> 00:37:14,971
Whatever it is that you see
in your mind's eye.

898
00:37:15,145 --> 00:37:18,627
Some of my best pieces
have been done in that way.

899
00:37:18,801 --> 00:37:22,152
My sister Amanda posed
for Dave several times.

900
00:37:22,892 --> 00:37:25,721
She was built like Bettie Page
on the backside.

901
00:37:25,895 --> 00:37:27,854
If you look at his early work

902
00:37:28,028 --> 00:37:29,203
for about the first ten years,

903
00:37:29,377 --> 00:37:32,206
you start to see my body there.

904
00:37:32,380 --> 00:37:34,991
Like Betty's Bath,
it's very obvious.

905
00:37:35,165 --> 00:37:36,993
[Dave]
If it's there in the model,
you just heighten it.

906
00:37:37,167 --> 00:37:38,473
You make the eyes bigger,

907
00:37:38,647 --> 00:37:40,127
you make the lips fuller.
You, you know,

908
00:37:40,301 --> 00:37:42,738
make the cheeks
more hollow or, or more arched.

909
00:37:44,436 --> 00:37:47,830
Dave was really obsessed
with quality.

910
00:37:48,396 --> 00:37:50,964
He was a pain in the ass.
Oh my God!

911
00:37:51,138 --> 00:37:53,227
We had to scrap
an entire print run

912
00:37:53,401 --> 00:37:54,576
because he didn't like the way
the paper looked.

913
00:37:54,750 --> 00:37:55,925
So, we had to go
on a different paper,

914
00:37:56,099 --> 00:37:58,188
and I said,
"Here's the paper, Dave.

915
00:37:58,363 --> 00:37:59,799
Would you like to squeeze it?"

916
00:38:03,672 --> 00:38:05,457
I got a call from John Landis
one day

917
00:38:05,631 --> 00:38:07,720
to storyboard this music video

918
00:38:07,894 --> 00:38:09,852
with Michael Jackson
called Thriller.

919
00:38:10,026 --> 00:38:12,725
And I said, "John, I am up
to my ears in work,

920
00:38:12,899 --> 00:38:15,205
but I've got this great
studio-mate, Dave Stevens."

921
00:38:17,904 --> 00:38:19,819
[Jennifer]
I don't think we really knew

922
00:38:19,993 --> 00:38:22,430
how big of a deal
that Thriller video was.

923
00:38:22,604 --> 00:38:25,781
I mean, nobody made
20-minute-long videos
at that time.

924
00:38:25,955 --> 00:38:27,130
That was just unheard of.

925
00:38:29,176 --> 00:38:32,005
I said, "So, how did
the meeting go? Very strange.

926
00:38:32,179 --> 00:38:34,660
The whole meeting took place
in his bathroom."

927
00:38:34,834 --> 00:38:36,531
I'm like, "Really?

928
00:38:36,705 --> 00:38:38,925
You were in the bathroom
with Michael Jackson

929
00:38:39,099 --> 00:38:40,970
for a couple of hours?"

930
00:38:41,144 --> 00:38:44,409
-He says, "You can't tell
anyone, anyone...
-[Bob chuckles]

931
00:38:44,583 --> 00:38:45,671
Where that meeting took place."

932
00:38:45,845 --> 00:38:47,107
I said, "Are you kidding?

933
00:38:47,281 --> 00:38:48,761
I'm going to tell everyone."

934
00:38:53,331 --> 00:38:57,291
[Richard]
After the Rocketeerbecame
a comic book sensation,

935
00:38:57,465 --> 00:38:59,772
the idea of making it
into a movie was

936
00:38:59,946 --> 00:39:01,948
certainly something
that was being bandied around.

937
00:39:02,905 --> 00:39:05,821
[Dave]
It was optioned first
by director Steve Miner

938
00:39:05,995 --> 00:39:07,345
at the end of '83 I think.

939
00:39:07,519 --> 00:39:08,998
He renewed it for another year,

940
00:39:09,172 --> 00:39:11,261
but by '85 we hadn't come
up with a story

941
00:39:11,436 --> 00:39:13,220
we liked, either one of us.

942
00:39:13,394 --> 00:39:15,178
[Danny]
Paul De Meo and I
met in college.

943
00:39:15,353 --> 00:39:18,051
He probably was the first one
who picked up The Rocketeer.

944
00:39:19,226 --> 00:39:21,054
The only writing professor

945
00:39:21,228 --> 00:39:23,361
that Paul and I ever had
was John Milius,
he's the only one.

946
00:39:23,535 --> 00:39:25,885
And the best advice he gave,
which I give
to my own students is,

947
00:39:26,059 --> 00:39:27,582
"Write the movie
you want to see the most."

948
00:39:27,756 --> 00:39:29,454
[Dave]
I met up with Danny Bilson

949
00:39:29,628 --> 00:39:31,499
and Paul De Meo in '85,

950
00:39:31,673 --> 00:39:32,935
through Jessie Horsting.

951
00:39:33,109 --> 00:39:34,459
[Jessie]
He said, "Will you go with me

952
00:39:34,633 --> 00:39:35,808
into this meeting?" And I said,

953
00:39:35,982 --> 00:39:37,113
"Sure, I'll go with you.

954
00:39:37,287 --> 00:39:38,724
Let's just listen to see

955
00:39:38,898 --> 00:39:40,726
what they have to say
for themselves."

956
00:39:40,900 --> 00:39:43,555
"Hey Dave, you ever heard
of this guy called The Creeper,

957
00:39:44,207 --> 00:39:45,383
Rondo Hatton?

958
00:39:45,557 --> 00:39:46,732
And it was like, we had said

959
00:39:46,906 --> 00:39:48,081
some magic word or something.

960
00:39:48,255 --> 00:39:49,517
Dave was,

961
00:39:49,691 --> 00:39:51,519
"I always wanted
to do The Creeper."

962
00:39:52,477 --> 00:39:55,958
[Dave]
They and I just immediately
hit it off.

963
00:39:56,437 --> 00:39:59,527
[Danny]
We were all just kids
who didn't have much money.

964
00:39:59,701 --> 00:40:01,834
Dave gave us a free option
on the movie.

965
00:40:02,008 --> 00:40:03,357
We never paid a nickel

966
00:40:03,531 --> 00:40:05,315
for the six years

967
00:40:05,490 --> 00:40:07,753
from that time
until it became a movie,

968
00:40:07,927 --> 00:40:09,929
that was just
a friend agreement.

969
00:40:10,103 --> 00:40:13,106
[Jessie]
And they were very excited
at the idea of The Rocketeer

970
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:17,066
because they saw another
Raiders of the Lost Arkin it.

971
00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:18,720
[Danny]
Dave and Paul and I

972
00:40:18,894 --> 00:40:20,243
put together a treatment

973
00:40:20,418 --> 00:40:22,898
for what the story
of the movie would be.

974
00:40:23,072 --> 00:40:25,640
It wasn't this can be
your Batmanor Superman.

975
00:40:25,814 --> 00:40:27,120
We're pitching it
as an adventure movie,

976
00:40:27,294 --> 00:40:29,078
like Doc Savage
or Indiana Jones.

977
00:40:29,252 --> 00:40:31,429
[Dave]
And then I was contacted
by a director

978
00:40:31,603 --> 00:40:32,604
named William Dear

979
00:40:32,778 --> 00:40:34,519
who was just getting started

980
00:40:34,693 --> 00:40:36,042
doing a film called

981
00:40:36,216 --> 00:40:37,086
Harry and the Henderson's

982
00:40:37,260 --> 00:40:37,957
so, we kind of formed

983
00:40:38,131 --> 00:40:39,001
a little team

984
00:40:39,175 --> 00:40:40,176
between the four of us.

985
00:40:40,350 --> 00:40:41,264
How do you take

986
00:40:41,439 --> 00:40:43,266
this masterpiece of comics

987
00:40:43,441 --> 00:40:45,443
and move it to the screen,

988
00:40:45,617 --> 00:40:46,879
and yet not lose

989
00:40:47,053 --> 00:40:49,795
the flavor that made it
so popular?

990
00:40:50,448 --> 00:40:52,232
[Danny]
Was it about Betty?
Was it about the airplanes?

991
00:40:52,406 --> 00:40:53,320
Was it about Cliff?

992
00:40:53,973 --> 00:40:56,192
I think for Dave Stevens, it was

993
00:40:56,366 --> 00:40:58,499
Betty, airplanes, Cliff.

994
00:40:58,673 --> 00:41:00,849
And then for us, of course,
it had to be Cliff,

995
00:41:01,023 --> 00:41:01,807
Betty,

996
00:41:01,981 --> 00:41:03,461
airplanes. [chuckles]

997
00:41:04,984 --> 00:41:07,203
[Dave]
'86 would have been
when we started making

998
00:41:07,377 --> 00:41:09,162
the rounds to every studio.

999
00:41:09,336 --> 00:41:12,905
Within a matter of a few months,
we'd gone everywhere.

1000
00:41:13,079 --> 00:41:14,907
[Jennifer]
Dave was getting frustrated at

1001
00:41:15,081 --> 00:41:16,517
not hitting the bullseye

1002
00:41:16,691 --> 00:41:19,085
on getting anybody
to pick up the Rocketeer.

1003
00:41:19,259 --> 00:41:21,522
[Dave]
We saved Disney
for the last because,

1004
00:41:21,696 --> 00:41:23,829
you know, we knew that we
wouldn't make any money there.

1005
00:41:24,394 --> 00:41:27,093
At a certain point,
Steven Spielberg wanted
to make The Rocketeer.

1006
00:41:27,267 --> 00:41:29,748
[Dave]
Steven said, "If Disney
doesn't want the thing

1007
00:41:29,922 --> 00:41:31,271
or they're not going
to give you a good deal,

1008
00:41:31,445 --> 00:41:32,925
I'll take it.
I'll take it right now."

1009
00:41:33,099 --> 00:41:35,101
Spielberg had everything to do

1010
00:41:35,275 --> 00:41:38,234
with opening
that door so he could sell
that product to Disney.

1011
00:41:38,408 --> 00:41:41,673
[Dave] Word got back to Disney
that Spielberg had tossed
his hat in the ring.

1012
00:41:41,847 --> 00:41:43,022
[chuckles]

1013
00:41:43,196 --> 00:41:44,545
Things got kind of nasty

1014
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:45,807
for a split second.

1015
00:41:46,329 --> 00:41:48,288
[Jackie]
I was having conversations
with Dave

1016
00:41:48,462 --> 00:41:50,420
about negotiating with Disney.

1017
00:41:50,595 --> 00:41:53,685
He said,
"Well, I still can't sit down."

1018
00:41:53,859 --> 00:41:55,730
[chuckles softly]

1019
00:41:56,339 --> 00:41:57,906
[Dave]
We're just going to have
to all bite the bullet,

1020
00:41:58,080 --> 00:41:59,778
uh, if we want to get
the thing made.

1021
00:41:59,952 --> 00:42:02,041
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
was my first film.

1022
00:42:02,215 --> 00:42:03,172
The picture was a hit

1023
00:42:03,346 --> 00:42:06,436
and Disney basically said,

1024
00:42:06,611 --> 00:42:08,221
"Any other projects
you, you might want to do?"

1025
00:42:08,395 --> 00:42:10,310
And I said, "Yeah,
there's this graphic novel

1026
00:42:10,484 --> 00:42:11,790
called The Rocketeer."

1027
00:42:11,964 --> 00:42:13,531
I did not know at the time
that Disney

1028
00:42:13,705 --> 00:42:14,706
already had the rights

1029
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:16,490
and was involved with some phase

1030
00:42:16,664 --> 00:42:18,797
of pre-production
with Bill Dear.

1031
00:42:18,971 --> 00:42:21,539
Dave had a little story in mind,

1032
00:42:21,713 --> 00:42:23,497
you know, very character-driven,

1033
00:42:23,671 --> 00:42:26,544
but Bill was thinking
blockbusters,

1034
00:42:26,718 --> 00:42:30,112
you know,
so they kind of didn't dovetail.

1035
00:42:30,983 --> 00:42:33,246
[Joe]
Before I knew it,
we started our design phase

1036
00:42:33,420 --> 00:42:34,639
and developing the script

1037
00:42:34,813 --> 00:42:36,075
with Danny Bilson
and Paul De Meo.

1038
00:42:36,249 --> 00:42:37,555
They must've done four

1039
00:42:37,729 --> 00:42:39,600
or five or six rewrites
at the thing.

1040
00:42:39,774 --> 00:42:42,472
At some point, we had another
couple of writers come in.

1041
00:42:42,647 --> 00:42:45,693
It's sort of typical of the way
Hollywood scripts evolved.

1042
00:42:45,867 --> 00:42:47,173
In those days it would be like,

1043
00:42:47,347 --> 00:42:49,001
"First writer--
okay, who's next?"

1044
00:42:49,175 --> 00:42:50,829
And then somebody else
would do a draft

1045
00:42:51,003 --> 00:42:52,352
and there were other drafts.

1046
00:42:52,526 --> 00:42:54,049
But there's one thing
that never changed

1047
00:42:54,223 --> 00:42:56,443
from the comic to the screen.

1048
00:42:56,617 --> 00:42:58,314
And if it didn't change
from the comic to the screen,

1049
00:42:58,488 --> 00:43:00,403
that means it held through
draft after draft,

1050
00:43:00,578 --> 00:43:01,796
after draft of the script.

1051
00:43:01,970 --> 00:43:03,929
And that's the first time
Cliff flies.

1052
00:43:04,756 --> 00:43:05,800
[engine roaring]

1053
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:10,457
Which was most like the comic

1054
00:43:10,631 --> 00:43:12,807
and is probably my favorite part
of the movie.

1055
00:43:14,156 --> 00:43:17,290
You know, he just going
flat out 200 miles an hour

1056
00:43:17,464 --> 00:43:18,639
straight up in the air,

1057
00:43:18,813 --> 00:43:20,293
and I, I didn't think too much

1058
00:43:20,467 --> 00:43:21,294
about graceful landings.

1059
00:43:24,253 --> 00:43:26,429
It was really, like,
slogging through, you know,

1060
00:43:26,604 --> 00:43:28,562
a pecan pie to try
to get the studio

1061
00:43:28,736 --> 00:43:29,737
to sign off on it,

1062
00:43:29,911 --> 00:43:31,739
cause they always wanted
changes.

1063
00:43:31,913 --> 00:43:33,306
We wanted changes of our own

1064
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:35,221
that the studio wouldn't
necessarily agree to.

1065
00:43:35,395 --> 00:43:40,139
And it was just this kind of,
sort of, constant... battle,

1066
00:43:40,313 --> 00:43:41,923
debate over what
it's going to be.

1067
00:43:42,663 --> 00:43:45,884
He's reaching for something
that's in the comic, it's there.

1068
00:43:46,058 --> 00:43:49,496
But getting it in a movie
with another hundred people,

1069
00:43:49,670 --> 00:43:51,106
it's just damn difficult.

1070
00:43:51,933 --> 00:43:53,195
Particularly
when if you're going to do

1071
00:43:53,369 --> 00:43:55,197
the subtleties
that are the potential

1072
00:43:55,371 --> 00:43:56,634
in the Rocketeer.

1073
00:43:58,505 --> 00:44:00,638
In the comic,
the Jenny character

1074
00:44:00,812 --> 00:44:03,205
was based on Bettie Page.

1075
00:44:03,902 --> 00:44:06,905
[Dave]
I wanted Bettie in the film,
but Disney felt differently.

1076
00:44:07,079 --> 00:44:08,646
There were only
a few compromises

1077
00:44:08,820 --> 00:44:10,256
as far as characters go,

1078
00:44:10,430 --> 00:44:11,997
and Bettie was one of those.

1079
00:44:12,606 --> 00:44:15,087
[Danny]
That the edgy stuff lasted
through some drafts

1080
00:44:15,261 --> 00:44:16,218
of the script.

1081
00:44:16,784 --> 00:44:18,699
That we knew was going
to have to change.

1082
00:44:18,873 --> 00:44:20,570
That was not going to fly
at Disney.

1083
00:44:20,745 --> 00:44:22,007
[Dave laughing]

1084
00:44:22,181 --> 00:44:23,486
At the very least,

1085
00:44:23,661 --> 00:44:26,141
going in,
they were enthusiastic.

1086
00:44:26,315 --> 00:44:28,491
But it was mainly
because of the name,

1087
00:44:28,666 --> 00:44:30,711
Rocketeer, Mouseketeer,

1088
00:44:30,885 --> 00:44:31,799
and the fact that
they looked at it

1089
00:44:31,973 --> 00:44:33,235
and said, "Toys!"

