Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures (The Rocketeer), by Dave Stevens
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Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures (The Rocketeer), by Dave Stevens
Free Ebook Online Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures (The Rocketeer), by Dave Stevens
- Cliff Secord, a down-on-his luck pilot, is always looking for ways to make a fast buck. Discovering a stolen rocket pack could be the one thing that will turn his fortunes around... but will it? What follows are government agents, German spies, deception, danger and adventure. This is the world of... The Rocketeer!
- All of Dave Stevens’ original The Rocketeer comics collected in one book!
- Amazon Sales Rank: #132200 in Books
- Brand: Stevens, Dave/ Spiegle, Carrie (ILT)/ Hernandez, Jaime (CON)
- Published on: 2015-03-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 10.20" h x .40" w x 6.50" l, .60 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 148 pages
From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Speeding across the sky like a jet-propelled dream, Stevens's Rocketeer is one of the most enduring and endearing images of '80s comics. Set in the '30s, these tales follow Cliff Secord, an impulsive young stunt pilot who finds a mysterious jetpack that enables him to fly. And then his troubles—and the fun—begin. A charming, lively tribute to the pulp era—several characters from well-known pulp serials make clandestine appearances—Stevens's lively, gorgeous art captures every wide-eyed gasp and clenched-jaw struggle of the breakneck tale. While Stevens, who died in 2008, is a master of adventure, Cliff's girlfriend Betty, a delightful homage to pinup queen Bettie Page, often steals the show. Due to Stevens's slow output, only a handful of Rocketeer stories exist, collected for the first time following a checkered publishing trail and being out-of-print for over a decade. Those who have never seen the complete Rocketeer will be satisfied with the regular hardcover edition; an oversized deluxe edition brings together concept art, sketches, and background materials that make this the definite record of one of comics' most appealing recent characters. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist The high-flying hero of this gloriously retro comic book, which inspired a 1991 feature film, is Cliff Secord, a pleasantly lunkheaded, barnstorming aviator in 1930s Los Angeles who comes into possession of a stolen rocket pack that enables him to fly. A bullet-shaped helmet designed by Cliff’s mechanic pal, Peevy, completes the look, inspired by the 1949 King of the Rocket Men movie serial. The story lines, involving Nazi spies and the like, are slight but serviceable. What made The Rocketeer a fan favorite was Stevens’ luscious artwork, especially his rendition of Cliff’s girlfriend, Betty. Stevens’ talent for drawing cheesecake-style gorgeous women was unsurpassed, and Betty, an overt homage to pinup queen Bettie Page, was the most dazzling of them. It took Stevens, notoriously slow and meticulous, a dozen years to produce the relative handful of stories gathered in this slim volume that, unfortunately, must stand as The Rocketeer in toto, since Stevens died in 2008. In this lovingly designed, newly recolored collection, though, that legacy is very impressive in quality, however meager in quantity. --Gordon Flagg
About the Author Jaime Hernandez is a lifelong Los Angelean, where he continues to chronicle Maggie s life in the pages of Love and Rockets: New Stories.Arthur G. Adams is founding president of the Hudson River Maritime Center at Roundabout Landing in Kingston. In 1981, he was given a special award of merit for outstanding achievement in Regional Studies by the State University of New York. He is Executive Vice President of the Hudson River Navigation Company is trustee of the Victor Herbert Performance Trust Fund.
