World Famous Comics: Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives (Vol. 1) (Steve Ditko Archives Vol 1)
Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives (Vol. 1) (Steve Ditko Archives Vol 1)
By: Steve Ditko Publisher: Fantagraphics Books Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 240 Publication Date: November 30, 2009 Studio: Fantagraphics Books
Product Description: A collection of works from the first two years of Ditko's career: over 200 pages of vintage, pre-Amazing Spider-Man, pre-Comics Code horror comics. Before the Amazing Spider-Man, before the mysterious Doctor Strange, before the black-and-white world of the Ayn Rand-inspired Mr. A, the legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko was conjuring all manners of horrors at his drawing table. In his first two years in the industry (1953 and 1954), Ditko drew tales of macabre suspense that were not yet hobbled by the imminent Comics Code Authority (adopted in October 1954). These stories featured graphic bloodshed, dismemberment and blood-curdling acid baths as the ugly end to the lives of the dark and twisted inhabitants of Steve Ditko’s imagination.
Following up on Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, Blake Bell’s 2008 best-selling critical retrospective of Ditko’s career, strange suspense, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 will, for the first time, feature spectacular full-color reprints of every story from those first two years of his career. Beginning with Ditko’s very first story to Ditko’s short stint in the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby studio, to Ditko’s eventual encampment at the Charlton Comics operation in 1954, readers will see the initial works of an artist already at a level of craftsmanship that exceeded most of his peers. The book will also feature editor Bell’s insightful historical notes.
“Ditko’s legacy is undeniable…visually he was revolutionary.”—MacLeans
“Ditko’s artwork is impossible to shake.”—Douglas Wolk, author of Reading Comics 224 color illustrations.
Pre-code at its best! ^ "Today's efforts are a far cry from those Golden Years of comics - before the code and when EC was setting the standards." Steve Ditko, 1959
Anyone who is a fan of either Steve Ditko or pre-code horror and crime should get this. It collects the first two years (1953-54) of Ditko's early work. These include rare stories from comics such as, "The Thing," "This Magazine is Haunted," "Black Magic," among others. Also collected are the covers he did in this time period.
Most of the stories are horror oriented. There are some crime stories, a couple of sci fi stories, one romance story, and one humor story.
The stories really show the evolution of Ditko's style emerging during this early period. The seeds for what he would bring to the creation of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange are planted here. Ditko's imagination in this work is unbridled, being on the eve of the Comics Code.
Enjoyed the Book ^ Enjoyed the book, but I wish the overall size was larger- closer to the original comic book size. Arrived in good shape.
scans of classic ditko comics ^ This book features scans of the great Steve Ditkos' early art. The comics they are scanned from were in very good shape. This isn't a reconstruction though like you might see on other archive series from other sources. However it does allow you to read these classic comic stories from a a master artist cica 1953-54. It has many horror comics , a romance story, a crime comic and a western comic from that era and all scanned cleanly into this volume of Steve Ditko archives. Steve Ditko wrote many of the horror stories too evidently and he lets his immagination run wild on those. Until someone does a restoration of this material you are well served with this one. If you tried to buy the comics that this book is scanned from you'd spend many hundreds of dollars and unless you bought near mint comics they wouldn't look any better. So this is worth the money and a good read even though it's not cleaned up like a marvel masterworks series edition.
DC and Marvel- this is how to do archives/masterworks!!! Favorite Ditko Collection Ever!!! ^ What a labour of love. This book is perhaps the greatest tribute to the genius of Steve Ditko I have seen.
The work of Ditko speaks for itself. To see the books as they would have come off the spinner rack is a pure joy.
No more settling for B/W reprints or garish and glossy "remastered" stuff-- this is the real McCoy!! Finally we get a volume of unadorned unremastered Ditko!!
Marvel-- Could you please outsource your collected editions to Fantagraphics-- this stuff is brilliant!!!
Can you imagine Dr. Strange with this kind of treatment?
My son and I are devouring this volume, When is the next one coming?
This collection will go down in my son's memories like "Origin's of Marvel Comics" did for me in the early 80's.
I've tried to explain to him how lucky he is to have access to incredible reprints such as these.
Thank you Fantagraphics and to Blake Bell for preserving these cultural treasures.
