Ditko Cover Classics - Mysteries Of Unexplored Worlds #11!

Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #11 was published in 1957.  Ditko drew two stories for this issue -- "Oggo the Thinker" and "The Mountain that Was". You can read the issue at this link. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Mysteries Of Unexplored Worlds #10!

Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #10 was published in 1957. Ditko drew four stories in this issue -- "The Joke", "Forbidden Planet", "One Way Trip", and "The Strange One". You can read the issue at this link. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Mysteries Of Unexplored Worlds #4!

Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #4 was published in 1957.  Steve Ditko draws two stories in this issue -- The Forbidden Room" and "Valley in the Mist". You can read the issue at this link. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Mysteries Of Unexplored Worlds #3!

Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #3 was published in 1957. Ditko drew four stories in this issue -- "They Didn't Believe It", "A World Where I Was King", "A Forgotten World", and "The Strange Guests of Tsaurus". You can read the issue at this link. 

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Ditko - Edge Of Genius!

I'm not sure but likely the first time I was aware that Steve Ditko delved into the underground world of fetish comics and illustration was in Ditko - Edge of Genius from Paragon Publications, a reprint operation run by Greg Theakston. There are several of these "Edge of Genius" volumes dedicated to the likes of Toth, Eisner, Wood and Ditko. This volume, the only one I own has the early Ditko stories from Charlton and Atlas which have been reprinted several times over the years. But tucked in the back is a surprise. 

"Helga's Search for Slaves" is an illustrated fetish piece credited to Eric Stanton, but a glimpse by any veteran comics fan will see the hand of Ditko. The actual name on the is "John Bee", the pseudonym the team had when they worked together. You can get a glimpse of the work by looking at the bottom panel of the cover of the nineteenth issue of Bizarre Comix. For a full look at this strange "Princess Valiant" fetish tale check out this Internet Archive link. 

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Steve 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 year 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 an 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 convictions 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 due course. 

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Attention Adult Collectors!

Steve Ditko is a fascinating figure in comic book lore. His reputation as a recluse and his famous breaks from traditional ways of pursuing the craft, of insisting of doing it his way are some of the things which make always fertile ground to explore. No less a detail of that territory is his long professional  relationship with sex fetish artist Eric Stanton. The book Eric Stanton and the History of the Bizarre Underground does a masterful and highly entertaining job of covering the career of Stanton as well as showcasing the publishers he worked for, men who would often as not end up in jail for selling their materials through the U.S. mail. 

For much of the time that Eric Stanton produced fetish artwork he shared a studio with Steve Ditko and despite Ditko's efforts over time to play down his role in that work, this book reveals that he was much more involved than has been generally acknowledged. And likewise it's just possible that Stanton gave Ditko a hand with is work, especially a little gem title Spider-Man. 

Stanton's real name was Ernie Stanzoni and he would change his name quite a bit during his career and life. He started in art alongside Ditko in classes taught by Jerry Robinson. After working with the offbeat artist Boody Rogers on books like Babe, he discovered that narrative comics weren't his primary interest. He was an artist who found illustration more up his alley and he used those skills working for folks like Irving Klaw. Klaw was one of those publishers who specialized in photography mostly, selling images of partially dressed dames to interested men across the country. Thanks to the fame of Bettie Page we remember those days with some nostalgic glow for a simpler time when women took off almost all their clothes for the delight of men. Other publishers such as Edward Mishkin and Stanley Malkin were eager to publish Stanton's work when Klaw was unable to do so.  It was of course much more grim than that and all you have to do is read up about Page herself to know that. 

In the 50's and 60's Stanton moved from underground publisher to publisher as one fell into legal trouble or fell out of cash. His artwork always seemed to be a draw for the customers aside from the photos. Other artists like Gene Bilibrew (Eneg) were also active in these markets. The call was for artwork which was not explicitly sexual as that was instantly tagged by the government, but for odd quasi-fashion fetish material that seemingly confused the issue of sexual arousal for censors. Bondage and Sado-Masochism were a large part of the kind of artwork that Stanton delivered though in a decidedly soft-core mode. The extent to which he was a part of this scene or just a documentarian of sorts is unclear though there's little said to suggest the former. In the 70's when what we truly understand as pornography became more widespread Stanton himself began to produce more provocative material. Also he began to produce Stantoons, a regular collection of his images. 

