Folks Of Interest R.I.P. Dave "Big" Deal

One inspirational and great artist from the pages of CARtoons.

 

Wow, Jackman wheels, forgot all about those. Had the first set of 8 lug white spokes they ever made on a raised up Ford van in 1973. Loved that Big Deal Jackman sticker we put in the back window.

 

Dave was a great artist/illustrator/designer and will be missed greatly. I worked with him in the '80s when he did some toy car designs for Intex Recreation (Zee Toys). You can see a two-sided 3" die-cast car with his body design at http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/4882/index.html -- in the left frame click on "3" cars and trucks" -- the pic of the D/D Coupe (one side of the car ) and Bonneville Blaster (the other side of the car) will be second from the top.

 

What a shame. No one ever did it as good as he did for as long as he did. My condolences to his family and friends.

 

A truly great cartoonist. He WILL live on forever. R.I.P.

 

R.I.P. "Big" Deal. Prayers and thoughts with your loved ones.

 

This makes me sad. Dave Deal was one of my childhood favorites. I read his stuff over & over in CAR-TOONS magazine...wore them out re-reading them. One Christmas I got a model car of one of Dave's VW Bug 'toons. I loved it and it was the envy of all the other car oriented kids. It was about the same time that Herbie the Love Bug was all the rage. That connection made it special too. God Bless Dave Deal.

 

I can honestly and proudly say that Dave was my first and biggest artistic influence. Like someone else said, him and his art taught me 3D drawing. The day I saw what he had done, it was like someone turned on every light in the house - BAM! I'm betting that I'm not alone in this either...

 

Has his death been confirmed? I don't see any mention on the www.bigdealart.com or sema.org sites. In searching the 'net I came across this:
http://www.whitman.edu/magazine/december2001/David%20Deal.html

It is about a professor of the same name in Washington state who died on Oct. 15, 2001.

Perhaps someone has made a serious mistake? If so, I'm sure "our" Dave Deal would be as amused as Mark Twain who has been quoted as saying that "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

 

Hello...

I just spoke with Bruce and Winnie Meyers - Bruce is responsible for the Meyers Manx. Bruce and Winnie were good friends with Dave Deal and Winnie confirmed by phone, just moments ago, that Dave (sadly) passed away Tuesday night (this week).

I was hoping this thread may be wrong, but sorry to confirm his passing.

Geoff

 

I didn't have many heroes growing up, but Dave Deal was damn sure one of them.

For a car crazy kid in the late 60's and early 70's, his art was a buzz. I remember buying one of the Deal's Wheels kits and just copying every drawing from the box over and over. I laughed my ass off at the side wall names he would slip into the cars tires. His people were the baddest too, all nose and hair, just like the times.

I have a Mount Rushmore of car guy artists . . . Roth, Newton, Taylor and Deal. I bought that Art of Cars book soley on the idea that unpublished Deal cars were going to be included in it.

Man, today I feel like I did when Charles Schulz and Jim Henson passed away. I need to draw the 57 Hevy with a pencil and notebook paper at my kitchen table. Maybe that will make everything alright . . .

Godspeed Big Deal
Semper Fidelis

 

I knew Dave for years playing with old VWs , at one time we talked about a fiberglass Kubelwagen he had gotten from I believe hegot from bruce of Meyers Manx,

last time I saw him we talked about some old parts he wanted to sell, unfortunately I never got down to see him,

You were a good guy Dave and you made all us car guys smile ,
what else could you ask for ?

Beaulieu

 

Big early influence of mine, I'm looking at my "Baja Humbug" box on my wall right now.
I saw him somewhere a couple of years ago, and he gave me a zzzz-28 kit and signed it, he had some in his trunk! And about 15 years ago, me and Jon Fisher were working on cartoons at WB and Dave came in to do some freelance, he took us out to the parking garage to show us his Graham he was driving. Super nice guy, he will be missed. One of my first memories is destroying the Baja kit when my pop put it in my crib for me to play with!
He was more careful with model kits after that...

