I landed a pretty nice copy of AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #11. The only real flaw with the book is that someone along the history of this copy used a watercolor marker to put a jacket and tie on the middle figure of the alien. Other than that, the book is in excellent condition and a welcome addition to my collection. I am very close to completing a set of the Ditko-inspired comic series that was THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.As recounted here before, the book began as AMAZING ADVENTURES, a comic of fantasy and science-fiction stories illustrated by Jack Kirby, Steve Dikto, and various other artists, including Don Heck. This comic also featured what is now considered Marvel's first continuing superhero, a mysticist named Dr. Droom. This anthology series came to an end with #6 and was thereafter retitled with...#7 of the series appeared as AMAZING ADULT FANTASY. With this book, Stan Lee, the editor-in-chief, gave free reign to his most daring artist, Steve Ditko. Ditko filled each issue of AMAZING ADULT FANTASY with several stories from (I will assume) plots delivered by Lee and almost all copped from stories by far more talented authors. This book lasted for seven issues and there was another change in title after issue #14 when it became...AMAZING FANTASY. This book lasted precisely one issue. The first story introduced a new character created wholly by Ditko--a new kind of superhero that had never been seen and which has never been matched for sheer originality. His name, of course, was Spider-Man: Steve Ditko's ultimate stroke of genius.Thereafter, the book became THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and its sole creator stayed with the title until issue number 38 when he walked away from it forever.
Steve Ditko was obviously having fun with this book. I have to think that he was still feeling some youthful exuberance in these days, before he turned his life completely over to his obsession with Ayn Rand's diseased philosophies.
Five Ditko stories. Good grief! Pure comic magic. This title page isn't as dynamic as some others he'd done, so I'm wondering if it was done in a hurry.
This is a classic Ditko monster. I've always liked his monsters, which are always as good as the ones by his fellow Marvel creator, Jack Kirby. Those guys could whip up some truly great creatures.
I slam Stan Lee fairly often here in my blog. For good reason, of course. But he was the finest huckster that the comic book business ever had. Jack Kirby and Steve Dikto created everything, but Stan Lee sold it lock, stock, and barrel to the world at large. The industry never had such an effective bullshitter. One thing that he did better than anyone else was to make the fans a part of the action. There had been letters pages in comics before, and fan clubs and such. EC Comics did that effectively in their day. But Lee drew it larger and made the fans feel like part of the family. It was among the innovations by others that Lee took and polished to a high shine.
The top shelf in part of my re-fitted office. Amazing Spider-Man #s 31 through 33, the greatest superhero comic book ever created by a single artist. Steve Ditko wrote it, he penciled it, he inked it. No one has come near the perfection that he achieved with this total work of art and philosophy. Steve Ditko is the greatest!
I'm going back again to the cover of an issue of a book that I recently added to my collection. This is AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #13. While Jack Kirby was doing the lion's share of the the work for the fledgling Marvel Comics, the second most productive artist at the company was Steve Ditko. While not quite as prolific as Mr. Kirby, Ditko was still capable of creating a truly prodigious amount of finished comic book artwork.From what I've read on the subject, Stan Lee was working constantly under the threat of the company's imminent demise. If the profit margins shrank much more, then his uncle was quite likely to figure that the best thing to do would be to sell off the company's intellectual property and assets and retire to Miami Beach. To prevent this, Lee stayed busy keeping the distributors supplied with product that would sell well enough to keep the publisher in enough black ink so that the company's survival would be safe. However, it was the struggle of a species that was forever threatened and perched on that edge beyond which lay extinction.Thus, Lee was forever in search of creative talent around whom he could anchor his hopes and dreams. There had been a number of such men through the years. After the tragic death of Joe Maneely, the man who could, apparently, draw any kind of book requested, Marvel/Atlas was a craft adrift with a crew of capable hands, but no standout talent. In a while, of course, Jack Kirby drifted back to Lee's office, as did the relative newcomer, Steve Ditko. At that point, Lee had found his creative saviors, and this time in the form of two men. If DC succeeded in stealing Kirby, he had Ditko. If Ditko fled, then he had Kirby.When you look at a title such as AMAZING ADULT FANTASY and a specific issue such as #13, you can see why men such as Steve Ditko were indispensable to an editor like Stan Lee who was always looking for talent. In Ditko, he'd found someone who was resourceful, brilliant, reliable, and--above all--hard working. Ditko wasn't just working for Marvel/Atlas at this time, but for a number of other publishers. He was drafting a tremendous amount of work for Charlton, also. I've never seen any numbers, but he had to have been penciling many hundreds of pages per year of comic book artwork during the late 1950s and early 1960s, before he crafted his initial superhero creations, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.
Steve Ditko had a unique way of rendering water, and the effects of water. He used it often in his stories and one day I need to write an essay that deals specifically with this facet of his work.
The talent at work from Steve Ditko is shown in this very imaginative and carefully rendered contents page from Amazing Adult Fantasy #13. Here we see the man's imagination given free reign, boiling down enough of each story to pique the reader's interest and to show the essence of each as a single image, surrounding it all with a kind of Twilight Zone montage of weirdness. You can see why he was making himself an important figure to his editor and publisher. The stories are, mainly, simple things lifted from other sources by Stan Lee--tired plots stolen so many times that no one could likely find the true author. The art, however, is all classic Steve Ditko, his own personality flaring to the printed page like hammered gold.
This is the latest addition to my Silver Age comic book collection:
My copy of Amazing Adult Fantasy #13.
The copy's in decent shape, I got it at a good price, and best of all it's Steve Ditko from cover to cover! I really enjoy these books. Amazing Adult Fantasy was Steve Ditko's title and I'm pretty sure he did all of the art in all eight issues of the book, ending with AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #15 which introduced the Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker, and his guardians, Aunt May and Uncle Ben.Narrowing down the collection slowly but surely. If you'd told me seven years ago that I'd be collecting old comics I'd have figured you for a crackpot. I'm having a great time putting this collection together.
AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #7. The first issue of the revamped, retitled AMAZING ADVENTURES. The first series contained stories by several artists, but beginning with this issue it was all Ditko from cover to cover!
I always liked this issue as a kid. I enjoyed this rendition of Ditko's character, Tim Boo Ba. One of Ditko's superlative weird fiction cover efforts.
This is the same book I landed in auction not a few weeks ago. But I got such a good deal on this one that I had to get it. Now I have the cover as Ditko intended it, unmarked by some long-gone kid trying to alter the blank white space on the front.
This book is a real treasure for many reasons. First of all, it contains a rare instance of Steve Ditko inking Jack Kirby. I wish Ditko had inked more of Kirby's pencils--the results of their teaming was always unique. I'm not sure what Kirby thought of Ditko's inks on his pencils, but I sure do enjoy the team-up. This issue also features "Monsters from Mercury" which has some very good creature designs from Ditko, and impresses upon me once again the great influence Ditko had on Jim Starlin.
