Listen to 90 mins on Ditko, Everett & My Upcoming Projects

Want the latest update on the next Steve Ditko Archives (v4), Bill Everett Archives (v2), and our Secret History of Marvel Comics book that's due later this year?

Click here for the Distinguished Comic Book Podcast page run by Zack Kruse and Ben Tiede. Episode #38 is 90 minutes of yours truly discussing the aforementioned topics with Zack and Ben, easily downloadable into your tacknology. We also take a look behind the scenes at Fantagraphics with how these projects are put together, and discuss the Golden Age of comics that we've existed in for the past 10 years on two fronts. First, the stunning amount of archival reprint material put out by companies like Fantagraphics, Marvel, DC, etc. Second, the superb quality of graphic storytelling by the likes of Joe Sacco, Guy Delisle, Seth, Chester Brown, Chris Ware, etc. We're in the golden age of (cable) television drama and of comics, and we discuss the latter at length.

Ditko article in the New York Post

The reboot of the movie franchise, the Amazing Spider-Man, opens today across North America. If you're going to the movie under the impression that its co-creator and original artist, Steve Ditko, is reaping some financial benefit from either this movie, or the original three (starring Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man), well, Steve Ditko puts that myth to rest in today's New York Post.

(Click HERE to read the article.)

Reed Tucker, the author of the piece, went right to Ditko's studio and got a couple of quotes from Ditko for the piece. Many people have passed around the rumour in the past decade that Ditko accepted a big chunk of money when the first movie came out a decade ago, but Ditko confirms this as a falsehood. Other than the pittance he receives when Marvel reprints his old run on Spider-Man, there has never been a single, confirmed report that Steve Ditko has received a penny from the entire, billion dollar Spider-Man franchise since he walked away from it in 1965 over concerns about Marvel's editorial direction and promised royalties (the only thing I would have changed about Reed's piece - for which I was interviewed for almost an hour - is that emphasis, but I think it does come through indirectly in the rest of the piece.)

Kinda makes that whole "Before Watchmen" debate look like kids arguing over lunch money in comparison, doesn't it?

Heart-Broken

I haven't posted in awhile. I'll share with you "the whys" later because I don't want to distract from the issue at hand: two pages are missing from my latest book, Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives vol. 3.

Fantagraphics has posted a print-worthy .pdf of both pages so that they can be printed off and inserted into the book where the missing pages should be. We're also going to reprint both stories in full in the next volume, so that collectors have every Ditko story as they should.

Everyone should know this: the buck stops with me regarding these types of concerns. Not with Fantagraphics - with me. Ultimately, I review the final .pdf of the entire book, going over every page, matching it against the table of contents, etc. I'm over 1600 pages into my career of supervising the production of my books and this is worse than a knife in the gut.

I won't bore you with excuses or even reasons why this happened. Instead, I'd like to share with you the additional methods that I'll be putting into place for validating the contents of every book of mine to ensure we mitigate the risk of this ever happening again.

First, I'll be employing two "checkers" for the final .pdfs of each Ditko and Everett Archives. These will be people who know those artists and are experienced in such matters.

Second, checking the final .pdf via the printed comics will be done twice: once from the beginning of each story, and once in reverse (i.e., starting with the last page of a story and working backwards to page one). This book/experience has taught me that life can lead to the brain playing funny tricks on the mind, and there's no effort too great to ensure we prevent this in future volumes.

Third, as an added measure, I'll also be checking the final .pdf, page-by-page, versus the Grand Comics Database - the site on the Internet for referencing over one million comic-book stories published since the industry began.

In closing, if I may beg your indulgence - opening my snail-mail box once a year, pulling out the envelope from Fantagraphics and holding a brand new copy of my book - that I've poured my heart and soul into every night after coming home from my day job, looking after my children, etc. - is one of the greatest satisfactions available to me as a writer-editor and as a person. Getting this news was my darkest day because without the dedication of a core group of serious fans of this work, these Archives volumes would not be possible. I thank you all again for your continued support in my efforts to get this rare work into print, and look forward to another opportunity to do so.

#31DaysOfDitko: Revisiting "In Search Of Steve Ditko" Doc (P1)

In recognition of the debut of my latest book, Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives vol.3 this month, May is "31 Days of Ditko" where I post highly entertaining content re: the co-creator of Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. A, half of #BeforeWatchmen, and many more.

