Stiles, Steve
Entry updated 22 March 2023. Tagged: Artist, Comics, Fan.
(1943-2020) US artist who studied at The High School of Music & Art and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York; long active in both Fanzines and Comics. His first professional sale of a cartoon was to Paul Krassner's The Realist in 1961. He contributed covers and/or interior artwork to Fantastic, several Worldcon souvenir books and many fanzines, including – to mention only those with entries in this encyclopedia – Algol, Ansible, File 770, Locus (in its pre-Semiprozine era), Mimosa, Psychotic, SF Commentary and Xero. He published in various underground comics venues from 1968, appearing in a number of 1970s and 1980s Kitchen Sink Comics titles including his own Hyper Comics (one issue, 1979): this featured "Gonzo Horror", an entertaining graphic spoof of H P Lovecraft. He also worked as a penciller for the UK division of Marvel Comics.
Stiles was a versatile artist of considerable range, but it is his distinctive and knowingly goofy cartoon style that is most admired in fandom. Book cover examples crowded with fannish icons include A Wealth of Fable (1992) by Harry Warner Jr, the 2002 reissue of Warner's All Our Yesterdays (1969), and Rog Phillips' The Club House (coll 2014) by Phillips. A Graphic Novel anticipating the Steampunk mode is The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer (February-December 1980 Heavy Metal; graph 1991) with Richard A Lupoff as Dick Lupoff, adapted from Lupoff's Into the Aether (1974).
Stiles won the first Rotsler Award in 1998, several FAAn Awards as best artist, and the Hugo as best fan artist in 2016. [DRL]
see also: Fan Funds.
Stephen Willis Stiles
born USA: 16 July 1943
died Randallstown, Maryland: 11 January 2020
works (selected)
- The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 1991) with Richard A Lupoff as Dick Lupoff [graph: first appeared February-December 1980 Heavy Metal: pb/Steve Stiles]
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