The Four Color Media Monitor

Tulsa World reported that a veteran artist, Steve Erwin, has died at age 63:

Tulsa artist Steve Erwin, who is in the Oklahoma Cartoonists Hall of Fame and whose body of work included illustrating comics for DC Comics, has died. His wife, Brenda, shared on social media that he passed away due to a sudden heart attack. He was 63.

Erwin is perhaps best known in the comic book industry for his work on the Deathstroke comic book series, for co-creating Checkmate with Paul Kupperberg and for penciling the comic book adaptation of the 1992 film “Batman Returns” starring Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny Devito.

During a 2016 interview with the Tulsa World, Erwin told a story about how he landed the “Batman Returns” gig. He excelled at drawing likenesses of “real” people and, prior to the movie adaptation, he would randomly sneak the faces of minor celebrities into comic books that he was illustrating. That got him in trouble with an editor who was wary that those faces could lead to litigation for unauthorized use of a likeness.

Such an approach, admittedly, is something I'd never thought could be subject to legal issues, yet there's doubtless plenty of artists who've drawn inspiration from real life figures to serve as templates for drawing comics characters, and Israeli cartoonists Maya and Yehuda Dvir have drawn wacky caricatures of themselves in their humor strips. It's told here, however, about how Erwin approached Deathstroke, one of the early assignments he got:

Erwin then was offered the comic book series Checkmate and he penciled the first nine issues (and 23 of the first 34) of Deathstroke the Terminator, a comic book series that starred a bad guy, Slade Wilson.

Because of Erwin’s Deathstroke affiliation, he said there was a misconception he was among the character’s creators. Marv Wolfman and George Perez created Deathstroke. But Erwin was the first artist to illustrate Deathstroke’s solo adventures after the character rose to prominence as a Teen Titans villain and became worthy of a series all his own.

Erwin said he developed a relationship with Deathstroke after drawing the character for three years: “Seeing him show up on ‘Arrow’ was exactly like the feeling you get when you see a friend appear in a high-profile event: ‘Hey, I know that guy!’ It’s just shy of the thrill of seeing something you have an actual hand in creating make it to TV — which is the feeling I got when I saw the Checkmate logo on ‘Smallville’ in its last season.”

Now, Marv Wolfman may have written Slade Wilson reforming in the years after the Judas Contract storyline in New Teen Titans, but even so, one must wonder why again, we have a case here of somebody being drawn to a villain, rather than heroes. I have to admit, this part disappoints me, because idolizing villains, as I'm sure I cautioned before, risks damaging morale. Let's also remember what Slade was implied as having done with Terra in 1984, having an affair with a girl who was supposed to be around 14. Seriously, even if this was a villainess, isn't that still running the gauntlet?

Erwin doubtlessly made significant contributions to comicdom in his time, and I'm sure there's plenty to admire in his resume. But it's a shame when creators act like villainy is what impresses them more, instead of heroes.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of villainy, good artists, history, Titans