The Hulk by Steve Ditko circa 1964

Just a little something: the only Hulk pencils that I've ever seen by Steve Ditko, from a time, judging by the notes, when Ditko's work on Hulk #6 was going to then transition over to Tales to Astonish. No idea where this came from, but it is truly amazing to have survived all these years. Take a good look, since this piece will be going up for auction and probably never coming out once it gets into some collectors hands!

Short Takes: Steve Ditko and Defiant Comics

Carl Potts, has a great post on steve ditko on his blog here, the best part being this little bombshell:

In the late ‘80s, Ditko told me that, when he quit Marvel in the ‘60s, he didn’t turn in two Dr. Strange stories that he’d plotted and penciled. My jaw hit the floor.

This was amazing news and I urged (begged) Ditko to bring in the story! He politely declined, saying he didn’t want the pages to ever be published or copied. I told him that I’d be happy to look over his shoulder as he flipped through the pages/ That way the pages would never leave his hands, but he still declined to bring them in. Since then I’ve fantasized about what those pages look like and what the story was about. I wonder if I’ll ever find out!

I somehow doubt that we'll ever see those pages until Steve passes on, and i wouldn't put it past him to have it written into the will to have the executor have to shred them before getting anything else.!

My near-miss Ditko story: I started working professionally at Defiant under Jim Shooter in 1992, just as Ditko had finished drawing the promo-issue of Dark Dominion #0. Defiant had offices on the 15th floor of a building on west 36th st. with both an elevator and stairs. One time Steve showed up and was told that Jim was in a meeting and would be out in about 15 minutes and would he please wait? Steve, who had walked up all15 flights turned around and walked out. He declined to wait, but came back about 15 minutes later for the meeting. Now Ditko was notorious about not taking elevators. Did he just go down the stairs and then come back up? There really was nowhere else to go! Everybody there was convinced that he walked down, and walked back up.

Ditko's last day in the offices was the day before i got there. Argh. I felt like Steve was just out of reach, as if he was slightly at a distance and in shadow, like all those original panels hiding the identity of the Green Goblin.

Ditko's best work, in my opinion was most likely on Dr Strange, although i always see them as an extension of the short story monster work that prevailed in the Pre-Marvel line. Some of those litttle twilight zone scripts received rare treatment by Steve in terms of beautiful light and dark work. His story about the man who traps death in a stasis ray is a great little gem.

Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and the Spider-Man Originals Redux

Having read both the comments on my original post, along with the others were listed below heidi macdonald's link to my post, i stand convinced that Stan would not have been to donor of the amazing Fantasy #15 artwork. Having unfairly implicated him, I publicly retract some of my original comments/accusations.

This leads me to something that I've thought about posting for a long time, but simply haven't made the time to do: talk about the infamous warehouse that Marvel stored their artwork in. Its more than urban myth, but some of the story is worth bringing out. Watch for the fallout on this one.

And, for the record, just like with the Lee/Ditko piece, i'd rather get something wrong but get the discussion going so that the truth can either come out (or at least dispel rumors) along the way.

Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and the Spider-Man Originals

I am sure that most of us had the chance to see this little tidbit of information from the Library of Congree blog:

“Spider-senses” all around the Library were set tingling when we learned that the Library had just acquired 24 pages of original 1962 drawings from “Amazing Fantasy #15,” which marked the first time the world’s most famous web-slinger, Spider-Man, would appear in print anywhere. The Spider-Man origin story in “Amazing Fantasy” was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko; the pages are Ditko originals, complete with pencil erasures and white-out opaquing fluid.

and this bit on the actual donation and number of pages:

In a deed of superheroic proportions, an anonymous donor has given the Library of Congress the original artwork by Steve Ditko for Marvel Comics' "Amazing Fantasy #15" -- the comic book that introduced Spider-Man in August 1962.

This unique set of drawings for 24 pages features the story of the origin of Spider-Man along with three other short stories -- also written by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko -- for the same issue: "The Bell-Ringer," "Man in the Mummy Case" and "There Are Martians Among Us."

While I'm missing the attribution, it has been said that the donor asked Steve Ditko's blessing before making the donation, so the question is, who is the donor? Or should we say, who isn't the donor? And I certainly, with no other information other than real, true fanboy supposition, have to say: is there anyone in the world other than Stan Lee that could be the donor?

Lets use a little logic here. Artwork from that era is rare, and having an entire story together speaks volumes over who might have had their hands on the originals. Fantastic Four pages from a similar time frame have hardly shown up even after Jack's death, and when they do, they are split up and scattered across the world.

