Ditko At Charlton - 1974!

The year 1974 is a bit of an anomaly in the history of Charlton Comics. There was a severe paper shortage in late 1973 which pushed into the following year and caused the small publisher to go into something of a hiatus for several months. The result is that Make My Dreams Come True - Ditko at Charlton: 1974 is a slimmer tome than its predecessors. It comes in at two hundred pages or thereabouts, one hundred pages short of the 1973 volume. But it can be well argued that the variety is far greater. In addition to ghost stories by Joe Gill (among others) and Steve Ditko from titles Ghostly Haunts, Ghostly Tales, The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, and Ghost Manor we get three "superhero" stories from the pages of E-Man and The Charlton Portfolio from the CPLGang. 

We get the second of two Killjoy stories by Ditko working alone. This one came from E-Man #4 and once again Ditko's voiceless anarchist gives the "looters" and "criminals" what for. This one is less varied than the previous episode, but it might be funnier. As with the earlier Killjoy story, we get a black and white version in the back of this volume. 

Next from E-Man #5 we get Liberty Belle by Gill and Ditko, their first new superhero in some years. Liberty Belle is in actuality Caroline Dean who operates a modeling agency and in her spare time undertakes missions for the United States government in the guise of Liberty Belle. The story gave me an impression of those wonderful James Coburn Flint movies from the 60's. If you want to read the story of how Liberty Belle saves the space program from the Commies check out my post for July 4th from this year where the story is available in its totality. 

Other writers in this volume are Jane Giddens, Tom Peterson and Nick Cuti. Amusingly Gill signed two of his stories "Jack Daniels" and "Johnny Walker". (Whatever it took to choke down those meager Charlton rates I reckon.)

Ditko only created four covers in this year, actually only three since was created years before. It is noted that Ditko-drawn images of the ghost hosts decorated most of the covers of that ilk during the year. Here those covers are with more on Blue Beetle below. 

Blue Beetle #6 both written and drawn by Steve Ditko was advertised but scratched from the publication list despite being ready to go six years earlier. It would be up to Roger Stern and the other gents of the CPLGang to get that book into print in The Charlton Portfolio which also featured great art by a range of Charlton talents as well as articles on E-Man, Yang, and many others. This story has been reprinted by DC in its Archive series in color but here appears in black and white as it did in the original Portfolio. 

And that's it for Ditko in 1974. Things get a little bit back to normal next time, but with lots of changes too. More on Halloween. 

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