1090
00:44:33,845 --> 00:44:36,586
[Danny]
Joe Johnston respected
the comic,

1091
00:44:36,761 --> 00:44:39,851
so Dave had an intimate
experience with the movie

1092
00:44:40,025 --> 00:44:41,461
that would normally not happen

1093
00:44:41,635 --> 00:44:43,724
for a comic book artist
whose book was licensed.

1094
00:44:44,290 --> 00:44:45,770
[Jaime]
In the beginning
he told stories like,

1095
00:44:45,944 --> 00:44:47,989
"I got kicked off the set."

1096
00:44:48,163 --> 00:44:51,601
The set people liked him,
but the higher-ups didn't

1097
00:44:51,776 --> 00:44:53,081
cause he just had a big mouth,

1098
00:44:53,255 --> 00:44:55,214
and he just wanted
his thing done right.

1099
00:44:55,388 --> 00:44:56,519
[Danny]
It was always about money.

1100
00:44:56,694 --> 00:44:57,999
Joe Johnston had to squeeze

1101
00:44:58,173 --> 00:45:00,306
every penny of that $43 million

1102
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,308
to get that on the screen
because my impression

1103
00:45:02,482 --> 00:45:06,051
of the production was
he was fighting for every inch.

1104
00:45:07,487 --> 00:45:09,097
[Joe]
The main thing
that I wanted to translate

1105
00:45:09,271 --> 00:45:10,664
from the comic book
to the screen

1106
00:45:10,838 --> 00:45:13,667
was the way Cliff Secord
looked in the outfit.

1107
00:45:14,363 --> 00:45:16,409
If we got that right,
everything else will

1108
00:45:16,583 --> 00:45:17,540
more or less fall into place.

1109
00:45:17,715 --> 00:45:18,454
[Cliff]
How do I look?

1110
00:45:18,628 --> 00:45:19,891
Like a hood ornament.

1111
00:45:20,065 --> 00:45:20,979
[Joe]
At the same time, Dave knew

1112
00:45:21,153 --> 00:45:22,502
that there was a huge difference

1113
00:45:22,676 --> 00:45:24,852
between a comic book and a film.

1114
00:45:25,026 --> 00:45:26,593
He recognized that
there were things

1115
00:45:26,767 --> 00:45:27,812
that were going to have
to change.

1116
00:45:27,986 --> 00:45:29,465
There were arguments

1117
00:45:29,639 --> 00:45:31,554
about the helmet design

1118
00:45:31,729 --> 00:45:33,208
and the rocket design.

1119
00:45:33,382 --> 00:45:35,428
Everything looked goofy
when they were trying

1120
00:45:35,602 --> 00:45:37,038
to make it look cool.

1121
00:45:37,212 --> 00:45:39,214
Disney did not like the helmet.
They thought

1122
00:45:39,388 --> 00:45:41,042
it made him look like an insect.

1123
00:45:41,216 --> 00:45:44,829
The helmet is such an iconic
image of what the movie is

1124
00:45:45,394 --> 00:45:46,744
you can't really change that.

1125
00:45:47,309 --> 00:45:49,747
They wanted to make it look
like a NASA astronaut helmet.

1126
00:45:49,921 --> 00:45:51,574
[Joe]
One of the Disney execs,

1127
00:45:51,749 --> 00:45:53,489
he said, "You know,
it looks too old fashioned."

1128
00:45:53,663 --> 00:45:55,361
Well, yes 1938.

1129
00:45:55,535 --> 00:45:57,015
Johnston said, "If that's
what you're going to do,

1130
00:45:57,189 --> 00:45:58,712
I'm, I'm out of here."

1131
00:45:58,886 --> 00:46:01,497
I really admired Joe Johnson
for standing up for Dave

1132
00:46:01,671 --> 00:46:02,803
and Dave's integrity like that.

1133
00:46:02,977 --> 00:46:05,240
I thought that was pretty
fantastic

1134
00:46:05,414 --> 00:46:06,589
and pretty rare in Hollywood.

1135
00:46:06,764 --> 00:46:08,287
The reason
I wanted Bill Campbell

1136
00:46:08,461 --> 00:46:10,855
as The Rocketeer, 'cause
he looked like the character.

1137
00:46:11,029 --> 00:46:13,553
Dave was drawing himself,
of course.

1138
00:46:14,423 --> 00:46:16,164
[Jewel]
Bill Campbell was a movie star.

1139
00:46:16,338 --> 00:46:20,081
And in Dave's mind,
that was, um, him in essence.

1140
00:46:20,255 --> 00:46:22,780
And him and Billy Campbell
became friends.

1141
00:46:22,954 --> 00:46:24,999
[Mark]
Dave got a movie made
of his character.

1142
00:46:25,173 --> 00:46:27,610
It is now commonplace
for creator-owned characters

1143
00:46:27,785 --> 00:46:29,003
to become motion pictures.

1144
00:46:29,177 --> 00:46:31,266
It was not when Dave
made that happen.

1145
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:32,790
[Dave]
I just went for it.

1146
00:46:32,964 --> 00:46:34,922
I, I threw in everything
I loved as kid and,

1147
00:46:35,096 --> 00:46:36,968
and just stirred up
the pot. And,

1148
00:46:37,142 --> 00:46:39,840
threw it out there to see
what kind of reaction I'd get.

1149
00:46:40,014 --> 00:46:41,494
[Mark]
He made a real full,

1150
00:46:41,668 --> 00:46:43,409
honest-to-God Hollywood movie
and had a real,

1151
00:46:43,583 --> 00:46:45,280
honest-to-God,
Hollywood premiere.

1152
00:46:45,890 --> 00:46:46,716
[Jim]
People loved it.

1153
00:46:47,892 --> 00:46:50,633
I thought it was charming
and sweet and beautiful.

1154
00:46:50,808 --> 00:46:52,679
[Siskel and Roger]
Two thumbs up forThe Rocketeer

1155
00:46:52,853 --> 00:46:55,203
a lighthearted and entertaining
action fantasy.

1156
00:46:55,377 --> 00:46:56,814
[Joe]
The only thing Dave said to me

1157
00:46:56,988 --> 00:46:58,380
after the movie came out
was that,

1158
00:46:58,554 --> 00:46:59,381
"That's the version
of The Rocketeer

1159
00:46:59,555 --> 00:47:00,339
I would've made."

1160
00:47:00,513 --> 00:47:01,644
Well, you know,

1161
00:47:01,819 --> 00:47:03,037
you can't ask for
more than that.

1162
00:47:04,169 --> 00:47:05,605
[Mark]
The movie didn't fail,
it was just not quite

1163
00:47:05,779 --> 00:47:06,867
the hit they were hoping for.

1164
00:47:07,041 --> 00:47:08,216
You watch it and you kind of go,

1165
00:47:08,390 --> 00:47:09,391
"I just wanted it
to be a little bit

1166
00:47:09,565 --> 00:47:10,479
more than what it is."

1167
00:47:10,653 --> 00:47:12,177
I wanted to see him do something

1168
00:47:12,351 --> 00:47:13,221
with that rocket pack

1169
00:47:13,395 --> 00:47:14,657
other than getting him

1170
00:47:14,832 --> 00:47:16,616
from point A to point B.

1171
00:47:18,096 --> 00:47:19,749
It had some terrific elements,

1172
00:47:19,924 --> 00:47:21,621
but it didn't come together
as a film.

1173
00:47:22,230 --> 00:47:24,754
[William]
Dave may have been disappointed
in some aspects of it,

1174
00:47:24,929 --> 00:47:26,191
but I don't know
of any filmmaker

1175
00:47:26,365 --> 00:47:27,801
that's a 100% satisfied

1176
00:47:27,975 --> 00:47:29,672
with everything that they do.

1177
00:47:30,238 --> 00:47:33,241
We had a deal in place
to write the sequel.

1178
00:47:33,415 --> 00:47:34,852
There was talk about

1179
00:47:35,026 --> 00:47:37,767
a World War II
"Rocketeer" story.

1180
00:47:37,942 --> 00:47:40,248
A Cold War "Rocketeer" story.

1181
00:47:40,422 --> 00:47:42,598
The box office
wasn't big enough for them

1182
00:47:42,772 --> 00:47:44,339
to even develop a script.

1183
00:47:46,951 --> 00:47:50,389
Disney blamed him for Rocketeer
not being a big hit.

1184
00:47:50,998 --> 00:47:52,782
[John]
He wasn't happy
with Hollywood after that.

1185
00:47:52,957 --> 00:47:54,959
He realized how the game
was played there.

1186
00:47:55,133 --> 00:47:58,527
I knew that this chapter
in my life was over.

1187
00:47:58,701 --> 00:47:59,920
Looking back on it,
I have to say

1188
00:48:00,094 --> 00:48:01,269
I had the most fun
on The Rocketeer

1189
00:48:01,443 --> 00:48:02,488
than I have on anything else

1190
00:48:02,662 --> 00:48:04,229
you know, before or since.

1191
00:48:04,403 --> 00:48:06,013
And the Rocketeeralways worked.

1192
00:48:06,187 --> 00:48:09,103
It just found the audience
over time.

1193
00:48:09,277 --> 00:48:10,757
You know, for me
it's disappointing.

1194
00:48:10,931 --> 00:48:12,324
I mean, for everybody else,
it's great.

1195
00:48:12,890 --> 00:48:14,413
[interviewer]
Let's talk about the movie.

1196
00:48:14,587 --> 00:48:17,677
Oh... [chuckles]

1197
00:48:17,851 --> 00:48:18,939
It's old news.

1198
00:48:19,113 --> 00:48:20,636
[chuckles]

1199
00:48:21,986 --> 00:48:23,552
[William]
When Dave was making
The Rocketeer,

1200
00:48:23,726 --> 00:48:26,381
one of the big pieces of advice
that I gave him was,

1201
00:48:26,555 --> 00:48:29,645
"You're going to go into
a deep postpartum depression

1202
00:48:29,819 --> 00:48:31,604
unless you start
another project right away."

1203
00:48:32,474 --> 00:48:34,128
[Richard]
At the studio, we always had

1204
00:48:34,302 --> 00:48:35,782
in the back of our minds,
certain things

1205
00:48:35,956 --> 00:48:38,219
that we would like to do
if we got the opportunity.

1206
00:48:39,003 --> 00:48:40,004
[Dave]
This is Wee Willie.

1207
00:48:40,178 --> 00:48:41,657
This is the Animation property

1208
00:48:41,831 --> 00:48:43,703
that I am working on
in my spare time.

1209
00:48:43,877 --> 00:48:47,141
It's another period piece,
and it takes place in old LA.

1210
00:48:47,315 --> 00:48:48,316
[William]
I recall thinking,

1211
00:48:48,490 --> 00:48:49,796
"Wow, this is a perfect setting

1212
00:48:49,970 --> 00:48:50,928
for Dave Stevens,

1213
00:48:51,102 --> 00:48:52,059
because there's a kind of

1214
00:48:52,233 --> 00:48:53,582
a carny aspect to it

1215
00:48:53,756 --> 00:48:55,062
and Dave was fascinated
by that world."

1216
00:48:55,236 --> 00:48:57,064
If you've seen any of Dave's

1217
00:48:57,238 --> 00:48:58,587
Christmas cards that he drew,

1218
00:48:58,761 --> 00:49:00,502
he always portrayed himself
as a newsy

1219
00:49:00,676 --> 00:49:02,548
in the 1930s,

1220
00:49:02,722 --> 00:49:04,245
because that was the decade

1221
00:49:04,419 --> 00:49:05,681
that Dave seemed to live in.

1222
00:49:06,334 --> 00:49:09,337
I would see Wee Willie
around a lot.

1223
00:49:10,034 --> 00:49:12,253
and I would ask him,
"What is this?"

1224
00:49:13,341 --> 00:49:14,690
"Um, it's nothing."

1225
00:49:14,864 --> 00:49:16,649
It was always just,
"Mm, it's nothing."

1226
00:49:17,955 --> 00:49:20,958
[Dave]
There are projects
that you were really hot on,

1227
00:49:21,132 --> 00:49:23,743
and then you burn out on them
and never touched them again.

1228
00:49:23,917 --> 00:49:26,441
I had at least probably
half a dozen like that.

1229
00:49:27,181 --> 00:49:28,661
[Kelvin]
The Outriderswas set
in the '50s

1230
00:49:28,835 --> 00:49:30,837
and it was about
World War II veterans

1231
00:49:31,011 --> 00:49:33,274
working out their experiences
and their trauma

1232
00:49:33,448 --> 00:49:36,886
from their war years through,
uh, building
and racing hot rods.

1233
00:49:37,061 --> 00:49:39,063
It's kind of a tribute
to hot-rodding

1234
00:49:39,237 --> 00:49:41,326
the way it used to be
in California

1235
00:49:41,500 --> 00:49:43,110
right around at the war time.

1236
00:49:43,284 --> 00:49:45,243
It was always
one of those mysteries.

1237
00:49:45,417 --> 00:49:46,722
I mean, as with many things,

1238
00:49:46,896 --> 00:49:48,420
if you don't ask,
they don't tell.

1239
00:49:49,029 --> 00:49:51,379
[Jim]
He was working
for years on a project

1240
00:49:51,553 --> 00:49:54,643
in which Marla Duncan
was the primary model.

1241
00:49:55,166 --> 00:49:58,473
She was a very successful
body builder on many,
many covers.

1242
00:49:58,647 --> 00:50:00,606
[John]
Dave did a couple
of really nice illustrations.

1243
00:50:00,780 --> 00:50:02,738
I mean it had an owl involved
and I'm like,

1244
00:50:02,912 --> 00:50:05,263
"Okay, an owl..."

1245
00:50:06,786 --> 00:50:08,831
[Glen]
That's a great visual,

1246
00:50:09,006 --> 00:50:11,573
but what's the story
that leads up to that?

1247
00:50:11,747 --> 00:50:14,185
[Jim]
I had no idea
where that was going to go,

1248
00:50:14,359 --> 00:50:16,100
but I knew he had something
in mind.

1249
00:50:16,274 --> 00:50:17,884
She was an adventuress.

1250
00:50:18,058 --> 00:50:20,365
This French woman of mystery.

1251
00:50:20,539 --> 00:50:23,281
Kind of an Arsène Lupin
super thief.

1252
00:50:23,455 --> 00:50:25,022
[Dave]
It's an illustrated novel.

1253
00:50:25,196 --> 00:50:27,720
It's called
The Mad World of Mimi Rodin.

1254
00:50:27,894 --> 00:50:31,419
Kind of a psychic thriller,
a horror story.

1255
00:50:31,593 --> 00:50:33,465
I don't know if there was reason

1256
00:50:33,639 --> 00:50:35,380
he set Mimi Rodin aside.

1257
00:50:35,554 --> 00:50:38,252
He'd be like, "Oh, eventually
I want to get back to it."

1258
00:50:39,079 --> 00:50:40,950
[Adam]
It could have been
its own fantastic,

1259
00:50:41,125 --> 00:50:44,041
marvelous, unique endeavor
on its own if it ever happened.

1260
00:50:46,434 --> 00:50:49,263
[Dave]
I knew that if I ever created
anything of my own,

1261
00:50:49,437 --> 00:50:52,092
whether it's in animation
or comics or whatever,

1262
00:50:52,266 --> 00:50:55,400
I would have to really be smart
about what I signed.

1263
00:50:55,878 --> 00:50:58,664
Cartoonists are notoriously
bad businesspeople.

1264
00:50:58,838 --> 00:51:01,145
Dave had me
and a lot of other friends

1265
00:51:01,319 --> 00:51:03,321
constantly giving him advice
on how to make money,

1266
00:51:03,495 --> 00:51:05,584
how to build upon
what he'd created,

1267
00:51:05,758 --> 00:51:09,109
and he would listen politely
and then completely ignore us.

1268
00:51:10,110 --> 00:51:12,808
Other artists have done
quite well for themselves

1269
00:51:13,374 --> 00:51:15,811
because they focused
on the business side

1270
00:51:15,985 --> 00:51:17,639
of being an artist.

1271
00:51:17,813 --> 00:51:19,511
And they do quite well,
and, and the fans are happy,

1272
00:51:19,685 --> 00:51:21,600
and the artist makes money.

1273
00:51:22,340 --> 00:51:25,082
[Jessie]
Exploiting your
creative property

1274
00:51:25,256 --> 00:51:28,172
is a very collaborative
business.

1275
00:51:28,781 --> 00:51:31,131
Dave needed to trust in people,

1276
00:51:31,305 --> 00:51:33,786
and he had a real hard time
doing that.

1277
00:51:34,352 --> 00:51:35,744
[Bob]
It's not like these guys

1278
00:51:35,918 --> 00:51:36,963
who did the first
comic book movies

1279
00:51:37,137 --> 00:51:38,660
were making buttloads of money.

1280
00:51:38,834 --> 00:51:41,881
They were getting paid
chump change in many ways

1281
00:51:42,055 --> 00:51:44,840
to give their creations
to these people.