Throughout is career Stanton was eager to keep a low profile, not to call attention to his art or himself for the sake of his children. That more than anything seems to be the reason that he didn't really press issues like his hand in the creation of Spider-Man, contributing in all probability details such as the web-shooters and the tender Aunt May (Stanton seems to have actually had an Aunt May). It's also been noted that Dr. Strange often featured elements of sado-masochism bondage in the nature of the traps that Doc and Clea and others encountered. The fact is that Ditko and Stanton worked together on each other's gigs and while that's something Ditko was reluctant to claim, if in fact to deny, it is manifestly evident from some of the work produced, especially a highly successful comic narrative called Sweeter Gwen. 

Just to clarify, this type of fetish artwork is not necessarily my cup of tea. But that said I'm not going to deny that Eric Stanton and his partner Steve Ditko don't create some evocative and erotic images in Sweeter Gwen -- Captive of Bondage Manor, a slapstick yarn about an innocent but beautiful naif assaulted by a cadre of villains who want a map she's unaware that she even has. (I happens to be in a place she might not see it all the time.) The point of these stories is to get lovely buxom women into situations of bondage as swiftly and as handsomely rendered as possible. Ideally they will be in some state of undress, and that's key for the very specific audience for these "serials". It's not nudity that makes these types of fetish comics effective, but the promise of potential nudity stopping short with much evocative lace and leather. I was a bit gobsmacked by the prices paid for these pages, which were delivered a few pages at a time for five bucks or so a pop. (That's 60's money by the way.)

Sweeter Gwen -- Captive of Bondage Manor is an homage to John Willie, a groundbreaking fetish artist who was one of Stanton's artistic heroes. Willie had created a character in his The Adventures of Sweet Gwen who was effectively identical to the lovely damsel in distress we find in this comic. 

While gazing upon lovely dames in pretty much any state of dress or undress is not unpleasant to me, I confess little interest in this form of kinky presentation, and at the risk of protesting too much I think like many this has perhaps caused me to overlook something quite obvious. Steve Ditko was a fetish artist. He was not as I had previously thought a colleague who helped touch up an image here and there for his studio mate who was a fetish artist, but instead he was part of an artistic team which intentionally created narratives within the confines of the fetish field. It's a bit of a surprise to find this out about a guy who despite his reclusive nature has had his work work feverishly examined for decades now. 

Looking at Sweeter Gwen it's obvious that Ditko has inked Stanton's lush pencils, bringing a focus and edge to the work not apparent in Stanton's work alone. The team of Stanton and Ditko is a pretty darn good and I can only have hoped to have seen them work together in the traditional comic arena in which I spend most of my time (or maybe I did and didn't know it). Ditko zealously claimed that his work spoke for him and in the instance of Sweeter Gwen - Captive of Bondage Manor it does so in spades. To bad he was ashamed of it apparently. 

I wonder if the name "Gwen" ever came up in other comics Ditko worked on?

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Ditko Cover Classics - Out Of This World #11!

Out of This World #11 from 1959 is one of my all-time favorite Steve Ditko images. It features a delicacy that is sometimes missing from his more robust work. You can read this comic in full at this link. Ditko drew three stories in this issue -- "The Time Chamber", "The Hammer of Thor" and "The Careless Man". 

Here's a look at the black and white version of his awesome cover. 

When I first encountered this artwork reprinted on an issue of Space War in 1978 I at first thought it was the work of Joe Staton. The explosions look just like the bubbly style Staton had used in his earliest days with Charlton. But the signature of "J. Kodti" soon taught me the error of my ways. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Out Of This World #7!

Out of This World #7 features one of Steve Ditko's oddest covers. He is clearly looking for new and different ways to communicate the weirdness of the stories he crates. You can read the issue at this link.

Ditko supplies the art for four of the stories in this issue -- "Journey into Paradise", "The Most Terrible Fate", "Through the Walls" and "Cure-All". 

Here's a small glimpse at the black and white artwork. 

It was used as the cover for an issue of Creepy Worlds, a 1960's series from Alan Class. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Out Of This World #6!

Out of This World #6 was published in late 1957. One can see on this cover a great desire on Ditko's part to experiment with the presentations. He was not satisfied to simply knock out yet one more cover. You can read this issue at this link.  There are four stories drawn by Steve Ditko in this issue -- "All Those Eyes", "The River's Wrath", "The Secret Room", and "Plague". 

The cover art was reprinted by Alan Class in a 1963 run in Britain. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Out Of This World #5!

