Steve Ditko
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines, Day 168: Strange Tales #117
Every day this year, I will be examining the first pages of random comics. This month I will be doing theme weeks, with each week devoted to comics from one decade. This week’s decade: the 1960s! Today’s page is from Strange Tales #117, which was published by Marvel (although the indicia lists “Vista Publications”) and is cover dated February 1964. I borrowed this and several other comics over the next few weeks from Howard Harris, my comics retailer, who was nice enough to let me take them home and scan them. Enjoy!
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Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines, Day 166: Strange Suspense Stories #34
Every day this year, I will be examining the first pages of random comics. This month I will be doing theme weeks, with each week devoted to comics from one decade. This week’s decade: the 1950s! Today’s page is from Strange Suspense Stories #34, which was published by Charlton and is cover dated November 1957. This scan is from Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 3, which is published by Fantagraphics and just came out a few weeks ago. Enjoy!
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Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines, Day 21: Out Of This World #4
Every day this month, I will be examining the first pages of random comics. Today’s page is a story from Out Of This World #4, which was published by Charlton and is cover dated June 1957. This is a Steve Ditko story collected in Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 2, which was published by Fantagraphics. Enjoy!
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Taking no chances: Mainstream superhero comics need a kick in the butt
I spend a lot of time coming up with provocative titles for my posts, you know! How’s that one?
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Sunday Brunch: 7/25/10
QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What announcements from San Diego, if any, excited you?
Sunday Brunch: 5/2/2010
One day, I’ll just put up a Brunch composed entirely of links to Comics Should Be Good articles from the previous week. But until we hit that nadir of lackadaisy (which I have now decided is a word, regardless of what the dictionary says), I guess I’ll have to settle for sharing various bits and bobs (and carols and teds and alices) of the comic book internet with you, faithful reader.
And I’ve had absolutely no time to pull stuff together this week, so… lightning round!
QUESTION(S) OF THE WEEK: How was your Free Comic Book Day? Good? Bad? Neutral? Chaotic Neutral? Lawful evil? Via my two online retailers (DCBS and Heavy Ink, holla, etc.), I managed nine free comics! And a lot of not free ones. So I’ll tell you all about those. In June, probably.
A review a day: Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 1
Smell the history!
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The Mona Lisa Can Officially Suck It
We have a new most inconic image in art. Unsurprisingly, it’s Solomon Stone giving Hitler a spinning backfist so powerful it fills the rest of the page with yellow, which is the universal symbol of residual awesome energy. It’s so awesome I can’t upload it directly, and can only link to it; our servers just can’t handle this much awesome. Jonah only has so much money.
Also, there’s Solomon Stone fan fic now, as only the International Society of Supervillains could bring you. It makes reading the Diary of Anne Frank worthwhile in the same way that Bioshock made slogging through Ayn Rand sort of tolerable to people who aren’t Steve Ditko. It’s that great. Not as great as Galactus/That ’70s Show fanfic, but what is?
I Just Read The Question Story In The 52 Companion
That was certainly interesting. Continue Reading »
