Saturday, February 23, 2008
Steve Whitaker RIP
Just found out the sad news from Matt that we lost Steve Whitaker yesterday.
Such is the pain of growing older, that we have to report more and more of this as we go on, but that doesn't make the loss any easier.
Steve was a much underrated artist and colourist, probably best known for his beautifully muted colours on the DC version of V For Vendetta.
Thoughts to his friends and family.
Steve Whitaker's Flickr stream (thanks to Jeremy Dennis for the link)
D'Israeli blog tribute. (thanks for the photo Matt)
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Steve Whitaker was one of the stalwarts of the comics British Amateur Press Association. I'm pretty sure that he was always in the apa whenever I was, from about 1990 onwards.
ReplyDeleteB-APA was wound up in 2004. However, there was a special in 2005, a commemoration issue when Andy Roberts died, to which Steve enthusiastically contributed. We can hardly do less for Steve. So I will be editing a commemorative special of B-APA, to be available at CAPTION, a convention Steve always supported. Obviously, I'd like as many ex-B-APAns as possible to contribute. But I don't want to restrict contributions to ex-B-APAns; I'd like anyone of Steve's friends who wants to be part of this to feel welcome.
If you want to contribute, please contact me at keentony at hotmail dot com. I'm looking for contributions of 1-2 pages, by mid-July, preferably as camera-ready copy. Thanks to those who have already agreed to be involved.
Apologies if you end up seeing this in several places.
Since Saturday, when I learned the tragic news from Steve's dad when I called (as I often have) to speak to Steve, I have Web-surfed many tributes by his legion of friends.
ReplyDeleteHe and I go back to 1974-75, when we attended an art-school foundation course at Mander College, Bedford (my hometown for 10 years) and learned that we shared an enthusiasm for comics and cartoons and that we lived on the same block.
I didn't go on to art school; instead I returned to the States (for university, the Army, back to university and now a job as a copy editor on a small daily newspaper) in the summer of 1975 and have visited England only 4 times since--meeting Steve at least briefly during each trip (the last 2, in the 1990s, with my wife, Kim.)
But Steve and I continued our friendship long-distance; I still have his illustrated letters from the 1970s. In recent years he encouraged me as I revived cartooning as a hobby and began to sell little joke cartoons to magazines. I had abandoned the idea of a career as a cartoonist a) because I don't want to live in a big city and b) because I don't really measure up. Steve more than did that.
Anyway, I'm at work and have to end this. Thanks for all the tributes. Wish I knew more of you.
Best,
Mike Mittelstadt
Watertown, NY. USA