Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Peter Parker/Amazing Spider-Man Figurine

Well, the fanboy in me is cut loose again. When I first heard that Dark Horse was doing a San Diego Comic Con exclusive figurine of Steve Ditko's The Amazing Spider-Man in his iconographic pose of symbolism of half Spider-Man, half Peter Parker, I had to have it.

But if it was only being offered at the Comic Con all the way across the continent, and I certainly couldn't make it there, how was I going to get one?

I asked around, and discovered that an old acquaintance still goes every year and so I got in touch with Richard Morgan of Richard's Comics and he agreed to nab one for me!

And so, here it is. I'll be posting it somewhere either on my desk or on a shelf. I haven't decided yet.

As a kid, the duality of Spider-Man/Parker as illustrated by Steve Ditko was probably the first instance of symbolism to which I was exposed and which I also understood. Ditko did this, not anyone else. Ignore all other posers. Steve Ditko created this Spider-Man! Not some jackass editor claiming half the credit for none of the effort.

I appreciate that the folk who engineered this nifty item used only Steve Ditko artwork and logos on the tin in which the figure is stored. My hat's off to those clever blokes.

That silly female, Betty Brant from a memorable nightmare scene from one of the priceless tales plotted, written, penciled, and inked by Mr. Ditko.

The tin cover and the figure.

4 comments:

silver age rob said...

I want a Steve Ditko tin! Jealous

Robert Crawford

James Robert Smith said...

As soon as I heard about them I got desperate to get one. Luckily Richard Morgan was kind enough to land one for me when he was in San Diego. (I really, really need to start attending that show again.)

It is totally cool.

Kirk G - The Thrifty Rocketeer said...

I remember seeing the half human, half spider mask in the early Spider-Man books, and as a kid, I didn't understand the symbolism at all. But as I got a little older, and had some comics at home that I could pour over again and again, I finally got it. What a neat statue! How much are they going for?

James Robert Smith said...

Ditko came up with the idea when Lee complained that Ditko's stories had too much Peter Parker and not enough Spider-Man. So Steve Ditko--intellectual fellow that he is--went the symbolic route. I totally got it as a little kid.

The figurine was a limited edition. I don't know how much they're going for.