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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful. Dave would have loved this... By Richard A. Tucker For just a moment forget that there was a Rocketeer film.This story is what that film was based on but that flawed, though herculean effort, pales when compared to the real thing. It's hard to translate perfection like this to the big screen. I may be impossible and it's definitely improbable.I read the comic which was actually a back-up feature For Mike Grell's Starslayer (?) series from Pacific comics back in '82. Flipping through the book I gravitated to Dave Steven's effort naturally. Here was a comic story featuring adventure, vintage aircraft, an old curmudgeon, inventor, Peevy (modeled after the great comic artist, Doug Wildey) and his protege', the naive, but fast to learn, daring young pilot, Cliff Secord (who looks a bit like Dave Stevens himself).Perhaps it was the newfound appreciation for this time period after "Raiders of the Lost Ark" featuring Harrison Ford as professor and archaeologist, Indiana Jones. But it was a hit. Everyone I initially showed it to shrugged their shoulders but I was hanging with the wrong crowd. Everywhere else this story was a hit. It wasn't a big hit, but it was a certified hit.By the time the trade edition of the first story was collected in the mid-eighties people were in love. The reasons are simple; the first thing that grabs the reader is an artist who can not only draw but he can draw better than most of the comic artists alive. The adventure is fast paced with good action and set in a period of America coming of age in the world around her. Between thrilling air races, espionage and the past coming back to find him Cliff Secord is a very sympathetic character between trying to do what's right and trying to keep an even keel.No spoilers, but in many ways this is a classic tale and Dave Stevens gives it a new feel and a great protagonist who constantly grows and changes to better fit his situations. Growing into full manhood is tough enough (especially when you think you're already there) without a rocket lashed to your back to make things even more interesting.Then there's the fact that this story renewed older Americans' love affair with the now late Betty Page, while introducing us younger guys to her charms. Dave was classy and fun in his effort to bring this fifties pin-up gal to our attention. She was perfectly suited to this tale. It was easy to insert her into it as the character of Cliff Secord's love interest. Dave's efforts, whether on purpose or by coincidence revived a healthy interest in the then retired and reclusive Betty Page.The Deluxe package is a testament to the love for the man, his story and his stunning art. Dave Stevens was not heavy on stylization. He approached the art like an illustrator. It's not the details, it's the love of drawing, and done skillfully that makes his work stand out. He's the natural heir to artists like George Evans, Reed Crandall and Al Williamson with a little Frank Frazetta for spice.Back-up features include layouts of the pages, design work, thumbnail drawings of sequences and a lot of rare art from character sketches to fully produced promotional art. These are almost fully half of the volume. These pages show the process of creating a fine sequential story with all the bells and whistles.The slipcase is stylish and protects the book, and it does so beautifully.Reading it when it arrived was like visiting an old friend, long gone. The story is completely re-colored by the late Dave Steven's choice of colorist, Laura Martin. She did an exemplary job. The lettering was provided by the gifted Carrie Spiegle.From editor Scott Dunbier to Thomas Jane's eloquent and touching introduction and all the great artists who helped Dave put these stories out, this really is as good as it could be.By all means, if the price of this volume is prohibitive, do yourself a favor and get the trade hardcover edition. At less than half the price it's still one of the best books put out this year and a quality book to boot. This is a fun, solid read, and one of the best drawn comics to ever see print. Such a rare balance of beautiful art and eloquent storytelling is rare.Publisher IDW deserves serious recognition for this volume.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful. When Dave Stevens soared the highest By H. Bala In 2008 the comic book field lost one of its more stylish artists when Dave Stevens passed away after succumbing to leukemia (he was only 52). But the stuff he leaves behind, and especially the Rocketeer, will always garner big ups as a lasting standard bearer for art fans and specifically for those aspiring to make a career of it in independent comic books. The Rocketeer, a fleeting glance might tell you, resembles a superhero, but really, in tone and sensibilities, he belongs more in the company of those daredevil dudes from the cliffhanger serials back in the '30s and '40s. Not coincidentally, Cliff Secord's exploits take place circa 1938, Los Angeles.In the early 1980s, THE ROCKETEER was a refreshing change from the mainstream capes and cowls flaunting superpowers. Cliff Secord's era evoked the Golden Age of comic books and also of Hollywood. You look at Dave Steven's illustrations - reminiscent of Will Eisner, Wally Wood, and Frank Frazetta - and how he renders the aesthetics of the 1930s period, and there's immediately this whiff of nostalgia and you can almost hear that rousing score from all those pulp movies. And nothing embodies this retro imagery more than Cliff Secord, dashing in his