The Creativity Of Ditko!

The Creativity of Ditko is the other Yoe Book dedicated to the work of the great comic book artist. And it's my favorite of the two volumes for a very simple reason, there's much more of the later Charlton material that I love from the hand of the master storyteller. When I first stumbled across the work of Steve Ditko he had already left behind the tender and sometimes precious work of his youth and had matured into an aritst with steady command of the page along with a more muscular and robust art style which he began to show at Marvel in his later days and then made perfect in his masterful work at Warren Publishing. When he's back at Charlton drawing ghostly tales again, it's a deft and confident hand. 

And this volume really delves more into the history of the artist with a small gallery of photos (most all new to my eyes) of Ditko and his longtime studio mate Eric Stanton. There's an essay by Stanton's daughter discussing her father's oddball relationship with Ditko and how her father likely put a hand, or at least a web-shooter into the creation of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Stanton didn't press much publicly about this when his kids were small because of the nature of the fetish work he did and he didn't want to draw needless heckling their way because of it. 

There are other essays here by Jack Harris who worked with Ditko at DC and elsewhere and included are some pencils for a project they didn't quite get launched. Nice behind the scenes material. Mike Gold offers up his reflections on the artist and online writer Michael Banta gives a nifty overview of the artist's years at Charlton. 

But the main thing in this tome are the stories, great stories from the early 60's, later 60's and early 70's. There's a few 50's items as well. My favorite Charlton ghost story is arguably my favorite The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves story of all time, titled "The Ultimate Evil" in which the ghost finder operates very much like a certain Sorcerer Supreme from another time and place. There's a treat of a story from Ghostly Tales in which Mr. Dedd slides down off his narrator's perch to take part in a story. Ditko's bombastic rendition of Winnie the Witch of Ghostly Haunts is dazzling as well Mr. Bones from Haunted. Great stuff indeed. 

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