1282
00:51:45,102 --> 00:51:48,061
[Dave]
There was never any huge
Uncle Scrooge money vault.

1283
00:51:48,235 --> 00:51:49,715
That's somebody else's life.

1284
00:51:50,324 --> 00:51:51,282
The Rocketeer money...

1285
00:51:51,456 --> 00:51:52,283
[chuckles]

1286
00:51:52,457 --> 00:51:53,501
That was gone

1287
00:51:53,675 --> 00:51:55,112
by the end of '91,

1288
00:51:55,286 --> 00:51:56,896
and I used it to put a down

1289
00:51:57,070 --> 00:51:58,854
on a little house in Long Beach,

1290
00:51:59,028 --> 00:52:02,162
and ended up losing it
in the real estate bust.

1291
00:52:06,079 --> 00:52:07,602
He called me up and said,
"I found her."

1292
00:52:09,474 --> 00:52:12,651
[Dave]
Bettie Page is alive and well
and living in California.

1293
00:52:12,825 --> 00:52:15,132
Hopefully at some point,
we w-- we will meet.

1294
00:52:15,306 --> 00:52:16,176
But...

1295
00:52:17,046 --> 00:52:18,700
C'est La Vie.We, we will see.

1296
00:52:18,874 --> 00:52:20,441
She lived really close!

1297
00:52:20,615 --> 00:52:22,704
I can't remember exactly how,

1298
00:52:22,878 --> 00:52:24,358
but then he became friends
with her.

1299
00:52:25,098 --> 00:52:27,405
We would go to lunch
and then he'd go,

1300
00:52:27,579 --> 00:52:30,234
"I've got to go see Bettie.
I've got to go take her
to buy groceries."

1301
00:52:30,408 --> 00:52:33,062
He was suddenly getting immersed
in her life at that point.

1302
00:52:33,237 --> 00:52:35,587
I think that's
the sweetest thought ever

1303
00:52:35,761 --> 00:52:38,155
thinking of him and Bettie
driving around in a car.

1304
00:52:38,720 --> 00:52:42,376
[William]
He says, "Bill, it's
a very strange world for me

1305
00:52:42,550 --> 00:52:44,813
to be taking Bettie Page
to the pharmacy."

1306
00:52:44,987 --> 00:52:46,293
[chuckles]

1307
00:52:47,033 --> 00:52:49,209
He says, "I never thought
that would be a part
of my life."

1308
00:52:50,167 --> 00:52:52,038
[Mark]
There's an emotional contact
there.

1309
00:52:52,212 --> 00:52:54,780
It's meeting someone
who was part of your life

1310
00:52:54,954 --> 00:52:56,085
long before you ever thought

1311
00:52:56,260 --> 00:52:57,739
there was a chance
of meeting them.

1312
00:52:58,914 --> 00:53:01,003
He became
very protective of her.

1313
00:53:01,569 --> 00:53:04,137
He wanted to be a shield
between her and the world.

1314
00:53:04,616 --> 00:53:05,965
[Jaime]
I would never say it,
but I was a goof.

1315
00:53:06,139 --> 00:53:06,879
"When do I get to meet her?"

1316
00:53:07,053 --> 00:53:08,750
[laughs]
You know,

1317
00:53:08,924 --> 00:53:10,230
but I never pushed him on that.

1318
00:53:10,404 --> 00:53:11,666
[Scroggy]
Dave wanted her to know

1319
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:13,842
that the world
really did remember her,

1320
00:53:14,016 --> 00:53:17,237
so he would,
kind of, anonymously
take her around to places

1321
00:53:17,411 --> 00:53:21,676
so she could see just how much
she was back in the public eye.

1322
00:53:21,850 --> 00:53:23,548
[Dave]
In the 30 years since,

1323
00:53:23,722 --> 00:53:26,420
had you ever seen
any kind of evidence

1324
00:53:26,594 --> 00:53:29,684
that your photos were still
being reprinted in magazines?

1325
00:53:29,858 --> 00:53:32,687
[Bettie]
All of the interest in me
after all these years,

1326
00:53:32,861 --> 00:53:35,864
that's just something
I don't understand at all.

1327
00:53:36,822 --> 00:53:38,737
She gets so tickled
when she sees some new book

1328
00:53:38,911 --> 00:53:40,782
with her picture on it,
or some--

1329
00:53:40,956 --> 00:53:42,480
whatever product it is.

1330
00:53:43,089 --> 00:53:44,525
[Geofrey]
They went by the Golden Apple.

1331
00:53:44,699 --> 00:53:46,745
She's seeing this
and this, seeing that.

1332
00:53:46,919 --> 00:53:48,225
And I said, "Why don't you go
in the store?"

1333
00:53:48,399 --> 00:53:50,314
He goes,
"I can't take her in there.

1334
00:53:50,879 --> 00:53:52,054
Everybody recognize her."

1335
00:53:52,229 --> 00:53:53,578
And I said, "Dave",

1336
00:53:53,752 --> 00:53:55,493
I said, "Well,
she's 70 years old,

1337
00:53:55,667 --> 00:53:57,364
and so she can't have
the same hairstyle."

1338
00:53:57,538 --> 00:53:58,496
"Well, yeah!"

1339
00:53:59,453 --> 00:54:01,499
[Dave]
She's legitimized,

1340
00:54:01,673 --> 00:54:04,415
whereas back then she was
sort of under the counter

1341
00:54:04,589 --> 00:54:07,722
and not really given much,

1342
00:54:07,896 --> 00:54:11,944
uh, if any respect
as a model, as an actress.

1343
00:54:13,293 --> 00:54:17,079
I'm wondering if maybe
some of it was gratitude

1344
00:54:17,254 --> 00:54:18,820
because he had,

1345
00:54:18,994 --> 00:54:20,561
I won't say exploited her image,

1346
00:54:20,735 --> 00:54:22,041
but certainly benefitted
from it.

1347
00:54:22,215 --> 00:54:23,956
[Bob]
Dave from the very beginning

1348
00:54:24,130 --> 00:54:25,262
was hoping Bettie
would be found,

1349
00:54:25,436 --> 00:54:27,046
'cause he wanted to share

1350
00:54:27,220 --> 00:54:28,917
some of the monetary benefits
here.

1351
00:54:30,092 --> 00:54:32,225
[William]
Dave was the first person
himself to pay her,

1352
00:54:32,399 --> 00:54:34,009
and then Dave would hunt down
other people

1353
00:54:34,183 --> 00:54:35,446
who were using her image

1354
00:54:35,620 --> 00:54:37,317
and force them
to pay her as well.

1355
00:54:37,796 --> 00:54:39,232
[Jewel]
All of the things
that he did for Bettie,

1356
00:54:39,406 --> 00:54:41,539
he did that because,
well, she deserved it,

1357
00:54:41,713 --> 00:54:43,889
and she got cheated
by everybody else.

1358
00:54:44,542 --> 00:54:48,328
[Jennifer]
I have letters from her
where she would tell Dave

1359
00:54:48,502 --> 00:54:51,940
that he was the best friend
she'd ever had, bar none.

1360
00:54:53,551 --> 00:54:55,727
She did say
she loved him very much.

1361
00:54:56,467 --> 00:54:58,295
[Laura]
Bettie Page was clearly
Dave's muse.

1362
00:54:58,469 --> 00:55:00,862
The respect he had for her
and the, the world
he built for her

1363
00:55:01,036 --> 00:55:04,039
in his illustrations is just--
will live on forever.

1364
00:55:10,698 --> 00:55:13,135
[Mark]
Jack Kirby was the creator
or co-creator

1365
00:55:13,310 --> 00:55:15,181
of most of the Marvel characters

1366
00:55:15,355 --> 00:55:16,574
that are now worth billions.

1367
00:55:16,748 --> 00:55:18,315
They started
on his drawing table.

1368
00:55:18,489 --> 00:55:21,405
He was a big influence
when I was, um, growing up,

1369
00:55:21,579 --> 00:55:23,407
you know, with Fantastic Four
and Captain America

1370
00:55:23,581 --> 00:55:24,712
and The Avengers.

1371
00:55:25,191 --> 00:55:27,715
He was probably
the most creative man in comics.

1372
00:55:28,412 --> 00:55:31,850
[Scroggy]
Jack was an early supporter
of Dave and his talent.

1373
00:55:32,024 --> 00:55:34,113
And I think
he was certainly proud

1374
00:55:34,287 --> 00:55:36,289
to have Dave ink his work.

1375
00:55:36,463 --> 00:55:38,160
[Dave]
He'd give me advice
and tell me...

1376
00:55:38,335 --> 00:55:39,814
[mimics gunshots]
Don't get into comics,

1377
00:55:39,988 --> 00:55:41,947
you know, be an illustrator.
[chuckles]

1378
00:55:42,513 --> 00:55:45,080
He knew then that I was not
suited to comic books,

1379
00:55:45,254 --> 00:55:47,256
but I didn't realize
what he was talking about,

1380
00:55:47,431 --> 00:55:50,129
so, it was, uh,
falling on deaf ears.

1381
00:55:50,782 --> 00:55:52,784
[Thomas]
Dave's influences
in the comic book world

1382
00:55:52,958 --> 00:55:55,917
were guys who had a very
meticulous, specific style

1383
00:55:56,091 --> 00:55:58,093
and no line
was ever out of place.

1384
00:55:58,267 --> 00:56:00,139
Guys like Al Williamson.

1385
00:56:00,313 --> 00:56:04,143
[Jackie]
Al was invited to be a guest
to Comic-Con in 1984.

1386
00:56:04,317 --> 00:56:07,364
Dave and Al
had never actually met.

1387
00:56:07,538 --> 00:56:11,368
Dave came from one direction,
Al came from another direction,

1388
00:56:11,542 --> 00:56:13,108
Dave said, "Dad!"

1389
00:56:13,282 --> 00:56:14,980
And Al said, "Son!"

1390
00:56:15,633 --> 00:56:17,591
And they were inseparable

1391
00:56:17,765 --> 00:56:19,376
for the whole rest
of the convention.

1392
00:56:19,550 --> 00:56:21,029
Wally Wood obviously
was a huge influence.

1393
00:56:24,293 --> 00:56:27,296
The few Sterankos that hit town
and those really grabbed me.

1394
00:56:27,471 --> 00:56:30,212
[Glen]
Jim Steranko
was the younger punk

1395
00:56:30,387 --> 00:56:34,391
who came out and did something
sort of slicker and splashier

1396
00:56:34,565 --> 00:56:36,784
than the previous generation.

1397
00:56:37,394 --> 00:56:39,308
[Kelvin]
Dave befriended a lot
of old artists.

1398
00:56:39,483 --> 00:56:40,701
In my mind, it was like--

1399
00:56:40,875 --> 00:56:42,137
he was like collecting
these guys.

1400
00:56:42,311 --> 00:56:43,225
He admired their work,

1401
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:44,749
but also because they lived

1402
00:56:44,923 --> 00:56:46,751
in the actual 30's,
which is very interesting

1403
00:56:46,925 --> 00:56:48,796
because he was born in 1955.

1404
00:56:48,970 --> 00:56:50,885
I always thought
that he was nostalgic

1405
00:56:51,059 --> 00:56:52,452
for his parents' childhood.

1406
00:56:52,626 --> 00:56:54,323
He'd never seen this time period

1407
00:56:54,498 --> 00:56:55,412
but he so loved it.

1408
00:56:56,369 --> 00:56:58,632
Frank Frazetta
was a big influence on Dave.

1409
00:56:59,198 --> 00:57:04,072
I came into the whole
Frazetta milieu at about 14, 15.

1410
00:57:04,682 --> 00:57:06,727
Years later when I did finally
get to meet him,

1411
00:57:06,901 --> 00:57:09,338
I said the work you did
affected so many of us

1412
00:57:09,513 --> 00:57:11,340
-so strongly...
-'Cause he did. Yep.

1413
00:57:11,515 --> 00:57:13,342
...at a real pivotal age that

1414
00:57:13,517 --> 00:57:15,170
we just did a complete 360

1415
00:57:15,344 --> 00:57:16,476
and started doing work that

1416
00:57:16,650 --> 00:57:18,173
no way would we have been doing

1417
00:57:18,347 --> 00:57:21,046
if not
for having seen those images.

1418
00:57:23,352 --> 00:57:25,920
He also loved a lot of the guys
who were his contemporaries,

1419
00:57:26,094 --> 00:57:28,619
Mike Kaluta
and Bernie Wrightson.

1420
00:57:28,793 --> 00:57:31,230
He found the best in everybody's
work to learn from.

1421
00:57:31,404 --> 00:57:33,841
Guys like Bernie,
guys like Dave,

1422
00:57:34,015 --> 00:57:36,496
their art resembles
who they are.

1423
00:57:36,975 --> 00:57:39,717
[Jessie]
There was a mutual
admiration society.

1424
00:57:39,891 --> 00:57:41,893
They were all so good
at what they did.

1425
00:57:42,067 --> 00:57:43,851
[Dave]
If you have the respect
of other artists

1426
00:57:44,025 --> 00:57:46,854
who you look up to,
that's as far as I'm concerned,

1427
00:57:47,028 --> 00:57:49,074
that's the icing on the cake.
That's it.

1428
00:57:49,901 --> 00:57:53,295
You excel when you're surrounded
by people who inspire you.

1429
00:57:53,470 --> 00:57:55,254
You can see
the comic book artists

1430
00:57:55,428 --> 00:57:57,082
that did influence him,
but he was influenced

1431
00:57:57,256 --> 00:57:59,693
by so many different
artistic movements.

1432
00:57:59,867 --> 00:58:02,130
That's what, kind of, I think,
made him special.

1433
00:58:03,088 --> 00:58:05,612
Because of my roots
and my influences

1434
00:58:05,786 --> 00:58:08,093
I'd have to consider myself
an American artist,

1435
00:58:08,267 --> 00:58:11,226
but an artist
who's very affected

1436
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:13,664
by the European sensibility.

1437
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:17,102
He loved Mucha
and he loved most--

1438
00:58:17,276 --> 00:58:20,540
anything Parisian
and Art Nouveau, Art Deco.

1439
00:58:21,628 --> 00:58:23,195
[Jaime]
But I think his main inspiration

1440
00:58:23,369 --> 00:58:26,590
were the old pin-up artists
from the '30s and '40s.

1441
00:58:27,460 --> 00:58:29,723
I could see the DNA of Elvgren
in Dave's work.

1442
00:58:30,594 --> 00:58:33,248
[Olivia]
Elvgren was like
Normal Rockwell.

1443
00:58:33,422 --> 00:58:36,077
Petty was so elegant.

1444
00:58:36,251 --> 00:58:39,298
Vargas women were all made
of satin, soft.

1445
00:58:39,472 --> 00:58:42,606
Enoch Bolles was just pure fun.

1446
00:58:42,780 --> 00:58:45,826
It was interesting to see
the way the men

1447
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,829
made these paintings of women,
the, the kind of exuberance,

1448
00:58:49,003 --> 00:58:50,527
the sexuality that they were.

1449
00:58:51,179 --> 00:58:53,878
[William]
Dave quickly became the guy

1450
00:58:54,052 --> 00:58:55,314
to do sexy pinup girls

1451
00:58:55,488 --> 00:58:56,533
for comics.

1452
00:58:57,403 --> 00:58:59,710
'Cause he did move it up from
the Petty and the Elvgren's.

1453
00:58:59,884 --> 00:59:02,539
All of his own influences,
he subsumed all of their stuff

1454
00:59:02,713 --> 00:59:04,366
into his own unique style.

1455
00:59:04,541 --> 00:59:05,890
[Wray]
"I got to be as good as that
or better."

1456
00:59:06,499 --> 00:59:07,718
And it's a trap.

1457
00:59:08,283 --> 00:59:10,503
If you overbite
what you can never chew,

1458
00:59:10,677 --> 00:59:11,896
you're never going to be happy.

1459
00:59:13,680 --> 00:59:17,162
[Geofrey]
A lot of guys had let it consume
their artistic identity.

1460
00:59:17,336 --> 00:59:19,294
Dave Stevens never let h--
let that happen.

1461
00:59:21,035 --> 00:59:22,254
[Thomas]
That's what a great artist does.

1462
00:59:22,428 --> 00:59:24,473
You take your influences,
and you use that

1463
00:59:24,648 --> 00:59:26,432
to express something personal.

1464
00:59:29,043 --> 00:59:32,133
[Maria]
When I saw Dave's art,
I was enlightened.

1465
00:59:32,307 --> 00:59:36,485
Because I understood
that inking was a part
of the drawing.

1466
00:59:37,269 --> 00:59:40,098
[William]
Brush inking
is becoming a lost art.

1467
00:59:40,925 --> 00:59:44,145
Frank Frazetta, Dave Stevens,
Mark Schultz--

1468
00:59:45,451 --> 00:59:47,540
guys who fall in love
with inking with a brush.

