Ditko - Dripping With Fear!

Dripping With Fear is the fifth volume in the Steve Ditko Archives from Fantagraphics. It presents work which was produced and appeared in Charlton Comics in 1958 and 1959. The stories are of the classic sci-fi whimsical variety with a strong moral message delivered when the protagonist either wins his heart's desire or is punished in some weird way for his improper desires. 

And speaking of improper desires, 1958 was an important month for Ditko in that he landed a studio with Eric Stanton, an artist who specialized in fetish and bondage art and comics for that shadowy market. Stanton and Ditko maintained a studio together for a decade, right through to 1968. As we well know it was in these years that Ditko's style matured and he fashioned the heroes which were to make him a legend in comic book lore. In fact there's some suggestion that Stanton might've had a small had in designing elements of the Amazing Spider-Man himself. The stories are conflicting, not helped by the fact that Ditko always seemed to want to downplay his involvement with his studio mate's work. 

That work found a audience which to put it bluntly was not mainstream America. To find that "Sturdy" Steve Ditko the co-creator of Spidey was also helping out on pages in which dames in various states of undress fought or held sway over one another is something the Comics Code approved world might think a bit too kinky. But there seems little doubt looking at some of the pages that Ditko did indeed assist from time to time on features like Sweeter Gwen and others. It's always struck odd that a man of such strong convicitions as Ditko held about the value of work would be so squeamish about owning his "work" here, seeing as it was the quality of the craftsmanship that should matter and not the content. 

Ditko also was moving away from just doing science fiction and fantasy tales and was working on westerns as well. This collection features the stories he did for Blackjack and Outlaws of the West and even closes out with a tale from Robin Hood and his Merry Men. 

But it's still those offbeat weird tales from This Magazine is Haunted, Strange Suspense Stories, Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds and Outer Space that supply the bulk of the material here. Ditko is also doing relatively few covers for these magazines as well, concentrating it appears on his storytelling. There is a sixth and final volume in this series and I'll take a look at it in just a few days. Be here for the Halloween-month long wrap up. 

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