A lost Dave Stevens story takes flight in ‘The Rocketeer: The Island’

John Layman, Jacob Edgar and K.J. Diaz send the pulp hero on a rocket-fueled adventure involving Amelia Earhart.

The Rocketeer will return to comics next February in an adventure drawn directly from a “lost” story by Dave Stevens.

IDW has announced The Rocketeer: The Island by writer John Layman, artist Jacob Edgar, and colorist K.J. Díaz, adapting a never-before-published story outline written by the character’s creator. Stevens, who created The Rocketeer in 1982 as a love letter to pulp serials and Golden Age adventure strips, left behind notes, sketches and partial concepts before his passing in 2008. One such outline — unseen and unused for decades — is now becoming a full comic for the very first time.

“This Rocketeer project has been coming together for the past few months, and I can’t say enough about how much joy I’m getting every time a new page comes in,” said Layman. “Playing in Dave Stevens’ world, a retro-world of charm, humor and rocket-fueled adventure, has been an absolute blast. As an artist Stevens was an absolute virtuoso, and I feel like Rocketeer is an all-time classic comic character — he’s always been one of my favorites. IDW, a publisher I’ve already done work for on some of my very favorite comic projects, has given me another fantastic opportunity to get paid while having fun, while allowing me to honor a vision of a comic book hero of mine, and play in a world I’ve loved for decades. Plus, the art and colors by Jacob Edgar and K.J. Díaz are just phenomenal and perfect for the book.”

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‘The Rocketeer’ returns for a one-shot in May

Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, Adam Hughes, Jae Lee and more contribute stories to the anthology.

IDW will publish an anthology one-shot featuring Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer, with stories by Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, Adam Hughes, Jae Lee and more.

The idea for the project sprang from 2022 documentary Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection by Kelvin Mao. Mao found out that The screenwriters for The Rocketeer movie, Bilson and De Meo, had written a Rocketeer comic book script featuring the Rocketeer teaming with Amelia Earhart. Hughes will draw that story, while Mao and Windom each wrote a new story for the one-shot.

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2019 Eisner Hall of Fame nominees announced

Jim Aparo, Dave Stevens, June Tarpé Mills and Morrie Turner will be automatically inducted, while voters will choose four more from a field of 14.

Comic-Con International has announced this year’s nominees for the Eisner Hall of Fame. They include the four judges’ choices — who will be automatically inducted — and 14 other nominees, four of whom will be inducted based on voters’ choices.

The judges’ choices are Jim Aparo, who is probably best known for his work on various Batman titles, including Batman and the Outsiders; Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer; June Tarpé Mills, the Golden Age creator of Miss Fury; and Morrie Turner, creator of the Wee Pals newspaper strip in the 1960s.

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