1469
00:59:47,714 --> 00:59:51,022
Is-- It just has
a whole different
look than, uh, a pen does.

1470
00:59:51,544 --> 00:59:54,852
I don't pencil all that tightly.

1471
00:59:55,026 --> 00:59:57,376
My whole personality is
in the inking.

1472
00:59:58,638 --> 00:59:59,944
[Shaw!]
God, it was beautiful.

1473
01:00:00,509 --> 01:00:04,078
He had control over that brush
like nobody I've ever seen.

1474
01:00:04,252 --> 01:00:06,820
[Thomas]
His lines were so clean
and so sharp

1475
01:00:06,994 --> 01:00:10,868
and so well put together
that it was kind of hypnotic.

1476
01:00:11,433 --> 01:00:13,392
That's, that's like
describing magic.

1477
01:00:13,566 --> 01:00:15,220
You can describe
how it makes you feel,

1478
01:00:15,394 --> 01:00:16,830
but if you put it into words
that might take

1479
01:00:17,004 --> 01:00:18,440
some of the magic away from it.

1480
01:00:20,617 --> 01:00:24,882
Sometimes we do the mistake
of conceiving the inking

1481
01:00:25,056 --> 01:00:26,623
as a mere tracing of the pencil.

1482
01:00:27,624 --> 01:00:32,716
No, because Dave considered
the anatomy, the light,

1483
01:00:32,890 --> 01:00:34,195
the Chiaroscuro.

1484
01:00:34,979 --> 01:00:37,111
Sometimes I would go
to his house

1485
01:00:37,285 --> 01:00:39,461
and that same piece of art
was sitting there...

1486
01:00:39,636 --> 01:00:42,203
[chuckles]
unfinished, and I'd go,
"That looks really good."

1487
01:00:42,377 --> 01:00:43,727
And he goes,
"Ah, it's not finished."

1488
01:00:43,901 --> 01:00:46,773
And I go,
"Looks finished to me."

1489
01:00:46,947 --> 01:00:48,253
[chuckles]

1490
01:00:48,427 --> 01:00:51,082
I know up here,
how I want it to look.

1491
01:00:51,735 --> 01:00:53,824
I just don't think anybody inks
like I do,

1492
01:00:53,998 --> 01:00:56,391
or close enough to where
I'd be really happy with it.

1493
01:00:56,565 --> 01:00:59,177
And I am really, uh,
critical of my own work.

1494
01:00:59,351 --> 01:01:01,222
He made sure
that every line was there

1495
01:01:01,396 --> 01:01:02,963
and if it didn't belong there,

1496
01:01:03,137 --> 01:01:04,095
phhss, it was out.

1497
01:01:04,661 --> 01:01:06,967
He was an annoying
perfectionist.

1498
01:01:11,058 --> 01:01:14,453
I probably knew him
a lot better than most,

1499
01:01:14,627 --> 01:01:16,237
but he still had his secrets.

1500
01:01:16,934 --> 01:01:19,197
[William]
Dave Stevens was a very
private individual.

1501
01:01:19,371 --> 01:01:20,894
One of the most private
I've ever met.

1502
01:01:21,068 --> 01:01:22,983
He would tell me
what he felt I needed to know

1503
01:01:23,157 --> 01:01:24,550
and, mm,
not much more than that.

1504
01:01:24,724 --> 01:01:26,944
It's just a personality type

1505
01:01:27,118 --> 01:01:28,772
that we compartmentalize.

1506
01:01:28,946 --> 01:01:30,469
He was multi-faceted in that,

1507
01:01:30,643 --> 01:01:33,080
and there was really not
too many people

1508
01:01:33,254 --> 01:01:35,604
who were parts
of all that facet.

1509
01:01:35,779 --> 01:01:38,695
[Bob]
He had his movie people
and he has fine art people,

1510
01:01:38,869 --> 01:01:41,088
animation, architecture.

1511
01:01:41,262 --> 01:01:43,961
Dave and I shared a passion
for Old Hollywood.

1512
01:01:44,135 --> 01:01:46,006
He just loved that
you could drive through LA

1513
01:01:46,180 --> 01:01:48,487
and there are certain parts
that looked so out

1514
01:01:48,661 --> 01:01:51,751
of a Raymond Chandler novel.
It was just incredible.

1515
01:01:51,925 --> 01:01:54,928
Dave was really happy
that there was still examples
of that, sort of,

1516
01:01:55,102 --> 01:01:56,887
'30s Hollywood ambiance

1517
01:01:57,061 --> 01:01:59,237
is still in little
secret pockets around town.

1518
01:01:59,411 --> 01:02:01,674
When he was into something,
he would find someone

1519
01:02:01,848 --> 01:02:05,722
who, who was also
into that thing
so they could commune about it.

1520
01:02:07,027 --> 01:02:07,811
[John]
I was lucky.

1521
01:02:07,985 --> 01:02:08,855
I got to overlap with

1522
01:02:09,029 --> 01:02:10,248
several of the groups.

1523
01:02:10,422 --> 01:02:11,640
He didn't have the comic people

1524
01:02:11,815 --> 01:02:12,816
mix with the car people

1525
01:02:12,990 --> 01:02:14,382
because the car guys were

1526
01:02:14,556 --> 01:02:15,819
all old crotchety guys

1527
01:02:15,993 --> 01:02:17,734
who were like,
"Who are these nerds?"

1528
01:02:18,691 --> 01:02:21,259
[David]
It's funny. I mean, I feel like
I knew Dave really well

1529
01:02:21,433 --> 01:02:24,262
and yet I didn't know Dave well.

1530
01:02:24,436 --> 01:02:27,656
We didn't talk about religion.
We didn't talk about politics.

1531
01:02:27,831 --> 01:02:28,788
We didn't talk about

1532
01:02:28,962 --> 01:02:30,529
health or money.

1533
01:02:30,703 --> 01:02:33,619
Because it somehow seemed
ungainly

1534
01:02:33,793 --> 01:02:37,231
in a very, just sort of,
very gentlemanly way.

1535
01:02:37,928 --> 01:02:40,321
[Kelvin]
I don't know why
he had such a hard time

1536
01:02:40,495 --> 01:02:42,062
talking about his feelings.

1537
01:02:42,236 --> 01:02:44,412
I've considered
that maybe he thought

1538
01:02:44,586 --> 01:02:46,588
that these things he held
so precious might be diminished

1539
01:02:46,763 --> 01:02:48,503
by talking about them too much.

1540
01:02:49,069 --> 01:02:51,332
[Greg] If I think back,
everybody wanted
to be Dave's friend.

1541
01:02:51,506 --> 01:02:53,160
And he was always,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi, hi, hi."

1542
01:02:53,334 --> 01:02:56,250
He had to have--
just a core of a few friends.

1543
01:02:56,424 --> 01:02:59,210
[Michael]
If you were worth it,
you guys became pals for life.

1544
01:02:59,384 --> 01:03:00,646
He was that way.

1545
01:03:01,255 --> 01:03:03,170
[Jaime]
For me and Gilbert,
us hanging out with Dave

1546
01:03:03,344 --> 01:03:04,911
was just like three buddies.

1547
01:03:05,085 --> 01:03:07,000
You know, we weren't trying
to get anything from him,

1548
01:03:07,174 --> 01:03:08,480
and the same back,

1549
01:03:08,654 --> 01:03:09,829
cause Dave didn't want anything

1550
01:03:10,003 --> 01:03:11,309
from me, but just my friendship.

1551
01:03:11,483 --> 01:03:13,137
I think people
have multiple soulmates

1552
01:03:13,311 --> 01:03:14,268
and it's not just about

1553
01:03:14,442 --> 01:03:15,617
being in relationships.

1554
01:03:15,792 --> 01:03:17,271
Like, intimate relationships.

1555
01:03:17,445 --> 01:03:18,707
It can be friendships, too.

1556
01:03:19,317 --> 01:03:21,667
When I came down
from getting a divorce,

1557
01:03:21,841 --> 01:03:23,408
I was alone all of a sudden.

1558
01:03:23,582 --> 01:03:25,845
Dave's on the phone,
"Let's go to breakfast,

1559
01:03:26,019 --> 01:03:28,456
let's go to dinner,
let's go to the movies."

1560
01:03:28,630 --> 01:03:29,893
After about three
or four months,

1561
01:03:30,067 --> 01:03:31,982
I realized I had a best friend.

1562
01:03:32,591 --> 01:03:34,158
[Bob]
We were just guys
fucking around,

1563
01:03:34,332 --> 01:03:37,030
having a good time
and busting people's balls,

1564
01:03:37,204 --> 01:03:38,945
you know rather
than being serious.

1565
01:03:39,119 --> 01:03:41,513
In San Diego, we'd always go
to this place called Pacer's.

1566
01:03:41,687 --> 01:03:43,645
It was a, a strip club.

1567
01:03:43,820 --> 01:03:45,647
[John]
Strip clubs. Yay!

1568
01:03:45,822 --> 01:03:47,606
I have a lot
of fun stripper stories.

1569
01:03:48,737 --> 01:03:50,130
[Scroggy]
Occasionally, somehow

1570
01:03:50,304 --> 01:03:52,306
they twisted my arm
and dragged me along,

1571
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:54,352
and so I went
to a few with Dave.

1572
01:03:54,526 --> 01:03:57,877
[Bob]
He exuded an attitude
that the girls enjoyed.

1573
01:03:58,051 --> 01:03:59,792
So, they'd always play up
to him.

1574
01:03:59,966 --> 01:04:02,447
And it was a really
wholesome environment

1575
01:04:02,621 --> 01:04:04,362
when Dave was around
at a strip club.

1576
01:04:04,536 --> 01:04:07,104
It was like going to Disneyland,
except there were naked women.

1577
01:04:07,713 --> 01:04:10,759
[Scroggy]
He was more like a fan
rooting them on.

1578
01:04:10,934 --> 01:04:13,371
But he was never salacious
with the dancers.

1579
01:04:13,545 --> 01:04:17,070
Just an appreciator of beauty,
you might say.

1580
01:04:18,637 --> 01:04:21,466
Dave and I were in Portland
for the 1990 convention,

1581
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:23,598
and we wanted to go
to a strip club.

1582
01:04:23,772 --> 01:04:25,774
Dave's throwing money out
and hooting and hollering.

1583
01:04:25,949 --> 01:04:27,994
She's dancing,
she got only high heels on.

1584
01:04:28,168 --> 01:04:30,997
And I say,
"Take your shoes off."

1585
01:04:31,476 --> 01:04:32,303
[chuckles]

1586
01:04:32,477 --> 01:04:33,391
She's dancing and stops

1587
01:04:33,565 --> 01:04:34,479
and goes, "What?"

1588
01:04:34,653 --> 01:04:35,480
"I gave you $10 bucks

1589
01:04:35,654 --> 01:04:36,873
to take your shoes off."

1590
01:04:37,047 --> 01:04:39,527
And she goes "You're a pervert."

1591
01:04:40,311 --> 01:04:43,270
Dave lost it.
He was laughing so hard.

1592
01:04:43,444 --> 01:04:44,881
He's like, "You're a pervert."

1593
01:04:45,055 --> 01:04:46,230
[chuckles]

1594
01:04:47,535 --> 01:04:50,277
[Schreck]
Dave was very much
the male version

1595
01:04:50,451 --> 01:04:52,062
of that Bettie Page thing.

1596
01:04:52,236 --> 01:04:54,020
Good girl during the day

1597
01:04:54,194 --> 01:04:55,848
and the naughty girl at night.

1598
01:04:56,457 --> 01:04:58,546
In the back of my mind,
I always thought

1599
01:04:58,720 --> 01:05:01,985
Dave wants to be a real outlaw.

1600
01:05:02,550 --> 01:05:06,032
But he could never be as bad
as he thought he wanted to be.

1601
01:05:08,339 --> 01:05:10,254
Dave said, "I almost got
to meet Orson Welles."

1602
01:05:10,428 --> 01:05:11,690
And he starts to tell me

1603
01:05:11,864 --> 01:05:13,083
why he didn't get to meet
Orson Welles

1604
01:05:13,257 --> 01:05:14,867
when suddenly
this beautiful woman

1605
01:05:15,041 --> 01:05:16,477
came up behind him
and said, "Hey Dave."

1606
01:05:16,651 --> 01:05:17,957
And he's like, "Oh, hey."

1607
01:05:18,131 --> 01:05:19,480
And she put her hand
on his shoulder

1608
01:05:19,654 --> 01:05:21,569
and she leaned over
and whispered something,

1609
01:05:21,743 --> 01:05:23,702
and Dave got up and left
with this young woman.

1610
01:05:23,876 --> 01:05:25,965
And I sat there for a second

1611
01:05:26,139 --> 01:05:28,315
and then I looked over
at John Koukoutsakis and I said,

1612
01:05:28,489 --> 01:05:29,838
"Are they f#*#*#*#*#*#*?"

1613
01:05:30,013 --> 01:05:31,928
You know, and John just went...

1614
01:05:33,930 --> 01:05:34,843
"Mm-hmm."

1615
01:05:35,888 --> 01:05:38,021
To his credit,
Dave came about an hour later,

1616
01:05:38,195 --> 01:05:40,545
sat back down, went...
[exhales sharply]

1617
01:05:40,719 --> 01:05:42,851
"Anyway. So, I didn't get
to meet Orson Welles
because he died."

1618
01:05:45,506 --> 01:05:48,205
There's definitely artists
out there who

1619
01:05:48,379 --> 01:05:49,989
draw women in a way

1620
01:05:50,163 --> 01:05:52,513
that can objectify.

1621
01:05:53,558 --> 01:05:57,040
But I think that there's
a beauty in Dave's drawings.

1622
01:05:57,214 --> 01:06:00,086
Let's not be coy about it,
you know?

1623
01:06:00,260 --> 01:06:03,133
He liked tits, and ass,
and nakedness.

1624
01:06:03,307 --> 01:06:05,657
The key, I think is, he captured
more than the surface.

1625
01:06:05,831 --> 01:06:08,051
He captured the spark
in their eyes.

1626
01:06:08,529 --> 01:06:11,097
[Maria]
I try always
to portray women

1627
01:06:11,271 --> 01:06:12,316
sexy but,

1628
01:06:12,490 --> 01:06:14,361
of course, in a respectful way.

1629
01:06:15,101 --> 01:06:18,148
Dave did this very, very well.

1630
01:06:18,322 --> 01:06:20,585
As a woman, who the hell
wouldn't want to be drawn

1631
01:06:20,759 --> 01:06:22,587
by Dave Stevens? My God.

1632
01:06:25,416 --> 01:06:27,940
He loved to do female figures,

1633
01:06:28,114 --> 01:06:30,899
and I think
he really put a lot of effort

1634
01:06:31,074 --> 01:06:33,293
into being top-notch at it.

1635
01:06:33,902 --> 01:06:36,166
But I think it was
his favorite field of study.

1636
01:06:36,340 --> 01:06:37,254
You know what I mean?

1637
01:06:38,342 --> 01:06:39,865
He didn't mind practicing.

1638
01:06:41,736 --> 01:06:42,911
[Bob]
There's a playfulness.

1639
01:06:43,086 --> 01:06:44,435
There's an artistic beauty
to it,

1640
01:06:44,609 --> 01:06:45,436
and a balance.

1641
01:06:48,091 --> 01:06:49,744
[Scott]
There's one cover in particular

1642
01:06:49,918 --> 01:06:51,920
to me that really stands out.

1643
01:06:52,791 --> 01:06:56,099
It's a self-portrait with Dave,
very cartoony of him.

1644
01:06:56,664 --> 01:07:00,842
And then just a gorgeous
drawing of an exotic dancer.

1645
01:07:01,017 --> 01:07:04,107
I think that really shows
how much he respected

1646
01:07:04,281 --> 01:07:06,631
and loved the female form.

1647
01:07:07,501 --> 01:07:09,416
Sometimes I think he's looking
for something unattainable.

1648
01:07:09,590 --> 01:07:11,984
There was perfection
that he saw in his mind.

1649
01:07:13,594 --> 01:07:15,640
[Bruce]
I don't know if he actually
worked on his appearance,

1650
01:07:15,814 --> 01:07:17,903
but he had a good sense of style
and he was a good-looking dude.

1651
01:07:18,077 --> 01:07:19,513
I love seeing
old pictures of him

1652
01:07:19,687 --> 01:07:21,515
when he was really young
and he was kind of a tall,

1653
01:07:21,689 --> 01:07:22,908
skinny, you know, nerd.

1654
01:07:23,561 --> 01:07:25,389
Dave had a little bit of an ego,

1655
01:07:25,563 --> 01:07:28,696
and he was a little bit vain
about his appearance.

