Progress City, U.S.A.

I was extremely saddened to read on Blue Sky Disney this evening that artist and illustrator Dave Stevens passed away yesterday. Stevens, 52, had been fighting a long battle with leukemia.

A masterful artist, Stevens specialized in styles reminiscent of the 1930s and 40s. He reveled in the lost art of the pinup girl, and his drawings crackled with art-deco style and film serial excitement. He wasn’t prolific; a notoriously slow artist, he did things with pen and ink that most artists could not achieve with an array of brushes and paint. I’ve always been fascinated by artists that work in pen and ink; such simple tools can yield amazing results in the hands of someone as meticulous as Stevens.

Sadly, many might not even know of Stevens’ work, or what place it has on a Disney blog. In 1982, Stevens created the Rocketeer in the pages of Pacific Comics’ Starslayer #2. Over the next thirteen years the Rocketeer would make occasional appearances in print but his connection to Disney comes through the 1991 film adaptation, The Rocketeer. This film, perhaps more than any other, is the most underrated film in the entire Disney canon. Directed by Joe Johnston and with a fantastic cast and score by James Horner (portions of which are still played at EPCOT Center’s “Fountain of Nations”), The Rocketeer deserves far more attention than it has received.

Improperly marketed by Disney, and opening the same weekend as Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Rocketeer underperformed at the box office and plans for a sequel were scuttled. This was a character that deserved a franchise, and one of my personal obsessions is the idea of creating a ride based on the film for the Hollywood Studios park. Oh, what one could do with a KUKA robocoaster and The Rocketeer…

Unfortunately, Stevens rarely returned to the character himself, and plans to continue the Rocketeer’s adventures after 1995 never came to fruition. We only have a handful of stories scattered amongst different publishers by which to remember Cliff Secord, the Rocketeer. Thankfully Stevens himself continued to work, but not on comic projects. Mostly it seems he spent recent years doing art by commission, and selling his famous pinups at comic shows across the country. Perhaps someday the Rocketeer will continue in some form - it would be a fitting tribute to an artist lost far before his time.

Read an excellent remembrance of Stevens at The Beat
Contribute to the American Cancer Society, because… screw cancer.
More at The Comics Reporter

UPDATE: Thanks to Pat in the comments, who pointed out that Stevens’ mother has requested that fans donate to the Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Foundation.

There’s a subject that has been a steady source of discussion on Disney fan forums for at least a decade now - what is going to happen to the Carousel of Progress? This attraction, one of Walt’s own, now exists only at Walt Disney World in Orlando and, at least seemingly, has teetered on the verge of extinction for years. So let’s take a step back and look at the problem that has kept old-school Disney fans on edge for all this time. What is going to happen to the Carousel of Progress? And more importantly, what should happen to this legendary attraction?

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A few weeks ago the folks at Disney HQ announced something that the net nabobs had been expecting for a long time - a name change for the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park in Orlando. These rumors go way, way back - litigation over the name began even before the park opened and extended well into the 1990’s. MGM management at the time realized that their predecessors had been totally chumped by Disney when they brokered the sweetheart deal over licensing rights, and have been trying to increase their take ever since.

So, for years we’ve been treated to a constant stream of rumors. “This is the year the contract is over… look for the name to change.” “Next year the contract with MGM is running out - it’s going to be Disney Studios then.” The park has been referred to as “Disney Studios” on WDW promotional videos for years, and the name change was always rumored to be right around the corner.

Things heated up again with the Disney - Pixar merger. The rumor mill started cranking with tales of the impending announcement of “Disney-Pixar Studios Theme Park”. Counter-rumors circulated that a thawing relationship with George Lucas after the departure of Michael Eisner would lead to an increased Lucasfilm presence in the park, and out of respect for that “Pixar” would be dropped from the name or “Lucas” added in some way. People photoshopped park logos with Mickey and their favorite Pixar character; various rumor sites contradicted each other but they mostly all agreed that the jury was still out at WDI on what to do with the park.

So, finally we get the announcement that WDW fans have been waiting for for at least a decade, and it’s something that no one had expected: in January 2008, the park will become “Disney’s Hollywood Studios”. No one really expected this name, and the web immediately began circulating with stories that it wasn’t necessarily a permanent name, and that it would change sometime in the near future once certain improvements were made to the park. But for now “Hollywood Studios” it is.

What does this all mean, really? Well, in the words of Walt Disney World president Meg Crofton, “as a park all about entertainment, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will deliver like never before. Now we can say that Hollywood is literally our middle name.” Now aside from the fact that someone in PR actually got paid to write that press release, this big name change is worth just about as much as the handful of crumpled paper in the dustbin beside my desk. Namely, very little. The Studios theme park is a mess; a disaster of both theme and execution, and is in more desperate need of immediate and massive overhaul than I think WDC realizes. Slapping a new name on the marquee won’t change that; if this park is really going to catch up to its Florida siblings, the folks in Burbank are going to have to get serious about commiting to change.

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