CSBG Archive
Scott’s Classic Comics Corner: Hidden Ditko Treasure 1965-1980
Many Steve Ditko fans are familiar with his popular work at Marvel and DC as well as his contributions to the Tower Comics line and his work at Charlton in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many of these books have been reprinted, and are widely available. There is, however, a lot more Ditko work to be found out there from the 1965-1980 period. Many of these books are quite affordable, if you are willing to dedicate some time and effort to dollar bin diving. Here are some examples:
After his departure from Marvel Comics, Ditko turned in some work for American Comics Group. Ditko had never done work for this venerable publisher to this point, and at first it would seem that he would be an odd fit for its lighthearted titles such as Adventures Into the Unknown and Unknown Worlds. By my math, Ditko contributed 7 stories, totaling 36 pages in the second half of 1966. Most, if not all, of these were inked by Sal Trapani – who wasn’t the worst fit for Ditko, but it’s definitely a bare bones look. None of these are particularly strong stories, but they are fun and some, like the whimsical baseball themed “To My Pal Joey” are unlike anything you’ve likely seen from Ditko.
At the same time, Ditko turned in a few stories for Dell. He contributed a couple of stories to Dell. He penciled Nukla #4, a pretty dull series released during the time when every publisher was trying to jump aboard the superhero bandwagon. He’s inked by Sal Trapani here as well, and you will see a vast difference in the overall look as compared to Ditko’s self-inked work from this period. What is even more odd is that Ditko contributed to a couple of issues of Get Smart, the adaptation of the TV series.
Atlas-Seaboard had a very short life in the mid 70s. Many of the books put out by A-B were weak Marvel rip-offs, but at least they used some great artists. Ditko did a good amount of work for them, including all 4 issues of The Destructor (the one true Spider clone?) and several issues of Tiger-Man and one Moorlock 2001. When I was a kid, these were regular denizens of the ten cent rack, and can still be found for a buck.
Ditko did an absolute ton of work for Charlton in the 60s and 70s and I encourage people to check it out. Many people have already discussed his horror books and short-lived superheroes such as Liberty Belle. The books I really want to bring to your attention, however, are a handful of issues from Charlton’s reprint era during the late 70s. These are the best (and cheapest) way of getting your hands on Ditko’s work for Charlton in the 50s. I assume Blake Bell will continue bringing Ditko’s work to comic book stores, these books will get you a taste for 50s Ditko.
One of the stories that once made the rounds is that Dick Giordano brought along his stable of Charlton artist when he made the move to DC. Apparently, it was Steve Ditko, already working for DC, who strongly recommended Dick Giordano. Everyone is familiar with Ditko’s work on the likes of Hawk and Dove and Beware the Creeper, but Ditko’s first work for DC were a couple of stories contributed to Strange Adventures #188 (May, 1966) and Strange Adventures #189 (June, 1966). These would be the only non-Creeper, non-Hawk and Dove stories Ditko would do for DC until the mid-70s. As far as Silver Age books go, they are a relative bargain.
Shade, the Changing Man, Stalker (with Wally Wood inks), the Demon strip in Detective Comics and a return to the Creeper in World’s Finest are all well known and strongly recommended. Ditko made some lesser known, yet equally interesting contributions to various DC titles during the latter half of the decade. Man-Bat #1 gives you the rare opportunity to see Ditko’s take on Batman and Gotham City and Superboy and the Legion #257 and Legion of Super-Heroes #267 do the same for the world of the Legion. Plop! #16 features an example of a Ditko humour strip and select issues of Ghosts (#77), Weird War Tales (#46 and 49), House of Secrets (#139 and 148), House of Mystery (#236, 247, 254 and 258), Time Warp (#1 and 2), Secrets of the Haunted House (#9 and 12) and The Unexpected (#189 and 190) all feature good examples of Ditko’s horror and sci-fi vision during a time when the work at Charlton had dried up.