Out of This World #5 was published in 1957 and features a truly weird Ditko cover, one which makes good use of the somewhat dull tones often seen on Charlton's comic covers. You can read this issue at this link. There are four Ditko stories in this issue -- "The Thing from Below", "The Night They Learned the Truth", "I Made a Volcano", and "The Man Who Stepped Out of a Cloud". 

Here is a glimpse at the black and white art by Ditko for this cover. 

The cover art was reprinted on an issue of the British comic Sinister Tales years later. 

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Ditko Cover Classics - Out Of This World #4!

Out of This World #4 was published in 1957 and sports one of Steve Ditko's wildest covers. The scene is of course on "Ditko Street" as it should be. You can read this comic at this link. There are three Ditko stories in this issue -- "From All Our Darkrooms", "Flying Dutchman" and "The Conquered Earth". 

Here's the original artwork for this masterwork comic cover. 

The cover was adapted and reprinted on Ghost Manor #62 in 1982. 

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Steve Ditko - Impossible Tales!

The Steve Ditko Archives Volume 4 is titled Impossible Tales and as this collection of Ditko tales from the latter part of 1957 and into 1958 show, the title is well chosen. Long gone are the space operas and the gruesome horror tales. They have been replaced by light and bouncy stories of science fiction and fantasy which focus on the destiny of one man. This is a collection filled with tortured souls looking for explanations for why they suffer of who they are. We have misguided robots, time travelers, befuddled scientists,  mutants and more.

These are stories mostly from Charlton and magazines such as Tales of the Mysterious Traveler and This Magazine is Haunted. It's the latter that really stands out in my estimation, since the host of that comic Dr. Haunt has become a real favorite of mine in these readings. He's visually provocative and Ditko increasingly uses him in more and more creative ways fusing him into the stories. He does it with the Traveler as well, but somehow Dr. Haunt is a bit more engaging to my eye. I should also say that two stories from the earlier volume in the series are reprinted yet again because of some pages dropped in that first outing. 

One comic seems to be all Ditko, the St. John comic title Do You Believe in Nightmares. This is a heady book, almost in many ways to my eye what Dikto will do when he turns his sights on Marvel. There are two issues of this comic, the second features work by Dick Ayers and apparently both were the result of Al Fago, longtime Charlton editor selling these tales to St. John's when he was fired by Charlton. 

The rest of the stories appeared in Charlton comics such Unusual Tales and Out of this World. Ditko is exceedingly well represented in the Charlton line at this time but his covers do seem to diminish as he spends more and more time on the stories within. The covers he did produce though are real winners. 

The next volume will continue with Ditko's 1958 work and will also bring to light one of Ditko's most whip snapping aspects, his days as a pornographer of sorts. 

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Golden Age Space Wars!

Skyman is not a Charlton character. The aviation hero actually was part of Columbia comics scene. But Skyman's adventures were popular and he appeared briefly in his own title as well for years in Big Shot Comics. The stories reprinted by Mort Todd in these Charlton Neo volumes come from Big Shot. If you enjoy classic movie serials you will like these tales which are paced almost exactly the same as say Radar Men from the Moon. 

The series began soon after Ogden Whitney returned from active duty during WWII. While never featured on the covers of Big Shot, this series of stories featuring Skyman going to the Moon where he encounters Martians and Hitler are well paced adventures with proper cliffhanger endings. The series ran for years from 1946 until late 1948. 

In addition to aliens and Nazis, Skyman and his girlfriend Fawn must confront threats such as giant green rats who live inside the Moon. (No reference is made about cheese, but that must've been in the back of Whitney's mind.)

Hitler has a bombastic scheme to conquer the Earth with bombs from the Moon, but of course that goes awry. But when Skyman is able to end that odious threat, that doesn't mean the danger is over. 

Aliens from Venus are the next obstacle facing Skyman and Fawn as well as several Earth people who have been snatched by Venusians. Skyman has to salvage more than one spaceship to get around the solar system. 

But it will come as little surprise that Skyman and his girl do find their way back to Earth, but it's not without more mayhem and death than I expected. This story was exceedingly well told, but waiting for chapters over several years must've been excruciating for readers back in the day. 

On a different note, Steve Ditko drew a Skyman adventure written by Mort Todd way back in the 90's which appeared under the Indy ACE Comics brand. I have the original around here somewhere. 

I don't sadly have this version of the story from Charlton Neo which presented the Ditko story and pencil art for the tale. I'd love to see and compare. 

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