CBI Archive
Comic Book Urban Legends Minutiae
Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 2:33 PM EST
Updated: Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 5:42 AM EST
Two fairly quick points…
1. Recently, I’ve been hearing some doubt on the veracity of the Steve Ditko cutting board story (Urban Legends Revealed #17). Greg Theakston contacted me about it awhile back, and I’m totally cool with it as a true story.
2. Someone asked me about this the other day, and I figured it was interesting enough to pose it to y’all. Would you like me to feature “Undetermined” Urban Legends as well? I think literally about half of Snopes’ Urban Legend features end up as “Undetermined.” So would you like me to do more of those types of Urban Legends? I have plenty of “undetermined” ones lying around that I do not think I have enough to make a good faith claim of true or false, so if people would like me to use them, I don’t have any real problem with using them. Personally, I think it sorta defeats the purpose of the feature, but I guess I can see how it might be useful if someone responds to the “undetermined” ones with proof one way or the other. So, since I don’t have a strong feeling either way, I’m opening it up to you folks.
7 Comments
Corey
May 26, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Sure, let’s see the “undetermined”. Someone with more information might read it and be able to help come to a definite conclusion.
Emptyeye
May 27, 2006 at 9:56 am
It depends, I guess. From what I remember of poking around Snopes, “undetermined” is what they use to mean “So vague that it COULD have happened, SOMEtime, SOMEwhere….” From what I can tell, and this may be by your design, but not a lot of the published ones ended up being that potentially vague.
MacQuarrie
May 29, 2006 at 12:47 am
I asked at OddballComics.com about the Ditko story, since there are some folks there who know people in contact with him…
Here’s one reply:
Greg Theakston (the source of this particular story) has repeated if often in various forums. I have no reason to believe it’s not true.
Another friend of mine, an original art collector with a highly developed sense of morality, wrote a letter to Ditko upon purchasing an early Spider-Man page. This friend offered to pay Ditko a percentage of his purchase price so that he (Ditko) would receive something from the sale of his artwork.
My friend in turn received a scathing letter from Ditko basically telling him to keep his money and disavowing any ownership of artwork he had already been paid for.
That said, everyone that I know personally who has MET Ditko says he is a pleasant, friendly guy.
It’s easy to confuse the man’s personality with his beliefs.
Sounds like it may be legit.
MacQuarrie
May 30, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Jungle Jim Engel (a great cartoonist, by the way) says this:
My friend Russ Maheras has an ongoing relationship with Ditko both by mail, and in-person visits, and only speaks of him in highly complimentary terms.
I asked Russ about this, and he said that the studio HE’s visited is not the same one Theakston did. He said there was a standard cutting board surface, and no piles of original art.
I think this story might fall into that “unverified” category….
Brian Cronin
May 31, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Thanks a lot for the effort, Jim!
Russ’ info is definitely interesting. Perhaps Ditko was doing a one-time only deal with Theakston there? Sorta like putting on a show?
I could probably amend the “Urban Legend” to “Ditko once used a piece of original art as a cutting board,” rather than the current “Ditko uses his original art as cutting boards.”
That may alleviate people’s concerns a bit, no?
Greg Theakston
June 27, 2008 at 4:53 am
Brian,
I very much dislike it when my name and “liar” as used in the same sentence.
I have more credits than I need.
Lie?
Also, it was just Steve and me, so don’t look for third-party verification.
Or even better, take it or leave it.
I’m sick of seeing “…or did Theakston flat out lie?” every time I Google myself.
Regards,
GT
Brian Cronin
June 27, 2008 at 5:39 am
Completely fair complaint, Greg.
If I knew it would be showing up on Google searches years later, I’d have excised it back then.
I completely buy your story, and I have since you e-mailed me about it many moons ago.
As I noted in the comments, I realize that calling someone a liar is a bad thing, which is why I was looking for more verification - which you gave me some time ago.
Sorry for the inconvenience!