 

I am one of the fortunate people that can say Dave Deal was/is a friend of mine.
Dave did some artwork for the magazine I used to work for, and out of respect for our mutual friend Bruce Meyers (we were giving away a brand new Meyers Manx Dune Buggy), he did the artwork for FREE.
Dave also designed a wheel for the Rader Wheel Corporation, that never made it into production. He told me about it during one of my numerous visits to his home (I lived about 15 miles away from him) to talk about the Olden days of Baja, Hot Rodding, VWs, and everything else under the sun. We uncovered it languishing in his basement, so I cleaned it up a little, and shot a photo of it, and published it in the magazine.... 6 months later that identical wheel was being made by some people in Germany... Dave wasn't too happy about it, but figured there wasn't much he could do...a friend of mine asked me to set up a meeting with Dave, so he could ask Dave's permission to make the wheel. Dave was so happy someone actually asked permission, rather than just taking his design and manufacturing it, that he gave him not only written permission, but the prototype wheel for a pattern...
Not a lot of folks know this, but besides his artwork, Dave was a published author, as well. If you want some heavy, but insightful, well-researched reading, find a copy of "The Day Leviathan Died" by Dave... I know I'll cherish my signed copy forever.
I just found the original photo I took of the Deal wheel, perfect for the wide-5 VW in an Iron Cross-looking kind of way.
God Speed, Dave, you'll be greatly missed by all that knew and loved you.

 

I first heard of Big Deal years ago working for a print shop printing posters for Jackman wheels & fell in love with his graphics.
He walked into my print shop 15 years ago to see about this little pring shop that Dave had never hard of, who was printing something with his name/artwork on it. That first meeting led to a 15 years of a wonderful & very interesting friendship.
It saddens me that I will never again see Dave walk in the shop, talk printing & Jesus.
Dave, I will miss you greatly, I look forward to seeing you once again, this time with your new body, in the presence of our lord Jesus Christ.
In the twinkling of the eye, you layed down all your earthly cares to kneel before the God of the universe.
Your (eternal) friend
Ken Ries

 

I had the honor of being trusted by Dave to do a lot of printing for him, that business card was printed just a few months ago, it was his last order. I also saw him at the Rod Run, we spoke for a few minutes. He stopped by the shop a week later & we talked of re-running a new(er) version of his & my cards before the end of the year. Our loss.
I do have a number of his card here. If you would like some just let me know
Ken

 

Go in peace Dave.

I drew Roth rip-offs all through grade shool but the monster thing wasn't me.
Then I discovered Dave's work for the VW world and Jackman! His work was always friendly in spirit and right-on in details. He remains my key inspiration.

I have drawer full of clipped Big Deal illustrations from way back (I think you can see his influence in my own avatar)

 

Geez , he was my neighbor and friend for many years . Fantastically interesting guy . He went on quest for Noah's Ark (one of his passions ) and had written extensively on his travels in search of it . He had a Hupmobile with a OHC Pontiac six in it . I did some arc welding on it for him after he had his pacemaker put in as he was nevous about combining the two . This week I was feeling guilty for not having called him since I moved to New Mexico . Now I'm really upset . He was a good friend , total car guy , innovative artist , empassioned historian and a great iconoclast . There aren't enough like him . Bye buddy . All of your characters from "Cars " are in mourning with the rest of us .

 

Dave "Big" Deal you will truely be missed!!
It has been my pleasure to call Dave my friend and to work closely with him during the past 5 years working on some projects and licensing his awesome artwork. He was truely a great gentlemen, scholar and artist. Did anyone know he also wrote 4 books? If we ever had a question or needed advice, Dave was to go-to guy. Love you Dave. We'll meet again some day.
Val Cox; Koolart-USA.com

 

Gosh this is great. I just got an email from my dad that Dave had passed. They were very close and had just spent the weekend together right before he died. I was very lucky as a boy to have a hero who was also a close friend. Dave took me to my first comic book convention, took me on my first plane ride in his rackety old plane, and generally always showed me a good time and nurtured my creative impulses. I never would have known about Big Daddy Roth, Von Dutch amd the whole crazy car culture if it hadn't been for Dave. I am so glad to see that he is remembered fondly by the hot rod community. Knowing that his work will live on is very comforting.

