Customer Reviews

Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol.1

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Steve Ditko is best known as the creator, along with Stan Lee, of the popular Spider-Man. However he had a long history as a great comic book artist before that. Blake Bell has brought together works by this prolific artist from the first of years of his career. I am not an expert on Steve Ditko but it looks like this book has all the public domain works that Ditko did that were released in 1953 and 1954 plus one piece from 1955. These are great works, not only because they were done by Ditko but also because they appeared before the devastating effect of the Comic Code. Most of the stories are from the horror genre but this volume also includes a romance, a crime story along with some science fiction and humor. Frankly romance was not Ditko's forte but he did quite well with crime. For Ditko fans, this books is a must have. For those that are not that familiar with Ditko's work, read this book and I am sure you will also become a fan.

In the spirit of disclosure, I do comic book art restoration myself (I restored the work that appeared The Best of Simon and Kirby published by Titan). Further the introduction of this book includes a page from Captain 3-D that I restored. However I neither requested nor received payment for that page and I have never worked for Fantagraphics. I do have strong beliefs about how restorations should be done. As a restorer and a customer I am interested in the actual artists who created the work. When the original art is no longer available, which is almost always the case, reprints should be done using scans from the original comics. I have little interest in books based on recreated art that some publishers, particularly Marvel, use. No matter how pretty such books might look, you are not getting really getting the work of the authentic creators but a reinterpretation by modern artists.

Fantagraphics has been coming out with marvelous reprint books and this book is their best production yet. This is a beautifully packaged hard cover book with superior art restoration. These are not scans of the yellow pages and faded colors that the years have subjected the original comics to. Instead the colors have been gloriously restored on nice clean backgrounds. I know that opinions vary on questions of restoration so be sure to take advantage of Amazon's "Look Inside" feature to see examples from this book. But as far as I am concerned, kudos to Fantagraphics for another job well done.

I will offer a different view from those who are raving about the book -- I didn't like all of it overall. Ditko himself (quotes included in the book's introduction) dismisses a lot of these early efforts as complete junk, done whilst he was a struggling student, running from agency to agency, hustling for any work he could find, and cranking out some pretty low grade work.

Perhaps he is right to distance himself from them.

Don't get me wrong -- the artwork is really excellent, imaginative, edgy and very representative of its time, much of it evocative of early 50's TV shows, cult movies, and avant garde styles influenced by German expressionism and cinematic styles of Fritz Lang etc. That is a very worthy aspect of the volume -- without doubt. If you are buying it for the art, you will not be disappointed. It is amongst the best of its genre, and Ditko's mastery is apparent in almost every frame. The colouring is excellent too, with beautiful shading and tones. Ditko was a visionary in that regard, predicting and foreseeing many of the aspects that would drive later art movements, such as Warhol's pop art, and the cinematic styles of the 60's and early 70's.

But, the stories, plots and narratives here are just very low grade stuff.

Comic book fanatics know very well, that there is 'bad' comic book writing -- yet it actually works, and is sought after, precisely because it is so bad, it is off-the-wall crazy in its eccentricity. Much of the pre-code comics meet that definition of 'bad.'

And then, comic book fans know equally well that there is comic book writing that is... just...well...really, really bad: and these Ditko stories are the latter.

In the end, it completely brings down the overall charm and quality of these Ditko nuggets.

I wouldn't fully recommend the book without some reservation. Ditko's art skill is outstanding, for sure; that is beyond doubt -- but ultimately, most of the stories' plots, prose and sense of continuity are junk : hurried, rushed, charmless, and with very few redeeming qualities, and with very little wit and intelligence.

If you are after pre code horror, you are way better off buying "The Horror the Horror", "Four Colour Fear" and the "Mammoth Book" first.

So -- five stars without a doubt for Ditko's flawless artwork -- but one star for the stories.

This is an awesome collection of pre-code horror comics by one of the master illustrators of the genre. The stories and artwork still hold up quite well nearly 50 years after their initial printing, and for those of us not QUITE old enough to remember This Magazine is Haunted and tales from The Thing, this volume is stuffed with colorful, exciting entertainment. It is beautifully bound together, and the illustrations brilliantly restored. I recommend for any comic book afficianado, and for any aspiring artist, Ditko is definitely a guy to emulate.

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.

This book reprints most of the artwork that Steve Ditko drew for comic books in 1953 and 1954. Ditko himself has described his work from this time period as "junk", but he's being too hard on himself. This art may not be quite as good as his later artwork on Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, but it's quite good in its own right. Most of the comics are horror stories, but there are also romance, western, crime, science fiction and humor. These horror comics are from the Pre-Code era and are sometimes quite gory. Fun times! The art seems to have been shot directly from the old comic books. Most of the comics were published by Charlton Comics, which were notorious for having the lowest production values of any comics. Some may feel that the comics should have been recolored, which no doubt would have resulted in a better looking book, but this way is more historically accurate, coloring errors and all. If you're a Steve Ditko fan, you need to get this book.

Once again Blake Bell has researched and generated an excellent tome of older work by the master comic book artist, Steve Ditko. This is a fine volume of older and hard to find gems that track Steve Ditko's artistic development through some wonderful older comic creations that predate the huge successes that would later follow in his silver age work for Marvel during the 1960's. The hard cover volume is well presented and a joy to read.

Enjoyed the book, but I wish the overall size was larger- closer to the original comic book size. Arrived in good shape.

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!

This is a great collection of Ditko's pre-code comics from the 1950s, nearly a decade before his famous collaboration with Stan Lee on Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man. The comics presented here are short (6 to 8 pages each) and cover many different genres: horror, crime, sci-fi and even a humor strip at the end. It is a very straight-forward collection with no frills or extras other than the brief introduction. It's a raw look at the work itself. I would've enjoyed a little more background information on the comics these stories came from and any collaborators that might've been involved. None are mentioned. Did Ditko write, pencil and ink all these stories himself? I really don't know. I look forward to getting and reading more volumes in this series.

This attractive package is a welcome interlude into a hard working artist's repertoire prior to the post code marvels which I purchased, read, and sold to pay on the kids' college tuition.
Here it is--art from before I even had a dime a week allowance and without regards to the code.
A man has to eat, and stories range from cowboy(!), police, SF, and, of course, that ghastly horror. Good Lord! Oh, that was another publisher.
This publications makes stories available to the general public that would have otherwise only be seen by lucky collectors. Dirko's skill derserves to easily accessible. Enjoy.
Volume 2 is also out as well as several other post code compilations available from Amazon and Amazon marketplace.