Early gems from a comics master ^ The first Ditko story I remember reading as a tyke was probably "I Must Find Those Who Lurk Below" from an issue of Tales of Suspense 50 years ago. Since then I've been a life long fan, so this new collection of his earliest comics work is great to see.
This period dates from just before the comics code came in (the early 50s), the era of graphic horror exemplified by EC and other publishers. Ditko's work for Charlton at that time really hits "the nail on the coffin," so to speak. And what's quite interesting is that here he is just out of Cartoonist school creating an impressive array of visual story telling. I can see influences of Will Eisner here, and some of the particular shading techniques of Golden Age artist Mort Meskin, whom Ditko has admitted being a fan of. Mort Meskin's use of blacks could easily be compared to Alex Toth, and this simple direct style can be found in Ditko's later work as well.
Take for example an early effort, "Die Laughing". This tale on its own doesn't really go anywhere especially scary. Some college boys in an initiation ceremony enter a haunted house. One disappears and at the end another boy has been frightened so much he turns into a gibbering idiot who then dies. On the face of it, it's nothing much but filtered through Ditko's imagination it really shines. Aside from drawing a creepy-looking haunted house and white lines of a floating mist throughout all the panels, the scenes of the boy's faces with up-lighting from lanterns and flashlights are especially fine. It's difficult to find another comics artist at the time that could handle form in such a competent manner using light and shadow. This tale, typical of his early work is often laid out in a 6-panel grid - two tiers of three tall panels. Later on in the 60s Charlton Ghost Comics work he usually did the more traditional three tier, six panel grid. But even though he used this layout often, in this story you can see some pages divided up in the middle by a long "wide screen" panel, most likely a film influence.
You can find examples of Ditko's take on different genres, ranging from romance, to western to crime and science ficiton, but most readers would agree it's the horror stuff that really takes off here. Imagine some Grimm's fairy tales with a really grim take. That's what you'll find in "Cinderella" where poor Cinderella's stepmother and sisters are all vampires! They all want to go to the ball, and leave poor Cinderella home. She has other ideas having eavesdropped on their evil spells so she conjures up some demons to help her. Ditko draws a coach drawn by scaly forked tongued demon horses! Cinderella, a tall statuesque blonde that Ditko was so fond of drawing wears "the shining cloak of the beyond" a shimmering white gown! And then her vampire stepsisters kill all their rivals at the prince's ball. Again Ditko uses lighting to great effect, and a variety of angled shots, from underneath, straight on and above. All this visual virtuosity adds to the grim doings of this creepy tale!
And speaking of creepy, don't miss "Rumpelstiltskin!" Gee, he's not the typical little man often depicted in this tale! He's one of a clan of demons, a short little man, with bright red hair, a yellow-green face with bulging eyes and a permanent toothy grim. He has a bug like appearance - a breastplate and a furry body. His special name? Well, in a demon competition he submits human skins he's tattooed demon patterns on. He desires a youthful clean skin! Enter the miller's daughter. Again, she's a tall leggy blonde, a buxom gal wearing a low cut raggy red dress. She starts off barefoot but then later on, inexplicitly she's wearing red stiletto heels! Ah, a little bit of artistic freedom Ditko enjoys here! That's the freedom of working for Charlton - no editorial interference!
Those are just a few of the gems you'll find in this well produced book. Timing, close ups, long shots, atmospheric suspense - its all here! And as for production values, I like the decision to print the stories the same size as the original comics. And the use of matte paper is wise as well. I have Marvel's Amazing Adult Fantasy hardback and it's a bit larger with glossy paper. These are scans of the comics pages so at times you are going to get bleeds, and off register colors, but remember this is Charlton Comics so you have the original material to consider. Sometimes there could have been a little more attention to cleaning them up, for example the cover reproduction of The Thing #15. The title has a lot of bleed through from behind. That's typical of how comics age from this era. Who'da thought it? Ephemeral material that lives on after all these years and admired for the artistry behind it! And consider the collector's prices all these original comics from the 1950s command and you have a bargain! All in all, Fantagraphics has come out with a fine collection of the early work of a true comics master. Aspiring comics artists could learn a lot from this book!
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