IDW Celebrates 40 Years of The Rocketeer in April

This April, IDW Publishing invites pulp adventure fans on a trans-Atlantic journey in The Rocketeer: The Great Race! A brand-new four-issue comic book miniseries commemorating 40 years of Dave Stevens’ iconic hero, The Great Race soars to stratospheric storytelling heights courtesy of New York Times bestselling writer/artist Stephen Mooney!

In The Great Race, stunt pilot Cliff Secord returns to a West Coast steeped in paranoia over the looming war in Europe. Having finally had enough of his near-death scrapes as the high-flying Rocketeer, the only thing in Cliff’s crosshairs is a prestigious, winner-take-all air race that runs from California to France! Maybe it’s finally time to smarten up and fly straight… by taking his best girl Betty to Paris! But other parties want to win the race for their own nefarious ends, and Cliff will need to decide which prize is truly the most valuable of all.

As an additional bonus, each issue of The Rocketeer: The Great Race will contain an oral history featuring Dave Stevens’s friends, family, and fellow artists, all culled together by Kelvin Mao, the director of the forthcoming documentary on the beloved artist!

The debut issue of The Rocketeer: The Great Race will be available with multiple cover variants for retailers and fans to enjoy, including Cover A by Gabriel Rodríguez, Cover B by Stephen Mooney himself, a Blank Sketch edition for Cover C, and a Retailer Incentive edition featuring virgin artwork by Rodríguez.

April 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of The Rocketeer’s debut as a backup feature in 1982’s Starslayer #2. In addition to The Great Race, IDW will celebrate “Rocketeer Month” with an encore release of Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer Artist’s Edition, a new printing of the inaugural release in IDW’s multiple award-winning Artist’s Edition line. Long out of print, this completely redesigned reissue of the long-out-of-print Artist’s Edition reproduces an integral work of comics history, meticulously scanned from the original art.