1656
01:07:28,870 --> 01:07:31,482
[Jennifer]
I remember him
standing in the doorway

1657
01:07:31,656 --> 01:07:33,484
of the bathroom,
just watching him primp.

1658
01:07:33,658 --> 01:07:35,703
[laughs]

1659
01:07:35,877 --> 01:07:37,966
Jaime Hernandez coined it best
when he said

1660
01:07:38,141 --> 01:07:40,143
Dave's
the prettiest man in comics.

1661
01:07:40,317 --> 01:07:42,971
He was the most beautiful boy
in comics.

1662
01:07:43,146 --> 01:07:46,584
All artists have
a sense of self.

1663
01:07:46,758 --> 01:07:49,891
He was-- he always was
art directing himself in a way.

1664
01:07:50,457 --> 01:07:53,504
[Jim]
He was neatly turned out
on all occasions,

1665
01:07:53,678 --> 01:07:55,941
and he preferred retro clothing,

1666
01:07:56,115 --> 01:07:58,465
and he that picked out
meticulously.

1667
01:07:58,639 --> 01:08:00,815
He carried a style with him
into the world.

1668
01:08:00,989 --> 01:08:03,470
But never flamboyantly,
like his friend,

1669
01:08:03,644 --> 01:08:06,212
Jim Steranko, who was
quite a flamboyant guy.

1670
01:08:06,386 --> 01:08:09,563
They cared about
how they presented themselves
to the world.

1671
01:08:09,737 --> 01:08:11,391
Over the years
he would change his

1672
01:08:11,565 --> 01:08:14,264
sideburns and mustache
and goatee.

1673
01:08:14,438 --> 01:08:15,830
[Scroggy]
Those sideburns.

1674
01:08:16,004 --> 01:08:18,355
You could shave
with Dave's sideburns.

1675
01:08:18,529 --> 01:08:20,705
They were so sharp and crisp.

1676
01:08:20,879 --> 01:08:22,272
I guess you could say
he was vain.

1677
01:08:22,446 --> 01:08:24,361
But it wasn't a problem.
It wasn't a detriment

1678
01:08:24,535 --> 01:08:25,840
to his character.

1679
01:08:26,014 --> 01:08:28,843
Oh, it's not vain.
It's having self-esteem.

1680
01:08:29,017 --> 01:08:30,671
I never saw Dave
with a hair out of place

1681
01:08:30,845 --> 01:08:33,065
but, uh, I did see Dave
with a pirate shirt.

1682
01:08:33,239 --> 01:08:35,154
The famous
Pirate shirt incident.

1683
01:08:35,328 --> 01:08:37,548
His puffy pirate shirt.

1684
01:08:37,722 --> 01:08:39,854
The Errol Flynn pirate shirt.

1685
01:08:40,028 --> 01:08:43,162
[Bob]
It worked for him,
and he felt comfortable with it,

1686
01:08:43,336 --> 01:08:44,990
but that doesn't mean
you can't make fun of it.

1687
01:08:46,426 --> 01:08:50,822
[Elaine laughs]

1688
01:08:50,996 --> 01:08:52,650
[Geofrey]
"Hey Dave, you got
the puffy shirt."

1689
01:08:52,824 --> 01:08:54,913
He goes, "Why didn't somebody
tell me that?"

1690
01:08:55,087 --> 01:08:57,742
He goes, "Do you know
how hard it is
to find a shirt like this?"

1691
01:08:57,916 --> 01:08:59,526
And I said, "Yeah,
and there's a reason for it."

1692
01:09:00,571 --> 01:09:02,399
[Adam]
That big pirate shirt.

1693
01:09:02,573 --> 01:09:05,228
And that was for the first chink
in the Dave Stevens armor ever.

1694
01:09:05,402 --> 01:09:07,882
[chuckles softly]
I just kind of went, "Whew".

1695
01:09:08,535 --> 01:09:12,148
He was just going through life
and playing with the tools
that God gave him.

1696
01:09:12,322 --> 01:09:14,541
Thing about him
is he loved women,

1697
01:09:14,715 --> 01:09:16,282
and not in a dirty way.

1698
01:09:16,456 --> 01:09:18,023
He just loved women.

1699
01:09:18,197 --> 01:09:19,894
And that's what got him
into all kinds of trouble.

1700
01:09:20,068 --> 01:09:22,027
[chuckles]

1701
01:09:22,462 --> 01:09:27,641
Dave was a very sweet guy,
and he was very honest.

1702
01:09:27,815 --> 01:09:31,384
That was part of why
women gravitated towards him.

1703
01:09:31,906 --> 01:09:33,647
[John]
I couldn't believe
when Dave called me,

1704
01:09:33,821 --> 01:09:35,083
and said, "You're not going
to believe what just happened."

1705
01:09:35,258 --> 01:09:36,563
I'm like, "What?"

1706
01:09:36,737 --> 01:09:38,913
Well, he had one girl
in the bedroom,

1707
01:09:39,087 --> 01:09:41,568
and he gets this knock,
knock, knock...

1708
01:09:41,742 --> 01:09:42,656
[chuckles]

1709
01:09:42,830 --> 01:09:44,745
He had one knocking on the door,

1710
01:09:44,919 --> 01:09:46,704
he had one in bed,

1711
01:09:46,878 --> 01:09:49,663
and he had the other,
the third one on the phone.

1712
01:09:49,837 --> 01:09:51,665
[John]
And he's like,
"What are you doing here?

1713
01:09:51,839 --> 01:09:53,841
You know
you're not supposed to come over
without calling first!"

1714
01:09:54,015 --> 01:09:56,409
Cause he had a whole litany
of rules, you can't come over,

1715
01:09:56,583 --> 01:09:58,672
you can't just pop in
to Dave Stevens house.

1716
01:09:59,499 --> 01:10:01,066
[Jim]
It wasn't an erotic story.

1717
01:10:01,240 --> 01:10:03,242
It was a guy who got caught

1718
01:10:03,416 --> 01:10:05,157
being too nice
to too many girls.

1719
01:10:07,464 --> 01:10:10,902
How much of this is Dave
and how much of this is them?

1720
01:10:11,076 --> 01:10:13,992
I'm sure there's, um,
a middle ground somewhere.

1721
01:10:15,646 --> 01:10:18,301
I think his marriage taught him
a lot of things.

1722
01:10:18,866 --> 01:10:20,477
[Brinke]
This was an excerpt
from a letter

1723
01:10:20,651 --> 01:10:22,087
that Dave wrote to me.

1724
01:10:22,653 --> 01:10:26,439
"Charlene, I had my mind set
on the kind of wife I wanted.

1725
01:10:26,613 --> 01:10:28,528
And whenever you proved
to be otherwise,

1726
01:10:28,702 --> 01:10:30,443
I imploded. I panicked.

1727
01:10:30,617 --> 01:10:33,229
I know now that the worst thing
I could have done, I did,

1728
01:10:33,403 --> 01:10:34,273
I left.

1729
01:10:35,013 --> 01:10:37,189
I had to have things perfect
in my way,

1730
01:10:37,363 --> 01:10:38,451
or I wouldn't play."

1731
01:10:42,673 --> 01:10:44,022
[Jewel]
There was definite love,

1732
01:10:44,196 --> 01:10:47,199
just not the obvious
kind of love.

1733
01:10:47,373 --> 01:10:48,853
Although we tried, I mean,

1734
01:10:49,027 --> 01:10:50,681
we tried to, like,
kind of look like a couple.

1735
01:10:50,855 --> 01:10:52,378
We just failed so miserably.

1736
01:10:53,118 --> 01:10:54,685
[Schreck]
It was hard for him to make

1737
01:10:54,859 --> 01:10:58,036
those compromises
that relationships need.

1738
01:10:58,645 --> 01:11:00,517
it was always,
"Okay, that's enough.

1739
01:11:00,691 --> 01:11:02,780
I'm done.
I'm going over here now."

1740
01:11:02,954 --> 01:11:03,868
[chuckles]

1741
01:11:08,307 --> 01:11:09,700
The Rocketeerwas my hobby.

1742
01:11:09,874 --> 01:11:11,397
It was something
I did in my spare time.

1743
01:11:11,571 --> 01:11:13,704
That's why
there are so few of them,

1744
01:11:13,878 --> 01:11:15,488
because I wasn't
all that interested

1745
01:11:15,662 --> 01:11:18,230
in doing a huge number
of comics.

1746
01:11:18,404 --> 01:11:19,318
[David]
Dave waited out,

1747
01:11:19,492 --> 01:11:20,711
the guy that bought up

1748
01:11:20,885 --> 01:11:22,060
the Comico assets.

1749
01:11:22,234 --> 01:11:23,801
About three years went by

1750
01:11:23,975 --> 01:11:25,411
and he was free to take it

1751
01:11:25,585 --> 01:11:28,327
where he wanted to
and that was Dark Horse.

1752
01:11:28,501 --> 01:11:30,590
This is the last Rocketeerstory

1753
01:11:30,764 --> 01:11:32,462
that, uh, I've yet to complete.

1754
01:11:33,027 --> 01:11:35,769
It's been sitting unfinished
for quite a while.

1755
01:11:35,943 --> 01:11:37,031
[Schreck]
As time went on,

1756
01:11:37,205 --> 01:11:39,295
Dave's love of comics

1757
01:11:39,469 --> 01:11:40,905
was slowly waning.

1758
01:11:41,471 --> 01:11:43,777
[John]
Luckily, he had people
he knew a Dark Horse, so,

1759
01:11:43,951 --> 01:11:45,344
it was a little easier
for him there.

1760
01:11:45,518 --> 01:11:47,303
We'll see if people like it.

1761
01:11:47,477 --> 01:11:50,697
If they don't, well,
it's too bad. [chuckles]

1762
01:11:51,394 --> 01:11:53,918
[Scroggy]
I got the kind ironic pleasure

1763
01:11:54,092 --> 01:11:55,920
of watching Bob Schreck

1764
01:11:56,094 --> 01:11:57,574
standing in the shoes

1765
01:11:57,748 --> 01:11:59,880
that I had been standing
in long before

1766
01:12:00,054 --> 01:12:04,450
trying to wrangle the pages
of Rocketeerfrom Dave Stevens.

1767
01:12:04,624 --> 01:12:08,193
And it didn't work any better
for Bob than it did for me.

1768
01:12:08,367 --> 01:12:10,456
[Schreck]
He was definitely
having struggles,

1769
01:12:10,630 --> 01:12:12,371
the further and further we went.

1770
01:12:12,545 --> 01:12:14,460
They had a deadline
and Dave can't meet

1771
01:12:14,634 --> 01:12:16,375
a deadline,
so bring in the troops.

1772
01:12:16,549 --> 01:12:19,073
[Dave]
The two guys who wrote the
script for the film,

1773
01:12:19,247 --> 01:12:20,510
Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo,

1774
01:12:20,684 --> 01:12:23,382
wrote with me
the last two chapters.

1775
01:12:23,556 --> 01:12:25,819
The Rocketeerwas our
first comic we wrote,

1776
01:12:25,993 --> 01:12:28,474
When it came to laying out
the panels, editing,

1777
01:12:28,648 --> 01:12:30,955
it's a completely different
art form.

1778
01:12:31,129 --> 01:12:32,348
Paul and I were just like,

1779
01:12:32,522 --> 01:12:34,393
"Wow, this is way
more time-consuming

1780
01:12:34,567 --> 01:12:35,699
and way harder than we thought.

1781
01:12:35,873 --> 01:12:37,178
[Dave chuckles]

1782
01:12:37,353 --> 01:12:38,832
[Bruce]
Dave was always looking to get

1783
01:12:39,006 --> 01:12:41,313
assistants to help him out
on the Rocketeer.

1784
01:12:41,487 --> 01:12:42,749
Of course, on the second story
that he did,

1785
01:12:42,923 --> 01:12:43,881
the New York Adventure,

1786
01:12:44,055 --> 01:12:45,317
he actually had a lot of help.

1787
01:12:45,491 --> 01:12:46,971
He needed people
that could really draw.

1788
01:12:48,146 --> 01:12:49,974
Dave said that he was up
against the wall,

1789
01:12:50,148 --> 01:12:52,237
would I do breakdowns?

1790
01:12:52,411 --> 01:12:53,978
I said "Well, I'll try."

1791
01:12:54,587 --> 01:12:55,806
And I remember calling him up
and saying,

1792
01:12:55,980 --> 01:12:58,852
"Sorry buddy,
this looks like crap."

1793
01:12:59,026 --> 01:13:00,985
He said, "Oh, that's perfect!
That's all I need!

1794
01:13:01,377 --> 01:13:03,379
The thing about Dave is,
this sounds weird to say,

1795
01:13:03,553 --> 01:13:05,511
but I don't think drawing
came easy to him,

1796
01:13:05,685 --> 01:13:08,166
even though he drew
from a very early age.

1797
01:13:08,340 --> 01:13:10,560
He said that starting
with a blank sheet of paper
is like the scariest thing.

1798
01:13:10,734 --> 01:13:11,952
It's like, "I don't really know
what I want to draw."

1799
01:13:13,171 --> 01:13:15,086
I did a few backgrounds for him.

1800
01:13:15,260 --> 01:13:16,957
Gary Gianni did one page.

1801
01:13:17,131 --> 01:13:18,742
Arthur Adams.

1802
01:13:18,916 --> 01:13:20,221
Sandy Plunkett.

1803
01:13:20,700 --> 01:13:21,875
These French guys,

1804
01:13:22,049 --> 01:13:24,182
Stan Manoukian
and Vince Roucher.

1805
01:13:25,183 --> 01:13:26,619
They would help him
finish up the book

1806
01:13:26,793 --> 01:13:27,881
so that they can get
it published.

1807
01:13:28,055 --> 01:13:29,535
They came through
and got it done.

1808
01:13:33,365 --> 01:13:36,237
I used to go over
to Dave Stevens' studio.

1809
01:13:36,412 --> 01:13:39,589
I do remember seeing pieces
of Rocketeer

1810
01:13:39,763 --> 01:13:42,983
that weren't part of any
of the published material yet,

1811
01:13:43,157 --> 01:13:45,246
the Rocketeerart
that could have been.

1812
01:13:46,030 --> 01:13:47,858
[Dave]
So, I've still got
file folders full of

1813
01:13:48,032 --> 01:13:49,903
plots and characters
and all that.

1814
01:13:50,077 --> 01:13:52,384
Cliff and Betty go to the desert

1815
01:13:52,558 --> 01:13:54,691
and there was a giant
Tesla coil.

1816
01:13:54,865 --> 01:13:56,997
Peevy has disappeared
and because

1817
01:13:57,171 --> 01:13:58,912
something, something,
something, blah, blah, blah.

1818
01:13:59,086 --> 01:14:00,131
It was during World War II,

1819
01:14:00,305 --> 01:14:01,262
and he was gonna end up

1820
01:14:01,437 --> 01:14:02,742
on Skull Island.

1821
01:14:02,916 --> 01:14:04,309
You got the rocket pack,

1822
01:14:04,483 --> 01:14:06,006
and he's on this island
full of dinosaurs.

1823
01:14:06,180 --> 01:14:08,313
Holy cow.
Now there, now you're talking.

1824
01:14:10,184 --> 01:14:12,404
[Bruce]
When he did that last issue
of The Rocketeer,that came out

1825
01:14:12,578 --> 01:14:15,015
pretty much when the,
when the comic book market
was crashing.

1826
01:14:15,189 --> 01:14:16,495
Dark Horse had to contract

1827
01:14:16,669 --> 01:14:17,888
and basically, Dave got the cut.

1828
01:14:18,062 --> 01:14:19,977
[Dave]
The whole experience of jumping

1829
01:14:20,151 --> 01:14:23,067
from, one, two, three,
four publishers

1830
01:14:23,241 --> 01:14:25,983
in a span of maybe
a handful of years,

1831
01:14:26,157 --> 01:14:28,333
it just drummed
all the enthusiasm out of me.

1832
01:14:28,507 --> 01:14:30,553
In the years since
I've suggested

1833
01:14:30,727 --> 01:14:33,556
a couple of miniseries
or two-issue things.

1834
01:14:33,730 --> 01:14:37,821
He's like, "I want to do
Superman and the Rocketeer."
And I was like, "Huh?"

1835
01:14:37,995 --> 01:14:40,345
[Dave]
I did make
that three-issue pitch at DC

1836
01:14:40,519 --> 01:14:43,783
for The Rocketeer-Superman
crossover in 1998

1837
01:14:43,957 --> 01:14:46,438
that was met
with complete resistance.

1838
01:14:46,612 --> 01:14:48,745
I didn't see any artwork for it,

1839
01:14:48,919 --> 01:14:52,357
but he had the Rocketeer,
Superman, and

1840
01:14:52,531 --> 01:14:56,187
the Orson Welles Broadcast
about the Mars Invasion.

