Hometown Boy Steve Cobb Makes Good in Howard Stern’s New Book

By RUSS BENGTSON
Big Shout Magazine, December 1995

There are a lot of pictures in Howard Stern‘s new book, Miss America. This in itself should come as a surprise to no one considering Mr. Stern’s audience. Anyone willing to blow a couple hundred bucks on a rare copy of “Butt Bongo Fiesta” probably doesn’t spend his/her evenings perusing Othello.

But that’s not the point. The point is that one of the illustrations in Miss America (on page 300 to be exact), should be vaguely familiar to anyone who’s seen this here publication. The picture of a Santa-hatted Stern pulling John DeBella from his bag of toys was the cover of our December ’94 issue. And it was painted by local artist Steve Cobb.

Steve had done some commercially-visible work before, doing covers for all of Solitude’s (a Delaware-based metal band) demos and their Red Light Records debut (which was only released in Europe ’cause the label went under), but it’s safe to say that this is the most exposure he’s ever gotten.

Why? Because Howard Stern’s listeners might be a bunch of loonies, but they’re a dedicated bunch of loonies. His first book sailed off the shelves faster than any other book in Simon & Schuster history, and this one also found a spot on the New York Times best-seller list right off the bat, which probably terrifies the Times staff.

Steve isn’t a fanatical follower, but he does tune in occasionally. “I like his stuff — I don’t listen to it religiously or anything,” he says. “If I’m in the car when he’s on, I’ll listen to it. I think he’s pretty funny.”

The image in question that graced our cover in December 1994. Click here to read the lead article>>>

I faxed a bunch of questions to Stern staffer Gary Dell’Abate (a.k.a. Ba-ba Booey) and got no response. This is unfortunate because now we’ll never know what color socks he was wearing, or whether or not llamas dream. It would have also been nice to know where the Stern folks came up with the illustration in the first place (I’m betting they have one HELL of a clipping service who’s probably cutting this out right now) and how many potential pictures they had to choose from.

“Someone said the way they got the cover was that it went to WYSP, and WYSP sent it to Howard,” Steve says.

How we first found out about it was when a semi-anonymous caller phoned the Big Shout office last July and asked Editor Gregg Kirk for permission to use a cartoon in an upcoming book that was to be published. Not recalling any recent cartoons that had run in the magazine, Kirk inquired further, and the caller related that actually it had been a cover with Howard Stern in a Santa suit. The editor gave his permission but told him he needed to get the final word from the artist of the piece. The caller said it was really important that he get in touch with him, and he began to spell out his name… “Gary D-E-L-L’A-B-A…”

“Ba-ba Booey!” Kirk blurted out. He heard a laugh on the other end of the line, and finally Dell’Abate revealed that they wished to run Steve Cobb’s artwork in Stern’s new book. Kirk told Steve, who wasn’t sure if he believed him.

“I called Gary. We talked about the whole thing. He said they needed a slide. I didn’t even think we talked about money at that time,” Steve says. “I thought about it for a while and called back about money. He said, ‘Well, we’re on a tight budget.’ I asked for $200. He called back and said, ‘We can get you $100; that’s the best we can do.’ I said, ‘That’s fine’ — I just wanted to get in the book anyway. I sent the slide, signed the release and got the check a couple months ago. He (Gary) seemed a little annoyed that I was calling all the time.”

When the book finally came out, Steve bought a copy. “I thought after calling him about the money and all, it would be a bad idea to call and try to get a free copy of the book.”