A bad year for fans of the Rocketeer

[LimpingFish]

I have long been a fan of the Rocketeer comic albums, the first of which was published in the early 1980s. Earlier this year saw the passing of series creator and pin-up artist Dave Stevens at the criminally young age of 52.

Today brings the news of the passing of his artistic muse, and later friend, Bettie Page, who he immortalized in print as the model girlfriend of the Rocketeer's alter-ego, Cliff Secord.

Page was a pin-up and fetish model in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1955, Hugh Hefner selected her as Playboy of the Month for the January issue of Playboy. That same year she was proclaimed "Miss Pinup Girl of the World".

Having disappeared from public view in late 1950's, she devoted her life to christian service, before suffering a mental breakdown, and was diagnosed schizophrenic, spending much of the 1980s and early 1990s in a mental institute, unaware of a new wave of popularity, largely kick-started by Steven's character, and a renewed interest in this almost forgotten pin-up queen. Upon her release, penniless, and later with the help of Steven's and others, she gave a number of interviews about her early life, and attempted to regain control of her image and the profits made from it's use; a battle which was still ongoing at the time of her death.

She was 85.

(Click for LA Times obituary)

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I've only ever seen the movie.  I had no idea there were comics!

[Evil]

So sad about Bettie Page. I had just given a presentation about her for one of my classes on the day she died, when someone mentioned that she had recently been hospitalized. When I got home, her obituary was online.

[Anteater]

This is sad. I've only seen the movie, but I can understand how fans of the comic book must feel.

[LimpingFish]

I've only ever seen the movie. I had no idea there were comics!

Yeah, the first album was sporadically serialized by Pacific Comics starting in 1982. The second album started in the late eighties, but publisher problems meant it was never finished until the mid-nineties. Dave Stevens was one of my favorite artists, but his body of comic book work is relatively small. Even still, his influence on the comic scene is an important one.

You can see some of his work here and here.

His character Betty, aspiring glamour model, was changed to Jenny, aspiring movie starlet, in the movie, though for all intents and purposes Jennifer Connolly is clearly playing a visual representation of Betty/Bettie Page.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

His female pin-ups remind me very much of Frank Frazetta's work, and he happens to be one of my favorite artists.