1841
01:14:56,361 --> 01:14:58,929
Kind of a Max Fleischer Studios'
Superman.

1842
01:14:59,103 --> 01:15:00,670
[Scott]
It was a cool idea,
but there were some

1843
01:15:00,844 --> 01:15:02,889
issues in the story
that DC objected to.

1844
01:15:03,063 --> 01:15:05,631
When you do a crossover
with a major company

1845
01:15:05,805 --> 01:15:08,155
everything has to be very
balanced for them

1846
01:15:08,329 --> 01:15:10,244
and apparently
it wasn't balanced enough.

1847
01:15:10,418 --> 01:15:12,769
[Dave]
I've since given the scripts to

1848
01:15:12,943 --> 01:15:14,379
two or three other editors there

1849
01:15:14,553 --> 01:15:16,207
and never heard from them again.

1850
01:15:16,381 --> 01:15:18,296
Did I write
really crappy stories,

1851
01:15:18,470 --> 01:15:20,646
or is it just a thing
of bad timing?

1852
01:15:24,171 --> 01:15:26,870
After the movie
and after the debacle with DC

1853
01:15:27,044 --> 01:15:28,698
and Rocketeer and Superman,

1854
01:15:28,872 --> 01:15:30,569
I think he lost a whole lot
of interest in this stuff.

1855
01:15:30,743 --> 01:15:33,050
The thing that
he was recognized for,

1856
01:15:33,224 --> 01:15:34,747
regarded for at some point,

1857
01:15:34,921 --> 01:15:36,749
he started to move away from it.

1858
01:15:37,315 --> 01:15:39,273
I kind of feel like
he was a little bit lost.

1859
01:15:39,447 --> 01:15:41,319
He didn't really know
what to do with himself
at that point.

1860
01:15:41,928 --> 01:15:44,365
[Dave]
I just felt so stale
and useless,

1861
01:15:44,540 --> 01:15:47,194
I just didn't care
to put out bad work anymore.

1862
01:15:47,891 --> 01:15:49,022
So, I just stopped.

1863
01:15:49,675 --> 01:15:51,808
The death
of any creative individual

1864
01:15:51,982 --> 01:15:53,853
is to go, I'm done learning,

1865
01:15:54,027 --> 01:15:55,812
and now I'm just going
to coast on what I know.

1866
01:15:56,377 --> 01:15:58,510
[Dave]
That was one of the reasons
that I got so dissatisfied

1867
01:15:58,684 --> 01:16:00,817
with everything I was doing
from probably

1868
01:16:00,991 --> 01:16:04,560
'92 on until about '99.

1869
01:16:04,734 --> 01:16:07,737
Okay, if I can't bear
to draw comic books anymore,

1870
01:16:07,911 --> 01:16:11,349
Maybe I can set
this alternate thing,

1871
01:16:11,523 --> 01:16:14,091
being a painter on fire
if I go back to school

1872
01:16:14,265 --> 01:16:16,093
like I should've done years ago.

1873
01:16:16,267 --> 01:16:18,791
I went to work
for the LA Art Academy

1874
01:16:18,965 --> 01:16:21,011
and when Dave learned about it,

1875
01:16:21,185 --> 01:16:24,188
he decided that he's going
to come to my class.

1876
01:16:24,362 --> 01:16:26,886
He had this sort of idea
and attitude of,

1877
01:16:27,060 --> 01:16:28,627
"I always have to better myself,

1878
01:16:28,801 --> 01:16:30,150
and I can do better".

1879
01:16:30,324 --> 01:16:32,109
To be a great artist,
you need to always

1880
01:16:32,283 --> 01:16:33,501
be striving to be better.

1881
01:16:33,676 --> 01:16:34,938
And I think
Dave always did that.

1882
01:16:36,896 --> 01:16:39,856
Dave was embarking
on the painting journey,

1883
01:16:40,030 --> 01:16:41,640
and it has a learning curve.

1884
01:16:42,728 --> 01:16:44,817
The seeds were there.
The eye was there.

1885
01:16:44,991 --> 01:16:47,080
The technique wasn't there yet.

1886
01:16:47,254 --> 01:16:48,604
[Dave]
Class after class.

1887
01:16:48,778 --> 01:16:49,996
One right after another
every term.

1888
01:16:50,170 --> 01:16:51,650
All I was after, was just

1889
01:16:51,824 --> 01:16:53,043
trying to bring my game up.

1890
01:16:53,217 --> 01:16:54,697
[Adam]
If that's his response

1891
01:16:54,871 --> 01:16:56,263
to being dissatisfied

1892
01:16:56,437 --> 01:16:57,787
with his work,
then that's a good response.

1893
01:16:57,961 --> 01:16:59,136
That's a healthy response,
you know,

1894
01:16:59,310 --> 01:17:00,833
cause he's being
proactive about it.

1895
01:17:01,007 --> 01:17:02,922
You got to hand it to the guy
for having that...

1896
01:17:03,096 --> 01:17:04,271
that kind of humility.

1897
01:17:04,924 --> 01:17:07,797
I have never heard
of any other artist doing that.

1898
01:17:07,971 --> 01:17:09,407
To admit that at 42,

1899
01:17:09,581 --> 01:17:11,627
and I'm admitting that
having just turned 50.

1900
01:17:11,801 --> 01:17:13,672
It's scary.
You definitely feel like

1901
01:17:13,846 --> 01:17:15,239
you need to continue
your education,

1902
01:17:15,413 --> 01:17:16,980
or you just wither away.

1903
01:17:17,589 --> 01:17:19,286
[Dave]
It's heartbreaking
to see somebody

1904
01:17:19,460 --> 01:17:21,332
doing some virtuoso

1905
01:17:21,506 --> 01:17:22,507
drawing or painting

1906
01:17:22,681 --> 01:17:23,987
and then to slowly see them

1907
01:17:24,161 --> 01:17:25,249
sort of get lazy

1908
01:17:25,423 --> 01:17:26,424
and sit back,

1909
01:17:26,598 --> 01:17:28,078
and then before you know it,

1910
01:17:28,252 --> 01:17:30,471
they're doing really
mundane hack work.

1911
01:17:30,646 --> 01:17:32,604
And they never rise to it again.

1912
01:17:33,083 --> 01:17:35,302
He always felt that
there was another artist

1913
01:17:35,476 --> 01:17:36,739
he could learn from.

1914
01:17:36,913 --> 01:17:38,697
[Nathan] It's interesting
being the teacher

1915
01:17:38,871 --> 01:17:40,656
of someone like Dave.

1916
01:17:40,830 --> 01:17:42,962
Even the greatest athletes
have a coach,

1917
01:17:43,136 --> 01:17:45,878
and even though
they can outperform their coach,

1918
01:17:46,052 --> 01:17:48,141
they need that second set
of eyes.

1919
01:17:48,315 --> 01:17:49,577
And you need someone

1920
01:17:49,752 --> 01:17:51,449
with a level of experience

1921
01:17:51,623 --> 01:17:54,757
that can spot your blind spots
and point them out to you.

1922
01:17:54,931 --> 01:17:56,628
[Dave]
It's probably going
to take me the rest of my life

1923
01:17:56,802 --> 01:17:59,544
to get facility enough
to where I can just start

1924
01:17:59,718 --> 01:18:03,809
laying it down and know
that I'm not gonna foul it up.

1925
01:18:04,505 --> 01:18:06,464
I went around to the students
and asked them,

1926
01:18:06,638 --> 01:18:09,075
"How many paintings per week
do you want to commit to do?

1927
01:18:09,249 --> 01:18:10,860
I, I recommend at least one,

1928
01:18:11,034 --> 01:18:12,296
three if you're serious,"

1929
01:18:12,470 --> 01:18:13,471
and Dave said, "Five."

1930
01:18:13,645 --> 01:18:15,603
Week one, five. Week two, five.

1931
01:18:15,778 --> 01:18:17,214
Five, five, five. All the way

1932
01:18:17,388 --> 01:18:18,650
through the ten weeks of class.

1933
01:18:19,390 --> 01:18:21,392
He came through
every single week.

1934
01:18:22,001 --> 01:18:23,916
He was a very serious student.

1935
01:18:24,395 --> 01:18:25,831
He was just so jazzed.

1936
01:18:26,005 --> 01:18:28,138
I hadn't seen that fire in him
in quite a while.

1937
01:18:28,312 --> 01:18:30,618
[Brinke]
He was trying
to reach another level

1938
01:18:30,793 --> 01:18:32,664
to do something,
accomplish something,

1939
01:18:32,838 --> 01:18:33,926
try something harder

1940
01:18:34,100 --> 01:18:35,623
than he had ever done before.

1941
01:18:35,798 --> 01:18:37,713
This is the Black Dahlia.

1942
01:18:37,887 --> 01:18:40,324
He designed this beautifully.

1943
01:18:41,151 --> 01:18:44,067
He makes the most
of all the ordinariness of it.

1944
01:18:45,198 --> 01:18:47,505
The expression in the eyebrows,

1945
01:18:47,679 --> 01:18:49,594
and just the casual quality
of the lips.

1946
01:18:49,768 --> 01:18:51,204
[Rebecka]
Then you look at her eyes.

1947
01:18:51,378 --> 01:18:53,685
There's something completely
like disarming.

1948
01:18:54,251 --> 01:18:55,513
[Dave]
When you do get close

1949
01:18:55,687 --> 01:18:57,080
to successful with one of those,

1950
01:18:57,254 --> 01:18:58,777
that's the best payoff
of anything,

1951
01:18:58,951 --> 01:19:00,823
is just knowing that you caught

1952
01:19:00,997 --> 01:19:02,389
whatever it was
about that person,

1953
01:19:02,563 --> 01:19:03,651
in that split second.

1954
01:19:03,826 --> 01:19:04,914
And it's rare.

1955
01:19:05,871 --> 01:19:07,917
He really had everything going
for him.

1956
01:19:08,787 --> 01:19:11,964
And then God, of course,
dropped kicked him
out of the universe.

1957
01:19:15,663 --> 01:19:19,450
Right after we were sharing time
in the art schools, Dave and I,

1958
01:19:20,016 --> 01:19:21,713
he was having some troubles.

1959
01:19:21,887 --> 01:19:23,323
I knew that something
was going on.

1960
01:19:23,497 --> 01:19:24,716
He wasn't shy about it,

1961
01:19:24,890 --> 01:19:26,979
but it wasn't a topic
of conversation.

1962
01:19:27,153 --> 01:19:29,373
He called me.
My wife was in the room...

1963
01:19:30,766 --> 01:19:32,419
[sobbing]

1964
01:19:34,465 --> 01:19:36,162
...she saw me burst into tears.

1965
01:19:36,815 --> 01:19:39,862
He said, "Hey, I have to,
I have to talk to you
about something.

1966
01:19:40,036 --> 01:19:42,125
And I don't, I don't want you
to get upset."

1967
01:19:42,299 --> 01:19:44,083
Well, there's a blood problem.

1968
01:19:44,649 --> 01:19:45,693
What blood problem?

1969
01:19:46,259 --> 01:19:47,478
What does that mean?

1970
01:19:47,652 --> 01:19:49,045
And he finally
kind of sat us down

1971
01:19:49,219 --> 01:19:50,133
and explained

1972
01:19:50,307 --> 01:19:51,264
what was going on.

1973
01:19:52,048 --> 01:19:53,963
After further tests and things,

1974
01:19:54,137 --> 01:19:55,965
they determined that
it was hairy cell leukemia.

1975
01:19:56,139 --> 01:20:00,796
Just a very rare blood cancer
that attacks the marrow,

1976
01:20:00,970 --> 01:20:05,626
basically, in the bones
and while it is treatable

1977
01:20:05,801 --> 01:20:08,281
for a while, ultimately...

1978
01:20:08,934 --> 01:20:11,676
that's one of those cancers
they haven't quite really gotten

1979
01:20:11,850 --> 01:20:13,417
to the bottom of, unfortunately.

1980
01:20:13,591 --> 01:20:15,245
You know I said,
"Well, is this something
to worry about?"

1981
01:20:15,419 --> 01:20:16,202
He goes, "I don't think so."

1982
01:20:16,376 --> 01:20:18,117
I don't why Dave

1983
01:20:18,291 --> 01:20:20,380
wanted so much to keep it quiet.

1984
01:20:20,990 --> 01:20:22,078
But he did.

1985
01:20:22,252 --> 01:20:23,644
[Jim]
That was his business.

1986
01:20:23,819 --> 01:20:26,604
He just suffered through
that silently.

1987
01:20:26,778 --> 01:20:28,606
[Geofrey]
Jim Silke had called me up,

1988
01:20:28,780 --> 01:20:30,390
and he said
"I want to tell you something.

1989
01:20:30,564 --> 01:20:33,045
Although he did not want me
to tell you."

1990
01:20:33,219 --> 01:20:34,786
But I said, "Goddammit,
he's your friend

1991
01:20:34,960 --> 01:20:36,701
and he should know,
and I'm going to tell him

1992
01:20:36,875 --> 01:20:38,094
because you can trust him."

1993
01:20:38,268 --> 01:20:39,791
So, I didn't know what to think.

1994
01:20:40,487 --> 01:20:42,881
And then
it became public knowledge

1995
01:20:43,055 --> 01:20:44,361
that he was quite ill.

1996
01:20:44,535 --> 01:20:45,797
He got mad.

1997
01:20:45,971 --> 01:20:46,929
He was mad at me.

1998
01:20:47,103 --> 01:20:48,713
He said, "You told somebody."

1999
01:20:48,887 --> 01:20:50,367
I said,
"I haven't talked to anybody."

2000
01:20:50,541 --> 01:20:52,630
There were a couple
of relationships

2001
01:20:52,804 --> 01:20:55,589
that became pretty strained.

2002
01:20:56,155 --> 01:20:58,462
He would do
a few things arbitrarily

2003
01:20:58,636 --> 01:21:01,465
that he wouldn't have done
if he hadn't been...

2004
01:21:02,292 --> 01:21:04,294
...sick. Very, very sick.

2005
01:21:04,468 --> 01:21:05,991
I would call him,
and he wouldn't pick up

2006
01:21:06,165 --> 01:21:07,906
and I'd call him again
and I'm like, "Look, dude,

2007
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:10,430
you either pick up the phone,
or I'm going to call your mom.

2008
01:21:11,127 --> 01:21:12,519
And she's going to get you
to call me."

2009
01:21:13,085 --> 01:21:14,478
Well, he picked right up.

2010
01:21:14,652 --> 01:21:16,349
And I'm like,
"Okay, so what's the story?

2011
01:21:16,523 --> 01:21:19,787
And he said, "Somebody told
that I have this leukemia."

2012
01:21:21,093 --> 01:21:23,269
Our conversations
never really talked about

2013
01:21:23,879 --> 01:21:26,011
death or anything like that.
It was always...

2014
01:21:26,620 --> 01:21:28,231
it was always
trying to be up about it.

2015
01:21:28,405 --> 01:21:30,494
I'm happy that
there were people around him

2016
01:21:30,668 --> 01:21:32,931
who were able
to help him because

2017
01:21:33,105 --> 01:21:35,803
how do you go
through something
like this by yourself?

2018
01:21:35,978 --> 01:21:38,502
He told me he would need
some more help
from time to time.

2019
01:21:38,676 --> 01:21:41,244
He would need me maybe
to get groceries for him
every now and then.

2020
01:21:41,418 --> 01:21:43,072
I'd be visiting,
and I'd be hanging out,

2021
01:21:43,246 --> 01:21:45,552
and we'd go spend three hours
at Kaiser Permanente.

2022
01:21:45,726 --> 01:21:48,686
I drove him to the chemo
cause that's a killer,

2023
01:21:49,426 --> 01:21:53,125
for hours you're miserable,
every time you do it.

2024
01:21:53,299 --> 01:21:54,692
You know, I'm always optimistic.

2025
01:21:54,866 --> 01:21:56,824
Now you know
you have this illness,

2026
01:21:56,999 --> 01:21:58,783
and let's hope
that the treatment

2027
01:21:58,957 --> 01:22:01,351
really improves quality of life.

2028
01:22:01,525 --> 01:22:04,484
My dad felt
if he prayed hard enough,

2029
01:22:04,658 --> 01:22:07,226
Dave would not have
to go through chemo.

2030
01:22:08,401 --> 01:22:10,142
And I think
he really had a hard time

2031
01:22:10,316 --> 01:22:11,839
wrestling with the fact that

2032
01:22:12,536 --> 01:22:13,624
his prayers were not answered.

2033
01:22:15,060 --> 01:22:18,150
[Jim]
He had just come home
from chemotherapy

2034
01:22:18,324 --> 01:22:20,936
and he saw himself
in the mirror.

2035
01:22:22,981 --> 01:22:24,852
[Jewel]
He was able to draw himself

2036
01:22:25,027 --> 01:22:26,854
in the anger and
the frustration, and the pain.