 

How sad.
Dave was such a great inspiration for so many of my own creative ideas.
I am so sorry I never got a chance to thank him.
He will be missed.

Steve Grimes

 

Hey everyone, there are some great tributes here. I also was a friend of Dave's, we conversed by phone and email fairly regularly for the past 12 years or so. I collected his Deal's Wheels models (my Deal's Wheels web site is here) when I was a kid back in the 70's, when I started collecting them again as an adult it was a dream come true when I was able to get in contact with Dave. He was a really interesting person, many people don't realize he was a dedicated scientist as well as being an artist. He wrote a couple of books that presented evidence backing up some of the particularly unexplainable Bible passages, one was "The Day Behemoth & Leviathan Died: Earth Disaster" and another was "The nexus: Spoken language : the link between the Mayan and Semitic, during Pre-Columbian times". I've read them both and let me tell you, they're not exactly casual reading He went by "David Allen Deal" in his scientific pursuits because he didn't want other scientists to dismiss him as "that crazy artist" So he kind of lived a dual life- those who knew him as an artist didn't know he was a scientist and likewise the scientific community had no idea he was an artist. Anyway, I really enjoyed our friendship over the years, he was a kind and generous person. I've got lots of neat things he sent me over the years that I will always treasure.

Most of you probably know Dave designed the characters in the Cars movie, he had been working on development of characters for Cars 2 and fortunately he was able to get it all done with the help of his son Travis.

Dave had been battling cancer for a while, he had a kidney removed earlier this year. Unfortunately the cancer returned and they put him on some very aggressive chemo. The chemo knocked out his remaining kidney and he passed pretty quickly after that. He passed away at home surrounded by his family and was in no pain. I've spoken with his wife (Velia) and son (Travis) and they are really wonderful people. He also has two grandaughters- Audrey and Gretchen. Audrey is reported to be quite an artist in her own right.

We'll miss you Big Deal!

 

I'm not sure how much longer Dave's site will remain online, here's a link to it:

http://www.bigdealart.com/

Here's a blurb that Dave wrote for his site as an intro to himself. I love it because it is a perfect example of his offbeat sense of humor:

Big Deal

The bearded guy over there ( he's not an old hippie - he had the beard long before there ever was such an animal as a hippie ), anyway, he's the one who drew and painted all this art. He has been drawing since Hector was a pup. That's since, long before, his 5th grade teacher at Budlong Elementary School in Los Angeles, Mrs. Demming, used to encourage him by slapping him on the back of the hand with the edge of steel-edged ruler every time she saw him drawing. With this kind of progressive educational encouragement it's amazing he could ever draw anything.. But he got over that pathetic ignorance, and after failing algebra in college decided to take art courses, and found his niche in life, creating strange drawings. This was after a stint in the Marine Corps (still proud of that). Big Deal has raced offroad for many years and still holds the Baja Trans-peninsular speed record, set with his partner Don Ernst in Jan 1973 (time: 19:58) in a VW sedan. This was a world's record time, which still stands to this day. Oh yes, Dave is an accomplished pilot with 20 years of flying in Cessna 180 taildraggers, mainly in Baja and southwest USA, nearly 2000 hours pilot-in-command time. He is a Bushy Baja pilot.

Big deal created the Deal's Wheels line of models for Revell in the 1970s, This was a line of cartoon type plastic models with funny little hotrodders. Speaking of Hotrodders, Big Deal was a 50s California hotrodder for sure. Dorsey High School, the Witch Stand on Slauson & Overhill, Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, were his hangouts. Sportscar races on the weekends were a passion. Hung out with Von Dutch (Kenneth Howard). Actually he was one of the two shop "gophers" for "Dutch" and George Ashe and Walter Protciv the owners. He has owned many Porsches (even a factory racer ) - 550 spyder and once a Ferrari, always used.

