This cover for the January 1959 issue of Out of the World from Charlton Comics might well be my all-time favorite Steve Ditko cover, and I know that's saying a lot. Maybe I'll change my mind some time, but I find this image of golden armored spacemen perched atop equally golden gun mounts waging battle against orange orbs to be an fascinating and completely compelling image of space.
From the get-go Ditko signed much of his work, but in this instance he does sign it but uses the anagram "S. Kodti".
There's an elegance and deftness to this image which sometimes eludes Ditko. Almost never does he develop a cover in which people are such a small part of the composition.
I first encountered this image as the cover for a 1978 cover of Charlton's reprint comic Space War. I didn't immediately recognize the cover as a Ditko production and somehow got it into my noggin that this was a Joe Staton effort. (I never saw or if I did, did not grokked the meaning of the signature somehow.)When I at long last learned of my error it gave me a fresh insight into how similar Staton's early work was to Ditko's early work.
The art has been reprinted a number of times and always look good to my prejudiced eye.
Rip Off
Great cover Rip remember the Space War cover but not the original.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, I carelessly thought it was a Staton product until I found out better.
DeleteThat IS a great cover! It has a fluidity & grace that almost puts me in mind of someone like P. Craig Russell or Michael Kaluta, even though it's definitely prime, recognizable Ditko.
ReplyDeleteThe composition is exquisite and the I like that the men are just another feature, small in the depths of space.
Delete