2037
01:22:27,029 --> 01:22:29,161
There's nothing as bitingly real

2038
01:22:29,335 --> 01:22:31,424
as anything else in his art.

2039
01:22:31,598 --> 01:22:33,905
It's a whole different look
at the world.

2040
01:22:34,471 --> 01:22:36,429
And I guess he could do it
'cause it's himself.

2041
01:22:36,603 --> 01:22:39,650
I never thought about it
that way until just now.

2042
01:22:43,523 --> 01:22:46,091
Nobody was seeing Dave
as much as we used to,

2043
01:22:46,265 --> 01:22:49,747
and I think he was sensitive
about people seeing him sick.

2044
01:22:50,269 --> 01:22:52,837
[Jim]
I've got a heart problem,
a kidney problem.

2045
01:22:53,011 --> 01:22:54,273
But we could laugh about it.

2046
01:22:54,926 --> 01:22:56,667
It was dark humor.

2047
01:22:56,841 --> 01:23:00,149
I'd say, "I'm going to tell them
about the puffy shirt."

2048
01:23:00,323 --> 01:23:02,542
"Aah, you can't tell 'em that!"

2049
01:23:02,716 --> 01:23:04,153
[chuckles]
You know?

2050
01:23:04,980 --> 01:23:06,546
[Brinke]
He wanted to be
at the Comic-Con,

2051
01:23:06,720 --> 01:23:08,896
but he wanted to look healthier

2052
01:23:09,071 --> 01:23:10,811
and more robust than
he really was.

2053
01:23:10,986 --> 01:23:14,337
[Scroggy]
Dave used to, literally,
pump himself up.

2054
01:23:14,511 --> 01:23:16,730
He would get a bunch
of blood transfusions

2055
01:23:16,904 --> 01:23:21,605
to withstand the rigors
of exhibiting for four days.

2056
01:23:22,214 --> 01:23:26,305
[Jaime] This went on for years.
He'd go, "I'm done signing,
I've got to go lie down."

2057
01:23:26,479 --> 01:23:29,047
And then he goes,
"But it's no big deal."

2058
01:23:29,221 --> 01:23:31,484
He was worried
that people were going to
stop giving him work.

2059
01:23:31,658 --> 01:23:35,445
So, he really didn't want to
lose that because

2060
01:23:35,619 --> 01:23:37,708
he had all these bills
coming in.

2061
01:23:37,882 --> 01:23:39,318
The illness did affect
his ability to work

2062
01:23:39,492 --> 01:23:41,494
because almost all treatments
for cancer

2063
01:23:41,668 --> 01:23:43,409
affect you physically,

2064
01:23:43,583 --> 01:23:44,889
usually sap your energy.

2065
01:23:45,063 --> 01:23:46,282
And as far as his career
is concerned,

2066
01:23:46,456 --> 01:23:48,153
Dave's trying
to be very optimistic.

2067
01:23:48,327 --> 01:23:50,242
You know he had
one more project to do,

2068
01:23:50,416 --> 01:23:51,809
he wanted to get it done.

2069
01:23:51,983 --> 01:23:53,985
After the treatments,
instead of resting,

2070
01:23:54,159 --> 01:23:55,595
he would just dive
right back into work.

2071
01:23:55,769 --> 01:23:56,683
[chuckles]

2072
01:23:58,685 --> 01:23:59,599
[Scroggy]
He would try to keep

2073
01:23:59,773 --> 01:24:01,645
as many projects in the air

2074
01:24:01,819 --> 01:24:02,689
as he could.

2075
01:24:03,212 --> 01:24:04,691
[David]
Around 2006,

2076
01:24:04,865 --> 01:24:06,563
Dave started working
on Brush with Passion.

2077
01:24:06,737 --> 01:24:08,391
The second the book was a go,

2078
01:24:08,565 --> 01:24:09,783
what he really wanted to do was

2079
01:24:09,957 --> 01:24:11,829
recolor some of the old artwork

2080
01:24:12,003 --> 01:24:14,919
because, well,
it wasn't up to snuff.

2081
01:24:15,093 --> 01:24:18,618
[Richard]
If he had drawn it one way
earlier in his life,

2082
01:24:18,792 --> 01:24:20,794
and now it was coming up
for publication again,

2083
01:24:20,968 --> 01:24:23,710
he was as likely as not
to completely redo the thing

2084
01:24:23,884 --> 01:24:26,496
because that older stuff just
wasn't good enough for him.

2085
01:24:26,974 --> 01:24:29,673
Two friends of mine,
Kelvin Mao and David Mandel

2086
01:24:29,847 --> 01:24:31,979
asked if I would be interested
in digitally coloring,

2087
01:24:32,154 --> 01:24:34,286
uh, a couple of pin ups
for Brush of Passion.

2088
01:24:34,895 --> 01:24:38,377
[Scott]
Laura Martin is one of
the premier colorists in comics

2089
01:24:38,551 --> 01:24:39,683
and she has been
for a long time.

2090
01:24:40,336 --> 01:24:41,859
[Kelvin]
Computer coloring
was relatively new

2091
01:24:42,033 --> 01:24:44,122
and Dave was,
let's say a little bit unsure.

2092
01:24:44,296 --> 01:24:47,995
I sort of convinced him
to give her a few pieces to try.

2093
01:24:48,170 --> 01:24:50,215
[Laura]
The Catwoman piece
was a darker palette,

2094
01:24:50,389 --> 01:24:52,522
and the Aurora piece
was much brighter.

2095
01:24:52,696 --> 01:24:54,263
I wanted to get the sun
on the skin,

2096
01:24:54,437 --> 01:24:55,916
the brighter tones that suggest

2097
01:24:56,091 --> 01:24:58,049
a completely different
lighting situation.

2098
01:24:59,094 --> 01:25:00,965
There were some exchanges,
a few little minor changes

2099
01:25:01,139 --> 01:25:03,750
but he was very impressed
and really happy

2100
01:25:03,924 --> 01:25:05,012
with the results.

2101
01:25:05,665 --> 01:25:08,015
It was a little heartbreaking
watching Dave work

2102
01:25:08,190 --> 01:25:09,321
on Brush with Passion

2103
01:25:09,495 --> 01:25:10,496
during his illness.

2104
01:25:10,670 --> 01:25:12,019
It really gave him something,

2105
01:25:12,194 --> 01:25:13,369
I think each day,

2106
01:25:13,543 --> 01:25:15,632
to sort of look forward to
and to do

2107
01:25:15,806 --> 01:25:17,590
and kind of kept his spirits up.

2108
01:25:17,764 --> 01:25:19,766
But then also at the same time,
was sort of draining.

2109
01:25:19,940 --> 01:25:21,072
I remember the moment

2110
01:25:21,246 --> 01:25:22,160
when other people
had to buy Dave

2111
01:25:22,334 --> 01:25:23,509
his groceries. And I thought,

2112
01:25:23,683 --> 01:25:24,902
"Dave used to do that for Bettie

2113
01:25:25,076 --> 01:25:26,469
and now people are doing it
for him."

2114
01:25:27,078 --> 01:25:29,820
[John]
Dave said he didn't want anyone
to tell Bettie.

2115
01:25:30,908 --> 01:25:33,345
I think she had a little bit
of dementia going on, too.

2116
01:25:33,519 --> 01:25:35,608
So, she wasn't as lucid
as they thought.

2117
01:25:35,782 --> 01:25:36,957
[Rebecka]
My feeling was sort of like,

2118
01:25:37,132 --> 01:25:38,394
"Who you've helped her so much,

2119
01:25:38,568 --> 01:25:39,917
she should know
that there's a reason

2120
01:25:40,091 --> 01:25:41,266
that you're not around.

2121
01:25:41,440 --> 01:25:42,876
And he said,
"No, absolutely not.

2122
01:25:43,050 --> 01:25:44,051
I don't want Bettie to know."

2123
01:25:44,226 --> 01:25:45,227
When he got sicker,

2124
01:25:45,401 --> 01:25:46,924
we had a dinner together

2125
01:25:47,098 --> 01:25:49,361
and he said,
"Take care of Bettie."

2126
01:25:49,970 --> 01:25:51,320
He was worried about her.

2127
01:25:51,494 --> 01:25:52,886
So, he's not going
to say goodbye.

2128
01:25:54,105 --> 01:25:56,542
He's just going to, literally,
fade away.

2129
01:25:57,369 --> 01:25:59,676
And I think, honestly,
to the day she died,

2130
01:25:59,850 --> 01:26:00,851
she didn't know.

2131
01:26:03,462 --> 01:26:05,856
[Jim]
Meanwhile, Dave was taking
art classes,

2132
01:26:06,030 --> 01:26:07,510
and he was helping me teach,

2133
01:26:07,684 --> 01:26:10,121
and he fell in love
in the middle of that

2134
01:26:10,295 --> 01:26:11,340
sickness.

2135
01:26:11,905 --> 01:26:14,560
She was one of the women
that he was dating,

2136
01:26:14,734 --> 01:26:16,693
that had become the woman.

2137
01:26:17,302 --> 01:26:18,564
Amy.

2138
01:26:18,738 --> 01:26:20,871
[Jim]
Dave was an absolute bonafide,

2139
01:26:21,045 --> 01:26:23,003
incurable romantic.

2140
01:26:23,178 --> 01:26:26,137
He will never say it,
he'll deny it.

2141
01:26:26,311 --> 01:26:29,009
But his feelings
go very, very deep.

2142
01:26:29,967 --> 01:26:32,709
[Michael]
When he finally realized
that she was the one

2143
01:26:32,883 --> 01:26:34,711
and that just wasn't going
to happen,

2144
01:26:34,885 --> 01:26:36,843
he got very, very blue
about that.

2145
01:26:37,714 --> 01:26:41,108
[Jennifer]
Not only was he ill
and depressed from chemo,

2146
01:26:41,283 --> 01:26:43,720
but the demise
of the relationship
added to that.

2147
01:26:43,894 --> 01:26:46,244
It was really kind of hard,
dark time for him.

2148
01:26:46,418 --> 01:26:48,594
He was hurt. He was hurt.

2149
01:26:50,030 --> 01:26:52,207
I didn't know how to calm him.

2150
01:26:55,732 --> 01:26:59,214
In November of 2007,
he wound up in the hospital

2151
01:26:59,388 --> 01:27:00,780
and that's when
they found out that

2152
01:27:00,954 --> 01:27:02,782
he had congestive heart failure,

2153
01:27:02,956 --> 01:27:05,568
and that was as a result
of the chemo.

2154
01:27:05,742 --> 01:27:08,005
Literally, he lasted
nine years with this

2155
01:27:08,179 --> 01:27:09,833
and I thought he was going
to last longer.

2156
01:27:10,007 --> 01:27:11,487
You know, something was
going to happen.

2157
01:27:11,661 --> 01:27:13,750
He was sick, he was weak.

2158
01:27:13,924 --> 01:27:15,621
You could really hear it
in his voice.

2159
01:27:15,795 --> 01:27:18,842
And that really shook me up
and scared me, you know?

2160
01:27:19,016 --> 01:27:21,148
Dave was really determined
to just

2161
01:27:21,323 --> 01:27:22,889
work on this book
as much as possible.

2162
01:27:23,063 --> 01:27:24,413
I would sneak into the hospital

2163
01:27:24,587 --> 01:27:26,763
and would give him these
signature plates to sign

2164
01:27:26,937 --> 01:27:29,809
because they wanted
to do a big signed
and numbered edition.

2165
01:27:29,983 --> 01:27:31,463
When we were in the hospital,

2166
01:27:31,637 --> 01:27:34,336
he and I had a conversation
about who knows,

2167
01:27:34,510 --> 01:27:35,772
who should I tell,

2168
01:27:35,946 --> 01:27:37,730
who doesn't know
that needs to know.

2169
01:27:37,904 --> 01:27:39,950
You know, I kind of gently
urged him, you know,

2170
01:27:40,124 --> 01:27:43,910
"Now might be about time
to, to let, let
your close friends know."

2171
01:27:44,084 --> 01:27:46,826
[Rebecka]
We started, just one by one,
calling them.

2172
01:27:47,914 --> 01:27:51,483
In the end, he, he said,
you know, "You did good."

2173
01:27:52,267 --> 01:27:55,574
It was really nice to see him
in those last few weeks

2174
01:27:55,748 --> 01:27:59,230
to really get to spend time
and see everybody.

2175
01:27:59,404 --> 01:28:02,625
Our mom went down
to stay with him

2176
01:28:02,799 --> 01:28:04,931
December through March.

2177
01:28:05,105 --> 01:28:07,543
And I'm sure that was just
an absolutely
horrible experience

2178
01:28:07,717 --> 01:28:08,631
for both of them

2179
01:28:08,805 --> 01:28:10,372
because their personalities

2180
01:28:10,546 --> 01:28:12,461
were kind of oil and vinegar.

2181
01:28:12,939 --> 01:28:15,159
[Michael]
He said, "They're throwing
all my shit away."

2182
01:28:15,333 --> 01:28:16,769
I got to watch every step."

2183
01:28:17,248 --> 01:28:18,467
His mom and sister were there,

2184
01:28:18,641 --> 01:28:19,468
and they were going through
his shit.

2185
01:28:19,642 --> 01:28:21,208
And Dave was freaking out,

2186
01:28:21,383 --> 01:28:22,601
going to Koukoutsakis,

2187
01:28:22,775 --> 01:28:24,908
"Hide the porn, hide the porn."

2188
01:28:25,082 --> 01:28:27,084
Yeah. We were in our 50s
and we're like,

2189
01:28:27,258 --> 01:28:28,564
"God, we're just like
little kids,"

2190
01:28:28,738 --> 01:28:29,869
like, "Oh, no,
mom's going to catch us

2191
01:28:30,043 --> 01:28:32,002
with the Playboy magazine."

2192
01:28:32,176 --> 01:28:34,918
Dave just shook his head
after she left us.

2193
01:28:35,092 --> 01:28:37,355
"Oh, I can't believe
we're in this much trouble."

2194
01:28:37,529 --> 01:28:39,357
I said, "I'm not in trouble,
you're in trouble."

2195
01:28:40,750 --> 01:28:42,404
When he was told by the doctor

2196
01:28:42,578 --> 01:28:45,450
that he had probably,
maybe six months to live,

2197
01:28:45,624 --> 01:28:49,062
he was like, "Well, I thought
I had a lot longer than that."

2198
01:28:49,236 --> 01:28:52,457
He said, "I can't take care
of myself anymore, Jim.

2199
01:28:52,631 --> 01:28:55,155
I've got to go live with Mom."

2200
01:28:55,330 --> 01:28:57,027
He'd just be like,
I'll see you soon.

2201
01:28:57,201 --> 01:28:58,855
I'm not gone.
I'm just-- I'll be there.

2202
01:28:59,029 --> 01:29:01,336
And he was always
very positive about it.

2203
01:29:01,510 --> 01:29:02,946
He was so frail.

2204
01:29:03,425 --> 01:29:04,861
He was like 100 years old...

2205
01:29:05,862 --> 01:29:06,732
...and he stood up...

2206
01:29:07,646 --> 01:29:09,474
...and I said, "Okay man,
I'm going to hit the road,

2207
01:29:10,127 --> 01:29:11,041
take care of yourself."

2208
01:29:11,215 --> 01:29:12,042
And he came over

2209
01:29:12,216 --> 01:29:13,478
and the only time

2210
01:29:13,652 --> 01:29:16,829
I'd ever hugged this guy
in 25 years.

2211
01:29:17,787 --> 01:29:19,354
He said, "I'll see you around."

2212
01:29:20,529 --> 01:29:21,443
And I left.

2213
01:29:22,922 --> 01:29:24,271
[sobs]

2214
01:29:25,360 --> 01:29:27,579
We said goodbye
and I got up and...

2215
01:29:30,408 --> 01:29:32,323
...I put my hand
on his shoulder,

2216
01:29:33,933 --> 01:29:37,546
squeezed it, and left.

2217
01:29:43,769 --> 01:29:44,944
It was tough.

2218
01:30:02,135 --> 01:30:06,488
[Brinke]
Being an artist
is a very solitary lifestyle.

2219
01:30:08,577 --> 01:30:11,754
You sit in a room by yourself,
and you draw.

2220
01:30:13,190 --> 01:30:16,933
[Bob]
Dave Stevens was
a once-in-a-lifetime artist.

2221
01:30:18,195 --> 01:30:21,503
His compositional skills,
his techniques were incredible.

2222
01:30:22,068 --> 01:30:24,506
You can't look at one
of his finished inks

2223
01:30:24,680 --> 01:30:27,204
and not be in awe of it.

2224
01:30:27,857 --> 01:30:30,773
Dave carved out
his own particular corner

2225
01:30:30,947 --> 01:30:33,123
of artistic importance.

