|
Post by Brother J on Dec 23, 2007 16:26:49 GMT -5
I always thought with Steve Ditko, the weirder, the better.... nice book!
|
|
|
Post by G on Mar 8, 2008 22:15:34 GMT -5
Just found an excellent resource for identifying Steve Ditko covers. They claim to know every single cover he ever did. They dont have scans of them all, but they do have a lot. I found myself clicking on a few to get better looks. The older I get, the more I love some of Ditko's works. www.ditko.comics.org/ditko/covers/
|
|
|
Post by leonmallett on Mar 12, 2008 4:49:07 GMT -5
I'll have to admit to having a true hate for anything this man touched in my younger days.... This sums up my very similar experience very neatly - I think the first thing I saw by him was a Speedball issue. I hated it. Since then I have vastly revised my opinion of the man, his work and his legacy. So much so that a BBC documentary on the great man was compulsive viewing last year, so much so that I have it saved on my hard drive TV recorder for repeated viewing.
|
|
|
Post by G on Jun 7, 2008 13:03:23 GMT -5
Ive always wanted to see that documentary
|
|
|
Post by G on Jul 17, 2009 11:52:02 GMT -5
You know, after literally hating this guy for so many years, I am now digging this man's work and have become totally convinced that at one time, especially during the 50s and 60s, this man was pretty awesome. I just got done reading the opening story in this book I picked up at Charlotte.... This story featured a very good origin (and Death) of Konga (The ape Character) Who amazingly comes to be in the issue and in no time is killed, and yet they found a way for him to appear in 24 issues (This being the last with the name changed to Fantastic Giants for this issue). Anyway, Ditko kicked Ass on this comic! His characters all have a lot of details but not overdone. All of them have fantastic movement. All of the panels have great camera shots! And this is only the 1st of 4 stories in this Awesome Ditko book! I would REALLY love to see that BBC documentary because I am also convinced he probably has some very interesting tales to tell about comics and the early days of Silver Age Marvel as well as his times at Charlton (which by the way being a Big Charlton fan, I think his works are some of the more special Charlton pieces). Probably in some cases even better than his Marvel work. I'm going to continue to seek out Ditko works throughout my collecting life. I think the man is truly another under-appreciated comics legend!
|
|
|
Post by defiant1 on Jul 17, 2009 16:24:42 GMT -5
Ditko probably shaped a lot of my right/wrong morality. Both he and my dad seem to have been motivated by principles, not what is easiest. I admire the hell out of him, even his success at remaining private. How do you stop people from taking a picture of you for 60 years? Unbelievable. Greg Theakston says he uses his old 1960's Charlton artwork as a cutting mat. He only want to be remembered for what he is doing now. He doesn't care anything about his past successes. He's a very interesting man. I'm proud to say I own a Shadowman page he drew.
Defiant1
|
|
|
Post by G on Jul 17, 2009 23:53:06 GMT -5
I would like to see that page you have.
I'm not going to go all out and say I love all his work because I still believe a lot of his work is rather weak. I don't know if he got to where he was just doing a lazy version of his previous work or whatever. He kind of reminds me of when Kirby just lost anything that remotely looked good anymore during the 80's and his remaining years of life in the 90s. It was all crap to me when I think of Kirby at that point.
The odd thing with Ditko is even though Ive seen a ton of his work since the 1970s look piss poor, unlike later Kirby works, Ditko manages to pull off a good piece here and there. It almost seems as though if he feels like putting forth the effort, he can still do it. But more often that not, he doesn't.
However, I don't seem to notice this problem at all during his early years of the 1950s and 1960s. His work has a lot more effort in it. It's a lot more visually appealing and you can tell he put a lot more into it. The 1960s Blue Beetles I have that he did are Outstanding! I think its way better than his Amazing Spider-man work. It just seems like there was a time he cared more about his craft. I don't know where, but I've seen reference somewhere that he often phoned in a lot of work because he didn't care for a lot of things happening with the company or the story he was working on at the time.
I really would like to see that documentary on him. I find the more I learn of Ditko, the more Im fascinated by him.
|
|
|
Post by G on Jul 18, 2009 0:10:42 GMT -5
I started searching Youtube for excepts of the interview because my curiosity was getting the better of me. I appeared to be finding a lot of Steve Ditko fan type videos, but not much of anything on the BBC interview itself.
I did find this nice piece of it though featuring Stan Lee talking about the creation of Spider-Man and the rift that developed between he and Ditko over the "creator" credit. Stan appears to have wanted to be solely called the creator because he thought it up, but Ditko believed he was also the creator because he drew the character. It's kind of weird, but in 1999 Stan relents with a written piece saying "He considered Ditko to be the co-creature of Spider-Man". Apparently Ditko didn't like the word "Considered" and Lee claims they haven't spoken since.
This is kind of sad because both men are quite old by now. Although both have valid points, it doesn't seem as if they should take this rift to the grave in my opinion. But you do understand the bent feelings over it too.
|
|