RIP comics artist Steve Erwin
Word Balloons #1186: Tulsa native was co-creator of “Checkmate” for DC Comics
Saddened to hear of the passing this week of comic-book artist Steve Erwin, who drew the popular “Deathstroke the Terminator” series in the 1990s.
Erwin was the co-creator of the DC Comics title “Checkmate” and illustrated the DC Comics adaptation of “Batman Returns” and several "Star Trek" comics.
Born in Tulsa, Erwin studied commercial art at Oklahoma State University's Okmulgee campus. He was a 2007 inductee into the Oklahoma Cartoonists Hall of Fame and lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Tulsa native comics and TV writer Sterling Gates noted Erwin’s influence in an X.com post:
“A native Tulsan, Steve was a big inspiration for Okie comic fans (like me), especially when drawing huge DC books like Deathstroke the Terminator, Checkmate, and the Batman Returns adaptation,” Gates wrote. “Amazing talent. R.I.P.”
“Checkmate,” co-created with writer Paul Kupperberg, is a covert government agency working in the DC Comics universe.
Comics writer Joseph P. Illidge remarked on “Checkmate” #1 on X.com:
“CHECKMATE #1 from 1988 is still Gold Standard for a first issue spy comic in a superhero universe,” Illidge wrote.
Other DC hero titles Erwin worked on included “New Gods,” “Vigilante,” “Titans,” and “Hawk and Dove.” He also illustrated single issues of “Superboy” and “Superman: The Man of Steel.” In 1994, he co-created the character “Gunfire” with Marv Wolfman.
His work also took him to futuristic science fiction, in “Star Trek: The Next Generation Shadowheart,” the graphic novel adaptation of the William Shatner co-written “Star Trek” novel “The Ashes of Eden,” and the “Mike Danger” series, based on the Mickey Spillane character, imagining a hard-boiled detective in a high-tech future.
In 2015, I talked to Erwin about his then-current work adapting Robert Heinlein’s “Citizen of the Galaxy” to comics.
Erwin said it was intriguing to build the first visual world for "Galaxy" outside of a handful of magazine covers.
"As a stand-alone project, it was very appealing in that regard. I’ve been a science-fiction reader since I was a kid," Erwin said. "When I was in junior high and high school, I was a member of the science-fiction book of the month club. I was pretty well-read in a lot of it."
And as with Erwin's previous work on "Star Trek," science fiction such as Citizen of the Galaxy" can provide a lens through which to look at our own lives, he said.
"I like the emotional facet of science fiction that tries to make social statements in the concept of other fantasy stories, these other worlds that give you a closer look at home. I find that appealing."
Erwin was 63.
Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.
Had no idea Steve Erwin had Oklahoma roots. He is a legend.