The Passion of Dave Stevens, Master of Good Girl Art and Pop Culture Pioneer [Sex]

The Passion of Dave Stevens, Master of Good Girl Art and Pop Culture Pioneer [Sex] The work of the late, great Dave Stevens is known to comic book aficionados in the form of his enduring creation, The Rocketeer, and to art collectors and illustration enthusiasts for his reverently retro yet brilliantly modern renditions of vintage pulp characters, science fiction adventurers and iconic superheroes. Always smiling, winking or affecting a sense of alarm, Page's coquettish photographs were anything but lurid (although your mileage may vary on the those that were firmly in the fetish realm). Dave Stevens was a consumate artist in the classic sense of the term, and in keeping with that romantic notion he quite naturally had a muse. She was a star in the 1950s and is remembered today as the fantastic American pinup queen and quintessential fetish model, but Page was practically forgotten for many years after she disappeared in 1959. It was love that did that, and it was love that made Stevens' work influential in a way that few other comic book artists can claim. However, like all great obscure pop artifacts, the images of Page were rediscovered by the youth of the next generation and became fuel for their imaginations and underground movements. "Bettie Page embodied the stereotypical wholesomeness of the '50s along with the hidden sexuality straining beneath the surface," wrote Karen Essex and James L. Dave Stevens was among them, and as his friend and Graphitti Designs founder Bob Chapman wrote in his introduction to the artist's Complete Sketches The Passion of Dave Stevens, Master of Good Girl Art and Pop Culture Pioneer [Sex] Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 03/03/2012