DC Ditko Mystery Tales!

In the late 1970's and early 1980's Steve Ditko turned his attention to work at DC. Charlton was drawing back from the marketplace and Ditko needed places to draw comics, and despite his independent work, DC was a good place to get a check. In addition to some creative series which we'll get around to next month, Ditko also drew many stories for the myriad horror and science fiction comics that DC produced during this era. In comics such as House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Ghosts, Weird War Tales, Secrets of Haunted House, Mystery in Space, Time Warp and Unexpected Ditko brought to life many a monster and creepy crawler. These stories are collected in The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume One. Actually, the first two short stories in this collection are from 1964 from two issues of Strange Adventures. Then we leap to the later material written by such DC stalwarts as Jack Oleck, Jack C. Harris, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Michael Fleisher, Arnold Drake, Steve Skeates among others. Ditko even writes the last story in the volume himself, a wacky yarn named "Em the Energy Monster". 

Sadly, Ditko only drew one cover for DC's haunted books during this era, for House of Mystery #277 seen above. Below are the comics in which Ditko stories appeared and the covers are by a host of talents such as Jack Sparling, Mike Kaluta, Berni Wrightson, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, among others. But most are by the great Joe Kubert who was the master of DC covers during this time. 

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Above is the cover for The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume One. With Shade the Changing Man getting the cover attention, you'd never realize wealth of weird tales inside by one of the genre's finest. 

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Frankenstein Day!

Berni Wrightson was born on this date in 1948. Wrightson made his mark in the fanzines and later at DC where he brought a stylishness to his work on the ghost books. He went on to do outstanding for Warren Magazines as well. He's likely most famous for his breakthrough work on DC's Swamp Thing. His epic work though was his detailed illustration of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the most influential novels in history. It's impact on culture is enormous generating plays and adaptations almost from the very beginning in the 19th Century. In more modern times adapting the story to film has been almost a requisite. There are countless film adaptations of the story from Edison's early attempt in the teens to the iconic Universal version in 1931 which along with its sequels and imitators catapulted the story into myth. I've read the novel a half dozen times at least and taught it in school many times as well. It's a lush story of one man's startling obsession to conquer death by bringing the reassembled remains of many dead back to some sort of shambolic existence. It is the story of a man's obsession to conquer nature and the cancel even the thought of God from the equation of man's time on this planet and beyond. The novel is a cornerstone of both science fiction and horror and more besides. And it was the lifelong love of another artist, a chap named Berni Wrightson. 

As an artist who was often called on to illustrate horror tales, Wrightson did many takes on the Frankenstein myth such as "The Patchwork Man" in Swamp Thing and "The Muck Monster" for Eerie Magazine.  But it's here, illustrating the original Shelley narrative that we see how much he is ideal for the work. It was a true of passion, something he worked on between paying jobs for Marvel and DC and others. It took seven years to create the artwork which would serve to draw the reader into the world of Frankenstein more completely. As can be seen readily Berni lavished time and effort into each of the carefully rendered pages, each capturing a single moment from the novel. Reading the novel again for the first time in several years I was struck by the venal nature of Frankenstein, his absolute self-absorption is stunning but alas exceedingly modern. If anything Wrightson elevates him to a more heroic status with his idealized presentations. 

The art was first published alongside the text by Marvel in one of their oversized graphic novels. I missed out back then and had long wanted to behold this material, to hold it in my hand. Dark Horse at long last gave me that chance when they published the book again. 

The art itself is magnificent and as it turns out stunningly expensive. The original of the image above (seen in its entirety below) sold recently for a cool million dollars. 

Below are just a few of the magnificent images which Wrightson produced for his favorite work of literature. He comes close to making it mine too. 

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Nightmaster - A Sensational Sword And Sorcery Saga!

Three of my all-time favorite covers from DC are the three Showcase comics covers by Joe Kubert featuring Nightmaster. Aside from these tasty images, Kubert had nothing else to do with the character who is sometimes mentioned as the first sword and sorcery character in comics (not true but more on that tomorrow). 

(Jerry Grandenetti)

The story written by Denny O'Neil. in the debut issue was drawn by the painfully overlooked Jerry Grandenetti  and the last two issues of the singular trilogy are famously drawn by an up-and-coming Berni Wrightson, still a raw talent learning his craft on the job before our very eyes. You can read all three Nightmaster Showcase adventures here, here, and here.

(Berni Wrightson)

 For the record Denny O'Neil wrote all three issues. But I did find one a Mile High and it came yesterday along with some other treasures. This morning for the first time ever, I was able to read the Nightmaster saga all the way through. It held up pretty well. This is sometimes called the first Sword and Sorcery comic book. That's not true, but it does precede the wave of S&S prompted by success of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian. With Conan, Kull, Thongor, Gullivar, Dagar, Ironjaw, Wulf, and a wave of others hitting the stands in the Bronze Age and beyond, the Nightmaster was forgotten. 

(More Berni Wrightson)

The story is a bit more whimsical than I recollect, with a sense of irony clearly inspired by Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, who would soon enough get their own DC title. But it was neat heady blend of Tolkien and Burroughs and Leiber with a smidge of Howard tossed into the brew. Good stuff, not as full-bodied as most barbarian heroes, but neatly modern still after all these decades. 

I'd love to see these reprinted, but now that I have the originals at last, I don't really need that. 

Here's Nightmaster as rendered by Wrightson for a fanzine. The promised series featuring the character did not materialize. In fact after this three-part story, the character vanished for many years until surfacing in the pages of Animal Man and later Swamp Thing. Eventually he became part of DC's magical team Shadowpact and even rated a one-shot comic of his own which sported a new Wrightson cover.

But for the most part, Nightmaster is what he always was, a weird blend of superhero and sword and sorcery, a could'a been comic book character. But those are still some blockbuster Kubert covers.

This post is dedicated to the late Berni Wrightson. 

This Post is a Revised Dojo Classic. 

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