2226
01:30:33,297 --> 01:30:34,951
He influenced a lot of people.

2227
01:30:35,125 --> 01:30:36,909
[Adam]
You could look at
Dave's life, and go,

2228
01:30:37,083 --> 01:30:39,390
"This is what it's like
to pursue a life

2229
01:30:39,564 --> 01:30:42,045
as a creative individual."

2230
01:30:42,219 --> 01:30:43,960
You can't just crank it out.

2231
01:30:44,134 --> 01:30:45,570
You can't just do it
for the money.

2232
01:30:45,744 --> 01:30:47,572
There's got to be
something genuine to it,

2233
01:30:47,746 --> 01:30:48,878
and Dave was genuine.

2234
01:30:50,053 --> 01:30:52,447
[Jessie]
You want to know
who Dave Stevens was?

2235
01:30:53,012 --> 01:30:54,144
Look at what he drew.

2236
01:30:54,710 --> 01:30:56,494
[Jim]
There's a certain magic
involved,

2237
01:30:56,668 --> 01:31:00,150
and that intensity,
that detail, that love,

2238
01:31:00,324 --> 01:31:02,674
that passion
for what he's doing,

2239
01:31:02,848 --> 01:31:04,459
and the obsession with it.

2240
01:31:04,633 --> 01:31:08,158
Those of us who knew him,
feel privileged.

2241
01:31:08,332 --> 01:31:10,160
That's a selfish way
of looking at his legacy,

2242
01:31:10,334 --> 01:31:11,291
but it's valid.

2243
01:31:12,336 --> 01:31:13,685
It's one of my regrets.

2244
01:31:13,859 --> 01:31:15,470
I wish I had stayed
in touch with him.

2245
01:31:17,776 --> 01:31:20,649
[Scroggy]
The Rocketeer
is a timeless piece of work.

2246
01:31:21,388 --> 01:31:24,130
It may be a finite
and short story,

2247
01:31:24,304 --> 01:31:26,176
but it's among the best.

2248
01:31:26,785 --> 01:31:29,266
[Thomas]
I think of me, in my bedroom

2249
01:31:29,440 --> 01:31:31,268
with a Rocketeercomic book

2250
01:31:31,442 --> 01:31:33,270
under the covers
with a flashlight,

2251
01:31:33,444 --> 01:31:37,143
being so deeply pulled
into someone else's vision.

2252
01:31:37,317 --> 01:31:42,322
It changed the way I saw life,
beauty, reality, love.

2253
01:31:42,888 --> 01:31:44,411
[Chris]
Dave created
this perfect combination

2254
01:31:44,586 --> 01:31:46,805
of this helmet
and this jet pack.

2255
01:31:46,979 --> 01:31:49,112
And as a kid, you can take
an old oatmeal canister,

2256
01:31:49,286 --> 01:31:51,897
and bicycle helmet
with a cardboard fin

2257
01:31:52,071 --> 01:31:54,334
and fly around
and have adventures.

2258
01:31:54,987 --> 01:31:56,423
I love that aspect of it.

2259
01:31:56,598 --> 01:32:01,211
His legacy is what
a refined comic look like.

2260
01:32:01,733 --> 01:32:04,475
[Jim]
He's unique, and you just

2261
01:32:04,649 --> 01:32:06,390
wish there was more of it.

2262
01:32:07,391 --> 01:32:09,393
[Geofrey]
He said, "I'm not interested
in quantity.

2263
01:32:09,567 --> 01:32:11,526
I'm interested in quality."

2264
01:32:12,527 --> 01:32:14,703
[Mark]
How many people leave
a body of work

2265
01:32:14,877 --> 01:32:17,749
that is timeless
and that will be admired?

2266
01:32:17,923 --> 01:32:20,317
The same way
Dave admired Frazetta

2267
01:32:20,491 --> 01:32:22,885
or Steranko, or Jack Kirby.

2268
01:32:23,059 --> 01:32:25,235
Other artists will have Dave
in similar lists.

2269
01:32:26,715 --> 01:32:30,588
[Chris]
He's part of the lineage
of the pin-up artist.

2270
01:32:30,762 --> 01:32:33,983
He follows suit into people
like Adam Hughes

2271
01:32:34,157 --> 01:32:36,202
and some of the newer
comic book artists

2272
01:32:36,376 --> 01:32:37,290
that are coming along.

2273
01:32:37,856 --> 01:32:39,162
[Adam]
Several years after we had met,

2274
01:32:39,336 --> 01:32:41,817
I had the newly released
Laserdisc

2275
01:32:41,991 --> 01:32:44,428
of The Rocketeerfilm,

2276
01:32:44,994 --> 01:32:47,736
widescreen, it was a very,
very thrilling time

2277
01:32:47,910 --> 01:32:51,870
and Dave signed it,
"To Adam, The Reigning King."

2278
01:32:52,436 --> 01:32:53,872
I was so moved by that,

2279
01:32:54,046 --> 01:32:55,352
you know, and I said,

2280
01:32:55,526 --> 01:32:57,484
"Wow, man,
I can't believe you wrote that."

2281
01:32:57,659 --> 01:32:59,661
And Dave looked at me and said,
"Well, I don't want the job."

2282
01:32:59,835 --> 01:33:01,097
[chuckles]

2283
01:33:01,663 --> 01:33:05,014
If you do good work
and it's available,

2284
01:33:05,536 --> 01:33:07,277
young artists are going
to keep seeing it

2285
01:33:07,451 --> 01:33:08,931
and take inspiration from it.

2286
01:33:09,105 --> 01:33:12,587
Without even knowing him,
he was able to reach me

2287
01:33:13,152 --> 01:33:15,546
in a very small town in Italy.

2288
01:33:16,547 --> 01:33:17,504
It's a chain.

2289
01:33:17,679 --> 01:33:19,681
Everybody's passing his torch,

2290
01:33:19,855 --> 01:33:22,379
and that's
what a great mentor is.

2291
01:33:22,553 --> 01:33:25,121
He contributed
to create artists.

2292
01:33:27,166 --> 01:33:30,474
Dave passed away in 2008,
and at that point,

2293
01:33:30,648 --> 01:33:34,043
Rocketeerhad been out
of print for basically a decade.

2294
01:33:36,132 --> 01:33:39,570
A small group of friends
slowly convinced Dave

2295
01:33:39,744 --> 01:33:41,398
that it might be a good idea.

2296
01:33:41,572 --> 01:33:43,443
Let's it have its rebirth.

2297
01:33:45,924 --> 01:33:48,710
A few weeks
before he passed away,

2298
01:33:48,884 --> 01:33:51,538
he sat me down with his mom
and he said

2299
01:33:51,713 --> 01:33:54,237
that he trusted
Dave Mandel and I to do it right

2300
01:33:54,411 --> 01:33:56,152
and he gave us basically
his blessing.

2301
01:33:56,326 --> 01:33:58,284
But of course,
nothing's ever that easy,

2302
01:33:58,458 --> 01:33:59,808
especially when it comes
to Dave.

2303
01:33:59,982 --> 01:34:01,374
Ultimately,
we were really lucky enough

2304
01:34:01,548 --> 01:34:03,812
to end up with IDW
and Scott Dunbier.

2305
01:34:03,986 --> 01:34:05,465
[Scott]
The first book that came out

2306
01:34:05,640 --> 01:34:09,905
was The Rocketeer Deluxe
Complete Adventures.

2307
01:34:10,079 --> 01:34:11,558
Oversized hardcover.

2308
01:34:11,733 --> 01:34:15,301
It's got the entire
Rocketeerseries.

2309
01:34:15,475 --> 01:34:16,433
[David]
They were willing to

2310
01:34:16,607 --> 01:34:18,000
do the book the way

2311
01:34:18,174 --> 01:34:19,741
Dave would've wanted to do it,

2312
01:34:19,915 --> 01:34:23,483
including a top to bottom
recoloring by Laura Martin.

2313
01:34:23,658 --> 01:34:26,530
[Laura]
All I wanted to do was
to provide Dave's vision.

2314
01:34:26,704 --> 01:34:29,185
I wanted to be the set of hands
that Dave didn't have.

2315
01:34:29,925 --> 01:34:30,926
[David]
At some point,

2316
01:34:31,100 --> 01:34:32,318
I remember just kind of looking

2317
01:34:32,492 --> 01:34:33,624
to Kelvin and
just kind of going,

2318
01:34:33,798 --> 01:34:35,365
"We're going to do our best.

2319
01:34:35,539 --> 01:34:37,410
And let's just be sort
of confident

2320
01:34:37,584 --> 01:34:39,282
that no matter what we do here,

2321
01:34:39,456 --> 01:34:41,937
Dave would figure out a way
to find fault with it."

2322
01:34:43,199 --> 01:34:44,766
[Scott]
It was a big success.

2323
01:34:44,940 --> 01:34:48,117
I take great pride in
the achievement that we all did.

2324
01:34:48,291 --> 01:34:50,075
It's definitely
a privilege introducing

2325
01:34:50,249 --> 01:34:51,424
a whole new generation of fans

2326
01:34:51,598 --> 01:34:52,861
to The Rocketeer.

2327
01:34:53,557 --> 01:34:55,864
But it is bittersweet
that Dave's not here to see it.

2328
01:34:57,779 --> 01:34:59,737
[Jackie]
The Eisner Awards
are the Oscars

2329
01:34:59,911 --> 01:35:01,217
of the comics industry.

2330
01:35:01,391 --> 01:35:03,045
To be in the Hall of Fame,

2331
01:35:03,219 --> 01:35:05,700
your first professional work
has to have been at least

2332
01:35:05,874 --> 01:35:07,789
35 years ago.

2333
01:35:08,572 --> 01:35:12,097
[Jackie]
Dave was elected in 2019,
the minute he became eligible.

2334
01:35:15,448 --> 01:35:16,711
If Dave were still alive,
I think

2335
01:35:16,885 --> 01:35:18,713
he'd be making
more motion pictures.

2336
01:35:19,322 --> 01:35:21,193
[William]
As ratty as the film business
can be,

2337
01:35:21,367 --> 01:35:23,369
I think there was a special
place in it for Dave

2338
01:35:23,543 --> 01:35:24,544
and his ideas.

2339
01:35:25,241 --> 01:35:26,851
[Joe]
I would like to sit down
with Dave

2340
01:35:27,025 --> 01:35:29,027
and watch The Rocketeer.

2341
01:35:29,201 --> 01:35:31,638
I could say, "Dave,
if I could do this again,

2342
01:35:31,813 --> 01:35:33,031
I would change that.

2343
01:35:33,205 --> 01:35:34,293
How about you?"

2344
01:35:34,859 --> 01:35:36,382
[Adam]
I'd like to think
that he would have

2345
01:35:36,556 --> 01:35:39,472
circumnavigated
the self-introspection globe

2346
01:35:39,646 --> 01:35:41,257
and come back to comics.

2347
01:35:41,866 --> 01:35:45,174
[Olivia]
He would've continued to work,
continued to feel insecure,

2348
01:35:45,348 --> 01:35:48,307
continued to just beat his head
against the desk

2349
01:35:48,481 --> 01:35:49,700
trying to get better

2350
01:35:49,874 --> 01:35:51,746
and just to get
to the next level.

2351
01:35:51,920 --> 01:35:55,053
[John]
He would be a force right now
in that painting field

2352
01:35:55,227 --> 01:35:56,794
'cause he would have had
the education by now.

2353
01:35:56,968 --> 01:35:58,753
And that's the one thing
he always wanted.

2354
01:35:58,927 --> 01:36:00,885
[Jennifer]
He had so many works
in progress.

2355
01:36:01,059 --> 01:36:02,669
Those things probably
would have been finished

2356
01:36:02,844 --> 01:36:05,063
at least to the point
where we could've said,

2357
01:36:05,237 --> 01:36:06,630
"This is perfect."
And he would've said,

2358
01:36:06,804 --> 01:36:07,762
"No, it's not."

2359
01:36:10,242 --> 01:36:12,941
[Jim]
It's amazing how much
you can miss a guy like that.

2360
01:36:13,506 --> 01:36:16,335
It's the attraction
to their sense of character,

2361
01:36:16,509 --> 01:36:17,772
and what you share.

2362
01:36:19,774 --> 01:36:21,036
But you do miss him.

2363
01:36:22,602 --> 01:36:24,866
His life, and his art
will live forever.

2364
01:36:25,431 --> 01:36:27,477
He had a lot more to do,
Dave Stevens.

2365
01:36:27,651 --> 01:36:28,652
He had a lot more to do.

2366
01:36:31,873 --> 01:36:36,225
[soft music]

2367
01:36:42,797 --> 01:36:45,843
[Billy]
All my adult life
the clock has been my enemy.

2368
01:36:46,496 --> 01:36:47,932
There's never been enough time

2369
01:36:48,106 --> 01:36:50,282
because I've never made
good use of it.

2370
01:36:51,327 --> 01:36:53,155
It seems to me
that one of the worst things

2371
01:36:53,329 --> 01:36:56,375
a creative person can do
is to squander his talents

2372
01:36:56,549 --> 01:36:58,769
on meaningless, trivial,
selfish pursuits,

2373
01:36:58,943 --> 01:37:00,249
which benefit no one.

2374
01:37:00,989 --> 01:37:03,687
And the greatest shame
in an artist's career

2375
01:37:03,861 --> 01:37:05,341
would be to leave
an endless trail

2376
01:37:05,515 --> 01:37:08,126
of unfinished works
and abandoned projects,

2377
01:37:08,300 --> 01:37:10,172
which clearly
had endless potential.

2378
01:37:10,737 --> 01:37:13,784
All lost to time
and indifference.

2379
01:37:14,524 --> 01:37:16,656
That is something
that terrifies me,

2380
01:37:17,135 --> 01:37:18,484
and rightly so.

2381
01:37:19,050 --> 01:37:21,705
My growth and potential
has largely been limited only

2382
01:37:21,879 --> 01:37:24,360
by my own lack
of foresight and commitment.

2383
01:37:24,926 --> 01:37:27,145
Maybe I'll get there, maybe not,

2384
01:37:28,103 --> 01:37:30,322
but at least I can look
in the mirror and know

2385
01:37:30,496 --> 01:37:32,281
that I am trying my very best.

2386
01:37:39,549 --> 01:37:41,725
Sum up Dave Steven
in three words.

2387
01:37:41,899 --> 01:37:43,379
-Three words.
-[chuckles]

2388
01:37:43,553 --> 01:37:45,250
So many words
you can use about Dave.

2389
01:37:45,424 --> 01:37:47,165
Handsome, brilliant and funny.

2390
01:37:47,339 --> 01:37:48,558
Handsome, funny and brilliant.

2391
01:37:48,732 --> 01:37:50,386
Buddy, mate, friend.

2392
01:37:50,560 --> 01:37:53,606
Impeccable, perfectionist
and sweet.

2393
01:37:53,780 --> 01:37:56,566
Generous, intractable,
and determined.

2394
01:37:56,740 --> 01:37:59,395
Extraordinarily talented
perfectionist.

2395
01:37:59,569 --> 01:38:01,963
Visual, collaborative.

2396
01:38:02,137 --> 01:38:04,835
-Artist.
-Two words are
master illustrator.

2397
01:38:05,009 --> 01:38:05,967
Dreamer.

2398
01:38:06,924 --> 01:38:08,404
Guy was always dreaming
about something.

2399
01:38:08,578 --> 01:38:13,148
[in Italian]

2400
01:38:13,322 --> 01:38:16,020
Interminably fantastic art.

2401
01:38:16,194 --> 01:38:18,501
Handsome, dashing, and gone.

2402
01:38:18,675 --> 01:38:21,591
Particular,
understated, important.

2403
01:38:21,765 --> 01:38:23,462
Born too late.

2404
01:38:23,636 --> 01:38:25,551
World's most fastidious.

2405
01:38:25,725 --> 01:38:29,512
Proper,
Wry, and absolutely committed.

2406
01:38:29,686 --> 01:38:32,863
Meticulous, kind and stubborn.

2407
01:38:33,037 --> 01:38:35,866
"It's fine, Dave.
It's great, Dave."

2408
01:38:36,040 --> 01:38:37,999
A man's man and a woman's man.

2409
01:38:38,173 --> 01:38:41,698
In three words, my only husband.

2410
01:38:41,872 --> 01:38:42,655
My best friend.

2411
01:38:42,829 --> 01:38:44,831
No true real answer.

2412
01:38:45,006 --> 01:38:46,398
Tits and ass.

2413
01:38:46,572 --> 01:38:48,748
Talented,
that's an understatement.

2414
01:38:48,923 --> 01:38:50,228
My favorite artist.

2415
01:38:50,402 --> 01:38:53,188
Two words. Fucking Dave.

2416
01:38:53,362 --> 01:38:55,451
[laughs]