aviator outfit and brash and hot-headed as Errol Flynn or Clark Gable.Cliff Secord is young and bold and desperately in love. He's a stunt pilot for the Bigelow Air Circus, but he's not making enough money to appease his sexy gal Betty, what with Betty of late spending time with and posing seductively for a scuzzy Hollywood photographer. When Cliff finds an experimental rocket pack (called the Cirrus X-3) in his airplane, he envisions a shortcut to raising money.Except that German spies soon come knocking on his door, looking for the jet pack and before he knows it, Cliff Secord is in the middle of a high-flying adventure and espionage intrigue. Even more importantly, his girlfriend Betty, feeling smothered by Cliff's jealousy and overbearing attention, is gradually slipping away.The stories are good, but the art, the art, the art. Dave Stevens can really draw, and while his heroic illustrations of the Rocketeer resonate with the daydreaming kid in us, his provocative renderings of lush-figured dames (I'm looking at you, Betty) are equally memorable. "Betty" is a homage to 1950s pin-up queen Bettie Page, and in fact THE ROCKETEER re-popularized those vintage pin-ups. Dave Stevens and Bettie Page actually became good friends all the way up to his death.Pulp fiction buffs should recognize several well-known literary pulp figures. Although Stevens was careful not to directly reference Doc Savage and his henchmen Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks, their likenesses show up in the first story arc, and with someone eerily resembling Lamont Cranston popping up in "Cliff's New York Adventure." This Shadow-y figure ends up helping Cliff thwart a murderous carny freak out to moidah the members of his old troupe, of which Cliff used to be a member.Sorry to say, thanks to Stevens' sporadic production, there aren't that many Rocketeer stories floating around. THE ROCKETEER - THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES collects the backup tales from Mike Grell's STARSLAYER #1-3, the featured stories from PACIFIC PRESENTS #1-2, THE ROCKETEER SPECIAL EDITION #1, and THE ROCKETEER ADVENTURE MAGAZINE #1-3 (these three issues also known as "Cliff's New York Adventure"). This trade collection also comes with a red ribbon bookmark, thereby officially upgrading it to the "hoity-toity hardcover" category. Covers to the individual issues are reproduced here, as well as the custom postcard with which Dave Stevens used to respond to his fan mail. If you're looking for even more comprehensive bonus material, then you gots to get your paws on The Rocketeer: The Complete Deluxe Edition which not only has the very same stories as in this trade but also offers up tons of conceptual designs and prelim sketches and so forth. That's gonna cost ya, though.I also really dug that bulldog-shaped diner.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful. A Remarkable Look at an Unforgettable Character By Terry Sunday I'm probably in the minority here, but if it hadn't been for the 1991 Disney movie, I would never have heard of "The Rocketeer." The movie caught my eye because of my childhood fascination with television's black-and-white Saturday morning hero Commando Cody, who battled bad guys wearing a leather jacket, a bullet-shaped helmet and a rocket pack strapped to his back. Commando Cody's lineage went back to three old Republic serials: "King of the Rocket Men" (1949), "Radar Men From The Moon" (1952) and "Zombies of the Stratosphere" (1952). But there was another side to "The Rocketeer" that I did not learn about until recently. I had not realized that the character created by the late Dave Stevens was featured sporadically in a little-known series of comic books from 1982 through 1995. "The Rocketeer: The Complete Deluxe Edition" collects all of Mr. Stevens' superb work, plus hundreds of sketches, notes and preliminary layouts, into a single heavy, oversized, visually stunning volume.Simply put, this is a remarkable treasure. Housed in a sturdy, eye-catching slipcase and with a handy ribbon place-marker, the book itself is exceptionally well made and of extremely high quality. The covers are solid and strong, the binding is tight, the pages are thick and glossy, and the colors and production values of the artwork printed on them are the best I have ever seen in any book--period. The page size allows the artwork to be printed quite large, which, with the minimal margins, shows off the incredible details and intricacies of Mr. Stevens' work to best advantage. This is truly a volume to enjoy and to savor over many readings. The craftsmanship of the drawings, the meticulous line work, the amazing coloring--all create a visual feast for the eye that gets better every time you look at it. This is a book that is sure to get better over time.Roughly half of the pages in the Deluxe Edition consist of photographs, pencil sketches, yellow-legal-pad pages of Mr. Stevens' notes, storyboards, uncolored final drawings, conceptual layouts and so on. These "extras" provide a fascinating glimpse into the creative process that Mr. Stevens went through to develop his stories and characters. While they may not be of interest to casual readers who just want to read the finished stories, and who may thus choose to purchase "The Rocketeer: The Complete Collection," I found them to be a good "value-added" feature well worth the additional cost.If you have the slightest interest at all in "The Rocketeer," I most highly recommend this book without hesitation. You'll not only be satisfied with it; you'll be overwhelmed.
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