I hadn't seen Steve for close to 18 years. I knew him through comics -- he was a fantastic colourist, I guess best known for his work on Alan Moore's V For Vendetta. We became friends when I was at college in Twickenham in the early 1990s. He lived in a flat above the row of shops on the High Street and I used to pop round a couple of times a week. He used to make coffee in a battered old Bialetti, and we'd talk bollocks about comics, mostly. Steve was a lovely bloke. He was a bit raggedy -- a big guy, always wore black, gappy teeth, beard, scraggy hair, paunch. He was very, very funny, a master of the Awful Pun, and boundlessly enthusiastic about most things, he had a formidable knowledge of comics and music, and I wish I'd paid attention more to what he told me. He was incredibly supportive, particularly for upcoming artists, and it's rare in any field to find a person who will so genuinely go out of their way to help, for no other reason than kindness of heart. He had a touch of the savant about him, but there was also something a bit goofy, a bit nutty there. And he told awful jokes. His flat/workspace was a trove of Stuff -- boxes of comics, records, books, all rather haphazardly littering the floors and shelves, and a tatty old red sofa. The flat was, I guess, very like Steve himself.
At that point, I was taking early steps in writing. I'd started working for Deadline in 1988, Melody Maker the year later. I'd done some work for Marvel UK, and I asked Steve to colour a strip I'd written, a Near Dark-style vampire noir thing called Ephraim, Utah, illustrated by Dougie Braithwaite and Andy Lanning. I remember going round to Steve's to see how he was getting on. The answer was: slowly. But this was ever Steve's way: he was painstakingly diligent in his work, a total perfectionist. Over on his blog, Neil Gaiman tells a story about how Steve was in line to colour Sandman, but he never turned in the sample pages he was working on in time, because he just wasn't happy with them. It was never really about deadlines for Steve.
Steve also took me for my very first curry, in the Indian over the road from his flat. I had chicken tikka masala. There were a lot of Cobras drunk. There were a lot of drinks, usually, when Steve was around. And really bad jokes.
You can see some of Steve's own art here. It's beautiful. He was an excellent painter, with a great eye for line and, of course, colour. Looking at these pictures, it's such a shame Steve never got the acclaim he deserved -- not necessarily in comics -- but Steve was very self-deprecating, not the type to aggressively push himself or his work. I've met a lot of people since I started out writing, but very few people will ever match Steve for warmth, sincerity and kindness.
There's a more detailed biog of Steve from my former Marvel UK editor John Freeman over here.
Steve Whitko was 52.
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