Finally, I’d like to sign off with a bit of information regarding Steve Ditko’s work at Warren. Ditko contributed some wonderful stories during the early years of Eerie and Creepy. Most, if not all, of them were written by the late, great Archie Goodwin. Ditko uses a wash technique for many of these stories, and it is absolutely beautiful. Those 60s mags can be pricey and tough to find. In 1982, Warren published Eerie #135 which features 100% Goodwin/Ditko reprints. I’m hesitant to bring this one to people’s attention, as I am still looking for an affordable copy. I’ve seen some on-line retailers offering it for under $10.00.
This is really only the tip of the iceberg, but I want to give a sense of just how much hidden Ditko treasure was out there. Perhaps one day, I’ll touch on where to find some of his more obscure work from the 80s and 90s. For more comic book nonsense, including some fun Ditko covers, stop by my blog: Seduction of the Indifferent
21 Comments
Matt D
January 19, 2010 at 9:03 am
I want those Get Smart issues.
BrianHouston
January 19, 2010 at 9:40 am
Great stuff. Comics need a Ditko revival.
Dan Bailey
January 19, 2010 at 10:33 am
It’s worth noting, I think, that Ditko’s Atlas Seaboard work featured inks by the likes of not only Wally Wood (as evident from the Destructor page you show) but also Berni Wrightson (Morlock #3) &, um, Al Milgrom. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Al Milgrom, of course, but Wally Wood or Berni Wrightson he ain’t.)
Ben Herman
January 19, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I really love Ditko’s horror and mystery stories. His work is just so appropriately suited to those genres.
Krypto-Knight
January 19, 2010 at 9:58 pm
I really enjoyed your article. You put a lot of research and effort into it. I also appreciated the pictures of the other issues. I think I may have an issue of Strange Adventures from DC. It makes want to go and look at my collection. There are a lot of hidden gems like this for other artists too like Jack Kirby, Frank Miller, Carmine Infantino and others. I come across them at times and find myself pleasantly surprised that there was a book they did that I had no knowledge of them doing. Great article. Keep it up. Krypto-Knight out!
Brad Curran
January 19, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I need to get that Man-Bat comic now. Had no idea Ditko drew Batman.
Bill Reed
January 19, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Ooo. I’ve got that Monster Hunters somewhere.
Andrew Wahl
January 20, 2010 at 9:34 am
Great piece, Scott. I enjoyed Ditko’s work at Atlas (Seaboard), especially The Destructor. But my favorite later period work from him remains Marvel’s Rom. His style was a perfect fit on that title, and Marvel put a revolving cast of really good inkers on him. Even though Rom was from one of the Big Two publishers, not enough people have seen this work (which is unlikely to be reprinted anytime soon because of copyright issues).
Cheers,
Andrew
ComicsBronzeAge.com
LouReedRichards
January 20, 2010 at 9:57 am
I like Ditko Ok, but I’ve always had a bit of a problem with his style.
Can any of you Ditko fans describe what it is that you find so appealing about his work?
I in no way mean this as a slam, I respect his place in history and enjoy some of his work, but I find a lot of it (mostly his 70 and 80′s work) off putting. I’m just curious, I’ve tried to get people to explain it to me before and it always comes down to “it’s just a matter of taste”. This is absolutely true, but I’d like some insight into what makes it so appealing to so many people.
I could say what I find unappealing about it but I don’t want to sound like I’m coming down on him.
Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks
BTW: Those Warren pages do like really nice the gray washes are quite striking.
MarkAndrew
January 20, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Honestly, as a huge Ditko fan the only stuff I REALLY dig –
at least artwise -
post-1970-or-so are his self-published Randian tracts. A lot of the stuff he did just to pay bills feels hacked out and kinda crappy.
Chris
January 21, 2010 at 9:32 am
It’s hard to explain Ditko’s appeal. I like his figure work, the unusual postures of his characters, and their elongated faces. His sense of the cosmic on strips like Doctor Strange and Shade has never been matched. He’s just a singular artist with a recognizable style.