Who do we know that was around the office back then? Stan, Jack, Steve Ditko, Flo Steinberg in the office, Sol Brodsky in production, letterers like Artie Simek who would have worked in the bullpen. From the interviews, its hard to see Martin Goodman or any of the other Goodman family like his son Chip being there to get their hands on it. Most of these folks are dead, so we have to cross them off the list.

Who would have the motive to donate artwork like that, artwork that is worth a huge amount, potentially millions of dollars? We would have to posit that it was someone who was financially well off, someone who didn't need the money. In all that we know, Stan is well set up in a way that Jack and Steve never were and never would be. He was the company man for years and years, and has his name on all these properties, and I doubt that that has come cheap in his contracts. Plus, we know that he had a contract to get a piece of the films. Yes, the films.

What would be the motive about the donation? What would Stan have to gain by this? In his case, reputation. While Jack and Steve were marginalized over the years by Stan the Man while Stan was still at the helm, even ceremonially, of Marvel, time has done some interesting things to this particular legacy. Jack Kirby has literally been taken from obscurity at the end of his career and HERBIE the robot to being revered as a pop culture icon by multiple books and magazines. Stan, essentially, has been marginalized by those who have taken up Jack's torch and been carrying it since his debacle with the Marvel artwork return. Spider-Man is the one main bit of the Marvel pantheon that isn't Stan and Jack. Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Silver Surfer and all the rest - we could see them as proof of Jack's creative legacy.

Don't talk to me about Doctor Strange. This is Spider-Man. And this is Stan and Steve. This is Stan confirming his legacy outside of Jack Kirby. And with the Library of Congress donation there is both a certain level of legitimacy and immorality granted.

There really isn't any one else that could have had the chance to get their hands on the complete book. So why doesn't Stan come forward and simply admit that he wanted to donate the original issue for national posterity? Perhaps for the same reason that he wouldn't want to admit that he has some of the other artwork from the beginnings of the Marvel universe. When the pencillers and inkers signed the backs of their checks, they forfeited their rights to the work. But I doubt that Stan ever had to sign such a check. How much of a legal grey area is that artwork in? How much claim to that artwork could the former and current corporate owners have?

Until I hear differently, or other information comes to light, I'll be happy to assume that Stan is the one that made the donation. And while I'm not really sure that it changes my idea about him or his legacy, all I can say is this: as an artist, and a comic book fan, I've very glad that the artwork still exists and in good form. While I doubt that I'll ever get the chance to see it personally, I love knowing that those pages are out there, or at least in there.

Edit 5/21/08: If you direct linked here, then click here for the follow up post.

Kirbyfied and Ditkoized: When to Reboot

Our friends over at Trout in the Milk have some interesting comments on the Eternals comic, some of which got me thinking in a slightly different direction (since I've not been reading Eternals)

The Marvel Universe has grown incredibly boring as time’s gone on, because after it stopped its imaginative expansions it had nothing else to do but consume its own heart…but these Eternals, Deviants, and Celestials are different from what they were before, now. They’re potentially interesting. You could do things with them, now. The way Jack left them they were far too radioactively Kirbyfied for anyone else to risk touching them, but so was everything at Marvel, once upon a time…and what wasn’t Kirbyfied was Ditkoized, which can be even more dangerous.

and I started to question just how much time goes by before we will allow radical reimagining of beloved characters. Certainly we all want to avoid the "trapped in amber" version of a character that never develops, but how, really, did it take before we were able to move on from the Wein/Wrightson version of Swamp Thing? The character had to fall into development limbo/hell (except for a cool brave and bold drawn with panache by Aparo) and near cancellation before Moore got his hands on Alec Holland. Has anyone really been able to re-write swampy since then?

It used to be that if you wanted to work in mainstream comics on, say, Iron Man, you had to accept that Tony Stark was who he was and you had to accept all the background with Stark Industries and Whitney Frost and Happy Hogan et al. Since the Image Comics era, it has become far too easy to simply reimagine and reboot the character and not have any parameters to work within, whereas before, you were given too many restrictions. Neither is entirely the best place to work.

Just the semantics of "being radioactively Kirbyfied" killed me, but it certainly makes me try to imagine: who else Could have picked up the baton in Marvel in the 1970's and run with Machine Man or Devil Dinosaur? 2001 the series? It took DC poaching Starlin to make a run at the New Gods (which Jim did beautifully in Cosmic Odyssey), or Gerber and Rogers on Mister Miracle (which, to this day, I still think of as a bizarre pairing) Lets face it, hiring a Herb Trimpe or Sal Buscema to continue Devil Dinosaur is simply unthinkable, so its good that they didn't do it.

The real trick: when will someone turn Nick Fury: Agent of Shield into a viable series? After Steranko's turn, you have to go to Chichester and Guice's version for anything that isn't worth recycling.