This came back around my way when someone posted the URL to the Stan Lee portion of the 2007 documentary for BBC4, "In Search Of Steve Ditko", produced by U.K. television personality, Jonathan Ross. I have an intimate connection to this one in more ways than one and, in light of all the creators' rights issues that have resurfaced surrounding the Avengers movie, let's revisit one of the rare instances when someone with enough clout outside of comics used that clout to bring comics to a mass audience. First, though, go watch the thing, and then we'll be back tomorrow with more. You can also read a piece that Ross did about the doc for The Guardian newspaper at the time.

#31DaysOfDitko: OddBall Ditko

In recognition of the debut of my latest book, Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives vol.3 this month, May is "31 Days of Ditko" where I post highly entertaining content re: the co-creator of Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. A, half of #BeforeWatchmen, and many more.

Today, we go hyper on examples of the oddest stuff Ditko has ever done. When you've worked almost 60 years in the business, especially when you pulled a "John Galt Split" (i.e., working on your personal material while making a living by taking "last rung of the ladder" material), you've likely pulled down a few whack jobs, and Ditko is no exception. Roll credits (click to enlarge)...

 

#31DaysOfDitko Dave Sim reviews 1960s Ditko

Yesterday, we posted Dave Sim's review of 1950s Ditko. Today, we're back with 1960s Ditko, in recognition of the debut of my latest book, Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives vol.3 this month, May is "31 Days of Ditko" where I post highly entertaining content re: the co-creator of Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. A, half of #BeforeWatchmen, and many more.

“Beware!!! Of the Little Toy Men!!”
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #58 (May ’60)

I tell you, folks, Ditko is just full of surprises. In this case, the sudden use of hatching and cross-hatching which hasn’t cropped up before – here starting with the pin-stripe suit on the character on the splash page, a tradition which comes far more from the Alex Raymond end of things rather than the Milt Caniff end of things Ditko usually inhabits. I’d have to call this style Hatched Iconic because of the laborious line-work. He’s still stripping down his rendering to an iconic level of composition but then he seems to be coming back the other way and adding hatching to give the image greater weight and density.

This batch of pre-Spider-man Marvel stories raise some interesting questions – was the reduction to an Iconic splash page an editorial decision on the part of Marvel or an individual decision on the part of Ditko? It’s a good one in terms of “branding” – you couldn’t mistake the splash pages on Marvel mystery stories prior to 1961 for anyone else’s splash pages. The story titles on a bunch of them are all in the same typeface as well. Dry transfer lettering? An Artie Simek template font that anyone with a ruler and some tracing paper could duplicate? Marvel, thy name is economy!

#31DaysOfDitko Dave Sim reviews 1950s Ditko

Crack open your three volumes of my Steve Ditko Archives series, because Dave Sim (creator of Cerebus and Glamourpuss) is going to seriously break down some 1950s...

“The Library of Horror”
THE THING #13 (April 1954)

The really interesting thing about this one, and something that I had never seen before, is the similarity of Steve Ditko’s early drawing style to Joe Kubert’s work. It’s particularly noticeable in Ken’s posture in panel 2 on page one, Allen’s face in the next panel, Ken’s figure in the last panel on page 4, the panel where Ken and Marion Welles meet for the first time on page 5.

 If you had showed me those panels on their own I probably would have guessed Kubert (around the time of the first run of TOR). As far as I know Joe Kubert was in the business before Ditko but certainly not much before Ditko. Does Ditko count him as an influence? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Creators who enter the field around the same time that you do tend to have a magnified presence in your life that isn’t apparent to others. The fact that Bill Sienkiewicz was the first person to make a splash in comics who was younger than me made my Bill Sienkiewicz phase inevitable. I remember Jeff Smith telling me that he sensed that kind of relationship with Mike Allred since they both arrived on the comic-book radar screen at the same time and were both working in a brush style that was further over in the direction of “cartoon-y” relative to everything else that was coming out. I don’t know too many people who would think of Jeff Smith and Mike Allred as sharing a context but as soon as its pointed out to you, you go, “Oh, right, of course.”

Ditko and Kubert. How could I have NOT seen it until this story?