Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives (Vol. 3) (The Steve Ditko Archives) [Hardcover]

Steve Ditko (Author), Blake Bell (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2012 | Series: The Steve Ditko Archives

More great 1950s horror and sci-fi work by one of comics' greatest stylists.

Five years before his breakthrough as the co-creator of Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and other classic super-heroes for Marvel Comics in the early 1960s, Steve Ditko, inspired by the freedom he found at the laissez-faire Charlton Comics, was turning out some of the best work of his career.

Mysterious Traveler, which collects stories from (among others) Tales of the Mysterious Traveler and This Magazine Is Haunted, reprints over 210 full-color pages of Ditko in his early prime. These are stories that have never been properly reprinted until now — thrilling stories of suspense, mystery, haunted houses, and unsuspecting victims.

224 pages of full-color comics

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fantastic... Raw and grotesque and beautifully drawn and presented.” (Dave Gibbons )

“Strange Suspense offers page after lurid four-color page of Ditko’s weird monsters, rubber-faced crooks, and abstracted landscapes... The book is a white-knuckle trip through Ditko’s fevered imagination. [Grade] A-.” (The Onion A.V. Club )

“This exhilarating collection of stories by the comic-book artist who co-created Spider-Man captures all the glorious chills and blood spills from the first two years of his career.” (Entertainment Weekly )

About the Author

Steve Ditko continues to create comics in his studio in New York City.

Blake Bell is the author of Strange & Stranger (a retrospective of Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko), Fire & Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics; Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives; I Have to Live With This Guy!, and Strange Suspense and Unexplored Worlds (two volumes in The Steve Ditko Archives). He lives in Toronto, Ontario with his son.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics (May 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606994980
• ISBN-13: 978-1606994986
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Missing one page and 2 covers so far. August 22, 2012

By Lewis Forro

Format:Hardcover

I bought this book to support getting more Steve Ditko reprint books done despite the fact the last page of "The Forbidden Room" was missing. I've just started reading the book and discovered so far that 2 Ditko covers are missing. "From All Our Dark Rooms" is missing the Ditko cover to the issue this story appeared in, "Out Of This World" #4. Also the story "Menace Of The Maple Leaves" is missing the Ditko cover to that issue, "Strange Suspense Stories" #33.

Maybe the publisher, Fantagraphics, didn't think veteran Ditko fans like myself would notice mistakes like that. I sent Fantagraphics an email asking if a corrected edition of this book is going to be published but I'm not holding my breath waiting for a reply.

In the future, I am going to very careful about ordering any more Fantagraphics books until the Amazon reviews indicate the book is complete. Take heed Fantagraphics, you are doing yourself a great deal of damage with this type of sloppy work on your books.

Lewis Forro
Virginia Beach, VA

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Missing two pages! July 22, 2012

By reading guy

Format:Hardcover

This book is missing two pages!! Fantagraphics will gladly send you a pdf of the missing pages. Gosh that's swell of them!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars missing page in this book July 29, 2012

By Martin Kasdan Jr.

Format:Hardcover

To publish a book and to leave out a page is absurd. The publisher should DRASTICALLY reduce the price of this book. Who wants to buy a book with a missing page at full price? This should be remaindered and then reprinted in full.