Three decades earlier, the edgy pinup queen disappeared following the Estes Kefauver hearings with respect to pornography, as conducted in the United States Senate. (Erotic pinup artist Olivia De Berardinis started painting Page in 1976, with ultimately more far-reaching, and amazing results.) And yet Stevens had never met his model, and could not find her. So it was Dave Stevens who first re-introduced Bettie Page in a big way to a new generation of eager fans. The artwork is modern, yet it has a tone of the 1920s and 1930s.” “For all the hopeful attempts at doing a period comic book,” Ellison stated, “only THE ROCKETEER captures the feel of those days. A 1985 hardcover collection, offering five action chapters of THE ROCKETEER, featured an introduction by noted writer Harlan Ellison. As though with divine authority, THE VILLAGE VOICE spoke for many when it hailed the new publication as an instant classic, “the greatest comic book in the world,” the paper enthused. The key was matching a perilous but playfully seductive Bettie Page type, as counterpoint girlfriend to a square-jawed, All-American, high-flying crime-fighter, propelled by a rocket on his back – “The Rocketeer.”Ĭomic book readers, pulp hero aficionados, and pinup fans alike all rushed to embrace the work. Stevens then at last had hit upon the winning concept for a new comic book hero from a bygone and more innocent era.
#Bettie page later life movie
Still, always and ever-fascinated by Page, the soft-spoken illustrator sketched several concepts revolving around the cult model, but no scenario really jelled until Stevens combined her beautiful and dangerous persona with his own nostalgia for movie serials, and in particular with his boyhood fantasy of flying through the pre-war skies, just the way his airborne hero Captain Marvel did. Later, working as an animator for Hanna-Barbera in 1981, Stevens was asked by a comic press to contribute some “filler pages” for a new book. He sought to learn all he could about the naughty-and-nice pinup queen known to some as “the Tennessee Tease,” and to others as “the Dark Angel.” Either way, Bettie Page was the original sweet-smiling bad girl next door. “It stopped me cold,” the aspiring artist said of the sexy shot. During this period Stevens happened upon a photo of underground pop culture icon Bettie Page, standing ankle-deep in the ocean, dressed in a bikini. As a kid I always wanted to fly like that.”Īfter high school, Stevens was employed to assist Russ Manning who drew the Sunday newspapers’ TARZAN comic strip. In some of these, the hero wore a rocket on his back in order to fly. I was especially taken with such Republic Pictures cliffhangers as THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (1941), KING OF THE ROCKET MEN (1949), and ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE (1952). And the things that inspired my illustrations were action-adventures from the old movie serials. “What I wanted to do was draw,” Stevens remembered, “that’s all I thought about. Growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell during the 1960s, Dave Stevens enjoyed watching silent cartoons on TV, and then chapter-play cliffhanger reissues at his neighborhood movie theater.
#Bettie page later life full
It is an old-fashioned adventure, full of innocent thrills and fun, about a youth with a high-flying dream.
Made in 1991, THE ROCKETEER is a film inspired by and really dedicated to Bettie Page.
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