Scott
January 21, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I agree that it is hard to state precisely why I love him. It all comes down to taste and personal preferences, but, for what every reason, what he does just totally works for me. A few things that I love in particular:
1. The fluidity of motion he infuses in an image
2. The way he draws the elements (fire, water etc…)
3. The angles/perspective he chooses
Not to overly pimp my own blog – but I’ve commented on nearly 50 Ditko covers there (some great, some so-so), but maybe that will give you a better feel for what I personally like about his work.
http://seductionoftheindifferent.blogspot.com/search/label/Ditko%20Covers
Mary Warner
January 21, 2010 at 9:19 pm
I’ve never seen black&white Ditko before. That looks really good. I’m not a big Ditko fan, but the art shown for Warren here really is striking.
I’d really like to see what he did for Plop. That sounds intriguing. (I love Plop. I wish DC would bring it back. [Presuming they could do it properly now].)
LouReedRichards
January 23, 2010 at 8:18 am
Thanks guys, that’s more info than anybody else has given me.
I do tend to like the angles he uses and some of his figure work. I’m not sure where his “turning point” is for me. I’ve liked most oh what I’ve seen of his stuff up to and including the later era DC work of the ’60′s, but when I see most of his 70′s and later work I just think “what happened?”. I guess part of what bothers me is his use stock poses and faces (and those hands, man those hands…) just gets really repetitive to me. I’m not sure why it bothers me so much, I’m a huge Kirby fan and the exact same things could be said about him.
Thanks Scott, I’ll check out your blog.
MDG
January 29, 2010 at 12:43 pm
The thing for me about Ditko is that he–like Kirby, Eisner, Craig and too few others–is first and foremost a storyteller. Even his later stuff, which can be stff and use stock poses and expressions, always seemed designed to genrate an emotional response.
Never knew he worked for ACG.
MichiS
February 6, 2010 at 10:53 am
Another little known Dell title which Ditko drew was HOGAN’S HEROES. I believe he pencilled #2 and #3 under Trapani inks.
And are the WWF BATTLEMANIA mags/comics published by Valiant in the early ’90s worth mentioning?
Sam
February 10, 2010 at 12:01 am
Ugh. I hate hate hate hate how Trapani inked Ditko. His layouts may very well have been sparse (I don’t remember what his uninked pencils look like at the moment) but Trapani just killed the spirit of Ditko’s art. Maybe Ditko wasn’t putting all his effort into the work (he was still doing Spider-Man and Doc Strange at Marvel at the time of course) but even so, half-assed Ditko with a decent inker is better than many other artists. Trapani was far from decent. I think they had some kind of friendship. I don’t care. Thumbs down
Scott
February 10, 2010 at 11:50 am
Michi – I’ve seen those wrestling books. They are outside of the time frame for this particular piece. I find it very hard to track down everything Ditko did in the 80s and 90s – as he worked for so many different companies.
Sam – I think Trapani helped Ditko produce a ton of work during this period. I agree – he’s not my preferred inker on Ditko by any means – but I think he retaines more ‘Ditko’ on the page than Ralph Reese did on the Magnus issues from the 90s.
Comicaze
March 1, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Quoting:
Matt D
January 19, 2010 at 9:03 am
I want those Get Smart issues.
Me too! Wish that page was clickable.
Comics Bronze Age | Review: Man-Bat #1
April 8, 2010 at 11:42 pm
[...] “Man-Bat #1 gives you the rare opportunity to see Ditko’s take on Batman …” — Scott M, Scott’s Classic Comics Corner. … “… a fun first issue …” — The Groovy Agent, Diversions of the Groovy Kind. … [...]
Rob Allen
May 4, 2010 at 4:59 pm
According to what I’ve read, the story on those Ditko/Trapani jobs was that Trapani was good at drumming up business from editors but was a better at inking than storytelling, so he hired ghost pencillers whenever possible. Besides Ditko, others who did this ghost pencilling included Dick Giordano (who was, IIRC, Trapani’s brother-in-law) and Bill Fraccio.