MG Mitten was a company that advertised in Road & Track magazine, Car & Driver etc. Each month Dave would create those two page (double truck) ads, with automotive art and humor used to sell car covers and accessories. Armor All's little viking used for 25 years was another of his creations. He really got around. Dave, "Big Deal" Illustrated many covers and stories for Cartoons magazine. http://www.georgetrosley.com/cartoons.html The address is the web site dedicated to that magazine. Big Deal did 10 of the covers for Cartoons over the years, and many pages in the strips and stories inside the mag.

Big Deal even works in France for Super VW magazine (Jaky Morel). He loves France too. He evn speaks it a well enough to get along...far from perfect. Spanish is his second language. But everywhere he goes he draws cartoons. That is the big thing, at least as far as work is concerned.

Dave's latest work includes a major movie project for PIXAR, working with John Lasseter. Can't say much more than that at this time. John just recently announced the movie to be released in spring of 2005. Wait until you see this one! Guess what it's about.

Another side to his interests, at least for the past 20 years has been ancient history. I know that sounds rather dull to most, but this interest has produced several books on such diverse topics as the Mayan language and the Ark of Noah , the latter involves the event that killed he dinosaurs and Dave's discovery of the first city of civilization (post flood) and the ark's actual landing site in eastern Turkey adjacent to the Iranian border, where Dave has gone several times to survey the site and investigate along with the Atatürk University, Erzurum. http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com

Dave thinks he holds the speed record from Erzurum to the Iranian border, however it was not officially recorded at the time, and anyway, the car rental agency wouldn't like to hear of it.

Why the name BIG DEAL? That was his nickname in the Marines, and his old friend Norm Holtkamp the midget racer of the 1940s hung that moniker on him as well. So since it is appropriate relative to physical size and surname, why not? Even his Turkish geologist liaison at Atatürk University calls him "Big Deal." Why not?

Dave has a (first and only) wife, Velia, and a great son, Travis who is an architect and a couple of little granddaughters Audry and Gretchin. Audrey, at 2 years of age is a chip off the old block. Dave has a great bunch of nieces and some great nephews, one of whom did this site, Dave says, "Thanks Jared."

 

Thanks so much for the update Tres.

Very nice to know he passed without much pain. I never met him, but was fortunate enough to communicate via email with him a number of months ago.
Also, glad to hear you confirm his kindness, because he certainly came across that way to me.

 

I loved his work.

 

Damn, Nothing more I can say. I will miss him a true friend. I met Dave through his son Travis in high school in Vista CA. We were in art class together. I did not know Travis even though we were in the same class. One day Travis came in with a T-shirt on that had a really cool car drawing on it. I told him, cool shirt, where did you get it. Well the reply was not what I expected. He said his dad had it printed. Well I had never heard of anyone printing up their own shirts (I thought that was just for special people and stores) and told him aaww BS. Well in typical Travis fashion said at lunch meet me by the gym and we will go to my house for lunch. My thought, yeah right this guy is gaming me. Well I was gamed all right. We went up to his house in the rich part of Vista. I got to meet his mom first (she was always in the kitchen doing something) then I got to meet the man himself. I couldn't believe it, here I am in this guys house and he has all these cool drawings. My GOD this is awesome. Pictures on all the walls of his office, Down the hall way. To a kid in high school who wanted to be able to draw this was another world.

Dave showed me all his drawings all the things he had done. The models, magazines, the original Armor All guy (yeah he did that and it was a little bronze statue on the book shelf). This one day was the most fantastic that a teenage kid could ever have. That was the first day of a friendship that will last a life time. Most of the time you could find me up at Travis's house. Dave showed me his 34 Ford. The kit car that he built, the kubal wagon (may not be spelling it right but a replica of a German Jeep), then the 68 Ferari (I know I didn't spell it right but I think you know what I mean). Well he sold the 68 ferari to buy a new airplane. Y'all didn't know he was a pilot did ya. Then I got to see the fuzzy helmet that he wore across the finish line of Baja to La Paz race. All this stuff was awesome.

