Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko – Review

By Blake Bell

Blake Bell’s history of artist Steve Ditko’s career begins with a seemingly prophetic story from Fantastic Fear # 5 (1953). Lawrence Dawson is a bed-bound invalid whose meager self-worth cripples him into hatred for the world. When a new drug allows him to live a normal life (which subsequently imbues him with super-elastic powers), Dawson chooses to seek revenge on the world and take the fortunes that are apparently “owed” to him. His elastic condition, however, becomes too much to control, leaving Dawson to steal the only cure and impetuously killing the only man who can help him. In the end, Dawson, because of his haste, avarice, and egocentricity, literally liquefies himself. This is Ditko’s very first published work.

Many argue that Ditko’s departure from Marvel Comics in 1965 was the result of a man tired of not getting recognition for his work, and who sought, disastrously, to attain the fortune “owed” to him. Bell elucidates the situation and takes the reader back to a time before red and blue tights and big city lights, to a small Pennsylvania mining town and bespectacled young man. The Ditko family was a modest but loving home, filled with encouragement for the family talent: drawing. From an early age, Steve Ditko was raised on comics that were cut from the newspaper and sewn together into a clothe-bound book by his mother

Despite this love and encouragement, Ditko remained shy. Bell relates a story where Ditko returned home for the holidays after moving to New York City as a illustrator. Always committed to meeting his deadline, he worked in his parent’s kitchen on a breadboard, basking in the company of his immediate family. Yet, when one of his cousins or other relatives would enter the room, he would become noticeably uncomfortable.

Bell notes other awkward reactions. While sharing a studio with fetish artist Eric Stanton from 1958 to 1968, Ditko inked a few of Stanton’s seedy stories. If it weren’t for Ditko’s immeasurable inking style, no one would be the wiser. Whenever he would be confronted with the Stanton material, which was unaccredited, the artist denied his affiliation with it outright. On one occasion, Ditko rebuffed an inquiry made by fellow artist Joe Rubenstien, saying: “No I didn’t… There’s no proof.”

Ditko’s rejection of the erotic work may simply be out of embarrassment or possibly his Objectivist beliefs. Heavily influenced by the works of Ayn Rand, Ditko reasoned that his work at Marvel Comics in 1965, namely the incredibly successful Spider-Man, was insufficiently respected and compensated by the company. He demanded, as Bell notes, for proper creative credit and more pay even before the “King of Comics”, Jack Kirby, dared to do so. His departure from the company was intended to find better pay and greater autonomy in comics; he found the latter, but at the cost of the former.

Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko is an effervescently written history about this peculiar and tremendously talented writer and artist. With additions of reprinted strips and un-inked pages, Bell strips away the heavily shaded corners of this man’s life and helps the reader better understand him. Unlike his first published character Lawrence Dawson, Ditko hasn’t melted into the carpet; through his amazing comics and struggle for artists’ rights, he is far from dripping away into nothingness. (Grade: A)

–Steven M. Bari