Will Eisner's The Spirit and Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer are two of the most beloved and revered characters ever to see print in the graphic arts medium. Both creators were masters of the form—expertly wielding their brushes with exquisite results and spinning high-flying adventures that enthralled readers at every turn!
Now these two legendary pulp-inspired heroes meet for the very first time!
A Central City councilman disappears and is found dead in Los Angeles. Commissioner Dolan, along with Denny Colt (a.k.a. The Spirit), and his daughter Ellen trek out to the City of Angels to investigate. Meanwhile, Cliff Secord (The Rocketeer) consoles his sweetheart Betty who is traumatized after accidentally discovering the politician's body. But the real question is… how on earth—in 1941—did the victim arrive in Los Angeles just hours after last being seen thousands of miles away?! This is but one of the many mysteries that await our stalwart heroes as they seek answers to riddles wrapped in enigmas, and maintain their wits in the face of grave danger! Find out in PULP FRICTION By Mark Waid, Paul Smith, Loston Wallace and J Bone
www.idwpublishing.com • $21.99 1 Written by MARK WAID Art by PAUL SMITH (Issue #1), LOSTON WALLACE (Issue #2), and J BONE (Issues #3 & 4) Additional Inks by BOB WIACEK (Issue #2) Colors by JORDIE BELLAIRE (Issue #1), HI FI DESIGNS (Issue #2), and ROM FAJARDO (Issues #3 & 4) Letters by TOM B. LONG Series Edits by SCOTT DUNBIER
THE ROCKETEER created by Dave Stevens • THE SPIRIT created by Will Eisner
Cover by Paul Smith Cover Colors by Jordie Bellaire Collection Edits by Justin Eisinger & Alonzo Simon Collection Design by Tom B. Long
Special thanks to Jennifer Bawcum, Denis Kitchen, Michael Lovitz, David Mandel, Kelvin Mao, Michael McCalister and Sandy Resnick for their invaluable assistance. ISBN: 978-1-61377-881-4 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 Ted Adams, CEO & Publisher Facebook: facebook.com/idwpublishing Greg Goldstein, President & COO Robbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic Artist Twitter: @idwpublishing Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief YouTube: youtube.com/idwpublishing Matthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial Officer Alan Payne, VP of Sales Instagram: instagram.com/idwpublishing Dirk Wood, VP of Marketing deviantART: idwpublishing.deviantart.com www.IDWPUBLISHING.com Lorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services IDW founded by Ted Adams, Alex Garner, Kris Oprisko, and Robbie Robbins Jeff Webber, VP of Digital Publishing & Business Development Pinterest: pinterest.com/idwpublishing/idw-staff-faves THE ROCKETEER/THE SPIRIT: PULP FRICTION. MARCH 2014. FIRST PRINTING. © 2014 The Rocketeer Trust and Will Eisner Studios, Inc. THE ROCKETEER is a registered trademark of, and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and indicia are trademarks of The Rocketeer Trust. All Rights Reserved. The Spirit © 2014 Will Eisner Studios, Inc. The Spirit and Will Eisner ™ Will Eisner Studios, Inc. ® in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All Rights Reserved. IDW Publishing authorized user. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea.
Originally published as THE ROCKETEER/THE SPIRIT: PULP FRICTION issues #1–4. 2 Introduction by Denis Kitchen
Cartoonists Will Eisner and Dave Stevens shared a good deal in common, including movie adaptations with high expectations that didn’t exactly set box office records. But first and foremost, the pair stood on a separate plane for their virtuoso control over a sable brush dipped in India ink. Their original drawings* are among the most admired and the most highly collectible among comic art connoisseurs, with Will’s drawing perhaps a little looser, especially in his later period, and Dave’s more controlled and precise. Each man, with seeming effortlessness, could layer lines of ink, bold and delicate, with such surety and near perfection, always within inventive page compositions, such that fans would routinely drool and colleagues were admiringly envious.
Beyond their first rank artistry, both are also remembered for their wonderful storytelling. Dave’s Rocketeer, I’m confident, will remain a genre classic. Though the ability to do so was innate, Dave was never a prolific storyteller, nor was he a quick draw, even during his healthy years. Even if his life had not been cut short far too early, Dave could never have accumulated a body of work comparable to Will Eisner, whose career spanned eight decades, more than six hundred Spirit stories and over twenty graphic novels, not to mention a few hundred PS Magazines for the US Army.
The posthumous crossover of the most famous creations of Eisner and Stevens collected here prompts a few interesting parallels between notable elements of their work, starting with the women. Dave, perhaps even more than the Rocketeer, is famous for his delectable drawings of the female form. His sexiest images share the walls of the pin-up pantheon with Alberto Vargas and Gil Elvgren. Dave’s models often didn’t even have to be paid: they vied to be his subject. Dave was also the person most responsible for the revival of the ‘50s “Queen of Pin-Ups,” Bettie Page, on whom, of course, Cliff Secord’s girlfriend Betty is based.
Eisner was certainly no slouch when it came to drawing women. His slinky, sensual femme fatales chased, outwitted, and seduced The Spirit throughout the ‘40s and into the early ‘50s. P’Gell, Silk Satin, Sand Saref, Skinny Bones, and Plaster of Paris were among the most memorable bad girls, though The Spirit’s long-suffering girlfriend Ellen was a beauty as well. And Eisner’s Spirit section, inserted in family newspapers for a considerably earlier generation, had to incorporate these alluring sex symbols under the eyes of watchful editors, where lingerie and hints of nudity were verboten.
The Spirit was created in 1940 in a world contemporaneous with its publication and set primarily in Central City, which everyone understood to be New York. Stevens, who created his best known character some four decades after The Spirit began, chose to set his plots close to very nearly the same time period, and much of its action also takes place in New York. The stubby, crazy-cool airplane that Cliff pilots, a 1931 Gee Bee racer, became a distinctive Rocketeer trademark, but even many Spirit fans may not know that in July 1940, only a month after the strip’s inception, Eisner gave his masked detective a strange aircraft of his own: an auto-plane. It wasn’t as stylish as Cliff’s Gee Bee, and Eisner soon discarded the flying vehicle as too gimmicky. But perhaps it needs to be revived as a future plot device if Denny Colt and Cliff Secord should cross paths again?
Finally, the Rocketeer’s costume, most notable for the twin cylinders on his back and a stylish art deco helmet, would hardly seem to have anything whatever in common with The Spirit’s minimal disguise, consisting entirely of a wispy eye mask. And that observation would be true for nearly The Spirit’s entire run. But as the epic approached its end in 1952, Eisner, assisted then by Jules Feiffer and Wally Wood, sent the Spirit to outer space and the moon, where he wore a spacesuit with twin cylinders on his back and donned a stylish, if somewhat bulbous, helmet of his own.
It’s a shame that Eisner and Stevens, who had such strong mutual respect, could not have collaborated during their lifetimes, but I’m confident each would be quite pleased to see their respective two-dimensional characters interacting and butting heads, helmeted or not, for all the appreciative fans, like me, who can never get enough of their favorites.
—Denis Kitchen, February 2014
*If you aren’t lucky enough to own any of their actual art, see the next best thing: IDW’s oversize Artist Editions of The Spirit and The Rocketeer.
3 Cover by PAUL SMITH Colors by JORDIE BELLAIRE 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11