One day Travis got a phone call (of course I was there). Travis got off the phone and said "dad wants us to meet him at Bonsal Bridge". The first thing I asked was where at Bonzal? Travis said that Dave told him to bring the camera and that we would see him. Well we did alright. Here comes Dave in the airplane and does a loop over the Bonzal Bridge. Yep the picture is (was) hanging in the hallway, a nice 8x10. One Saturday Travis and I went to the beach (Carlsbad, by the warm water jettie) well we come across Dave and Vickie walking on the beach. Dave sticks out his hand and says look what I found. He opens his hand and it's a rock. He says I'm going to call it tit rock. It was a flat rock that raised up on the front, that had a ring around it like a womans nipple. He named it tit rock and it went on the book shelf. Dave told me that he was kicked out of the Marines and reinlisted in the Air Force. He said that the Air Force was like breakfast in bed. He always said once a Marine always a Marine. He had a doll of SGT Ermy, you guessed it up on the bookshelf. One day I came over to see Travis, well he wasn't home but Dave asked me if I wanted to hang around and wait for him. So I stayed. Now mind you I was a teenager and just hanging out. Three guys come over in suits, theirs Dave in camo BDU's cut off, flip flops, and tank top. I smelled money. Dave is talking to them and me as if I am apart of their conversation. Dave asks me if I would like a Dos Okies, he opens the fridge and hands me a Barttels and James wine cooler. After that I guess he got bored because while talking to those guys he starts drawing the faces of presidents on fruit. I remember that he drew Carter on the lemon. Dave would always ask me how the God business was. You see my dad was Pastor. Dave found that out and everytime he saw me it was "hows the God business".

The Deal family was there when I got married, Travis came to the wedding. When my wife was pregnant with my first son we went down to see the family. After my first son was born we went down to show off the new kid. Travis had bought a silver piggy bank for my son which he (my son) still has. It was never a Dave, Vicky, or Travis thing this was a family thing. We were friends and are still friends. When my first wife died, Travis was there to represent his family and our relationship as friends and family. As we got older we lost contact. Then I found Daves artwork on the net and I was looking him up to tell him someone was selling his stuff. He told me what was going on with the T-shirts being sold. Then it was like there was nothing lost. We picked up on email and Dave asked "hows the God business". The last time I saw Dave, Vicky, and Travis, was after my heart attack in 2005. My second wife and I were in the area and we stopped in. Boy did I have to jog my memory to find the place. Vicky saw me and I said Vicky and that was all it took she ran up and hugged me and offered me a beer. Dave was cleaning the pool and we sit out on the patio and talked and waited for Dave to finish. This was just before the movie Cars was released. Well Dave had to tell me about the movie Cars, and he told me he was doing all the main caricatures in the movie. Then he says there is this guy called Larry The Cable Guy who is doing the voice of the tow truck. I had to tell him to go down and rent one of Larry The Cable Guys videos and watch it. When Dave was finished he came up and asked "hows the God business". Vicky went to call Travis and didn't tell him it was me who was there. I told Dave about the heart attack and he told me that he had, had a bad one too. Then he said hey were still suckin air. We visited for a good 3 or 4 hours. It wasn't friends seeing each other it was a family getting together. My very last contact with Dave was by email in July of 2007. My second wife had kicked me out and wanted a divorce. I wanted to touch base with Travis, so I contact Dave. What does Dave say in the email, "your still suckin air". Then after the emails are sent Dave ask me Hows the God business. I told him better dad retired and they moved to Tennessee.

You can't put a life time of friends and love in simple words. Dave I have always loved you and your family. I will miss you. You, Vicky, and Travis, showed me as a teenager true family and true love in a family. I love you and your family. You will be greatly missed.

Last Note if there is anyone out there who knows The Deal family please give Travis my email mypiratelife@gmail.com and tell him Mark is wanting to contact him and that over the years I lost his number.

 

Very good one, But RIP Big Deal too.

 

vaya con dios...

 

Huge fan of Deal's work. Rest in peace.