Remembering Steve Dillon

Last weekend the comic book world lost the great talent that was Steve Dillon, and I lost one of my biggest artistic inspirations.

Hellblazer #63 is one of the most important comic books I ever purchased.

DC had just launched their new Vertigo imprint and several long-running horror titles were making the move. Sandman, Doom Patrol and Shade the Changing Man were all books I was familiar with and reading at the time. Hellblazer, which followed the misadventures of English mage John Constantine, was a book I never read for some reason.

However, at the time I was looking for something different. Something unlike the superhero comics I was reading month in and month out.

Hellblazer seemed to be the answer.

So I bought Hellblazer #63 and was… a bit unimpressed.

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The issue, titled “Forty”, told the tale of Constantine’s fortieth birthday and honestly didn’t make much sense to me. It starred a lot of characters I didn’t know and I was pretty much lost from page one.

But that didn’t stop me fro buying the next issue and every one thereafter.

Because of Steve Dillon.

Here was a story that was essentially a group of people sitting around and talking. That’s it. No action, no slugfests, no villains monologuing for pages. Just a group of friends enjoying some drinks and jokes at Constantine’s expense.

And yet Dillon’s art transfixed me and made an incredibly profound impression.

It’s not that it was splashy, or detailed or tried to ape any of the styles popular at the time. Dillon’s art stood all on its own. Here was an artist who could make 20 pages of conversation some of the most compelling reading you had ever experienced. I had never seen anything like it.

A page from Hellblazer #6

Ever since, Steve Dillon was the artist I most wanted to emulate. I would pour over every issue of Hellblazer and later Preacher to try and learn everything I could. I would buy more issues of The Punisher that I thought possible simply because his name was in the credits.

And then there is the little known one-shot titled Heartland. Originally published as a Hellblazer tie-in, almost no one remembers the book today. And that is a real shame.

Much like Hellblazer #63, Heartland is a simple story of family and friendship. As a result, large chunks of the story take place in a pub in Belfast, Ireland and it is some of the best art Dillon ever did. The emotions he was able to convey with an expression, or how someone slumped their shoulders or leaned against the bar. It was pure artistic brilliance.

I always thought that maybe I would get Steve Dillon to sign my battered, beaten copy of Heartland someday. I’ve read it more times than I can count and ofter leave it sitting out where I can find it. Because you never know when you might need some inspiration.

Now that can’t happen.

Steve Dillon died over the weekend in New York City. There has been a steady stream of remembrances and people saying not only what an amazing talent he was, but what a nice person as well.

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Although I never met Steve Dillon, he played an instrumental part in my development as an artist. And I hope somewhere he is reading this and knows that.

Thanks Steve. For everything. The world of comics has lost one of the very best.

R.I.P. Steve Dillon – 1962-2016