BLAKE'S 'DITKO COMIC-COLLECTING HISTORY' by Blake Bell, Dec '97-Apr. '98
Having read comics from a VERY young age,
my first contact with Ditko is a blur. I certainly would have
been too young to notice such things as writer/artist labels.
I have to believe it most assuredly would have been
through the Amazing Spider-Man; quelle shock.
Born in 1970, I would have started buying/reading comics
close to the age of five. I certainly remember buying things like
Captain America in the 230's or the 2nd vol. of Fantasy Masterpieces #1,
reprinting the Silver Surfer's first appearance, as well as some
DCs. It was Grade1/kindergarten.
After getting shipped around due to divorce, my family
settled me down for Grade 3. It was early Grade
4 in November of 1979 when I went to the Royal Winter Fair
in Toronto and made a conscious decision (at the age of 9)
to start buying comics again regularly for the first time in a
couple of years.
There was a box somewhere at my Grandmother's house
filled with my first forays. Telling my Father to stop at the corner
of Yonge and Bedford at Wanless Convience Store started the
mayhem again.
I bought five or six that day but the only one I can still
remember getting is World's Finest #254. The cover looked
wacky and had the requisite DC characters on a wrap-around
cover, but the story that made an impression (I don't know how
good - just an impression) was ''Beware Mr. Wrinkles''. The art
stood out, as did the eerieness of the story and lead character
(to the 9-year old mind).
Again, this probably was not my first exposure to
Ditko but it is THE memory that certainly sticks out. By that
point I had no doubt read a Marvel Tales or another reprint
with an old Spider-Man tale in it.
It could have been that Christmas or the one before or
after, where my brother and I received the first two mini-trade
paperbacks of Spidey's #1-6 and #7-13. I have a distinct
visual memory of being in the back of my Dad's car coming
back from a Christmas party, exchanging mine (#1-6) with
my brother's copy. I would sit there with all those "good
heads" and pair them off with the "evil heads" on the back
cover. "O.K., could Good-Head #2 beat up Evil-Head #4?
(Probably not since Good-Head #2 was probably Aunt May)"
but you get the idea.
Those "Original Six" (as a hockey druid would say) made
one hell of an impression. But even back then, I didn't think
to associate the writer/artist labels with what I was reading.
My mind was processing good art=easier to read story, but
a 9 year-old rarely consciously thinks that way.
Still, every one of those six (I guess seven, really) were
so unique, with a different color for every issue. This is what
sticks out now the most. Amazing Fantasy #15 was a dark blue (almost
black); Amazing Spider-Man #1 was a light blue; #2 a gritty, brownish-red;
#4 - yellow; #6 - green and so on. Each issue had its own
unique tone and mood, not to mention the uniqueness of its
villains. WHERE in the history of comics have two people
(Stan and Steve) come up with that many major villains
in a row that would last over 35 years?
NOWHERE.
Super-hero comics died a slow death in the earlier '90s for
many reasons but one was the inability to produce clear-cut,
strong villains. Stan and Steve delivered big time in those
original six.
This is probably why, even back then, I didn't view the next
seven as strong. The Vulture comes right back in #7, the Living
Brain was the weakest yet; and Doc Ock pops up in two of
the next four (albeit fabulous stories). Electro was great as
was the Enforcers (although better as foils for the Goblin)
and Mysterio. The tone also changed in those issues to a more
desperate, more-aware Peter Parker. It is tough to beat those
original six for their "first time everything happens"-atmosphere.
By 1982, my Father had re-married and we were going to
Ellicotville (near Buffalo) for holidays and we'd drive by the K-Way
and pick up race-cars or Star Wars action-figures for $2.99.
We drove into a Buffalo mall back then and I remember freaking
at seeing the paperback cover of #3 with the Goblin on it. I had
never seen it before and actually didn't buy it then and had to wait
awhile before getting it.
You can tell how much those first two pocketbooks meant to
me back then if you see them now. The third shows all the signs
of a "collector", but the first two are beaten to death. They've been
read a few times, suffice it to say. In my life, I have loved the Byrne
X-men and now Cerebus, but wow!, those 41 Ditko-Spideys, well,
I'm sure my reaction is nothing new to those reading this.
It is amazing how much collecting I seem to have packed
into the memories from 1979 to the summer of 1981. I
suppose almost two years is a lot to a ten year old but
I remember collecting mostly Spider-Mans during this period,
always looking at those two-page yellow, overpriced ads for
whatever comic warehouse and seeing weird titles I didn't
collect like X-men (what the hell was a Phoenix and why is
her death worth so much cash?). I started collecting X-men
half-way between issues #147 and #148 but it seems, in my
head, like a millennium of space between starting collecting
again in 1979 and that point in my life.
I may have been the biggest collector in my public school during those
grades 4-6, but there were a coterie of five or six who all collected
Spideys. I remember one guy, Brent Voisy, who specialized in
Amazings and had me slightly beat with a collection that would
look pretty hot right about now.
We were like 10 or 11! I remember coming back to my friend
Cory's place after he bought a (really) beat-up copy of Amazing
#6. The cover looked like Jigsaw's face and I had bought a much
better conditioned copy, of Amazing Spider-Man #14, but he had the older
one.
I remember going to the comic store at Keewatin and Yonge
on a sunny Saturday morning and picking out a copy of #26 for
$6.50 right out of the bin. Didn't seem odd then. This was probably
around mid-1981 or so and was the beginning of my "mid-20s"
phase.
It is a phase because the mid-20s of Amazing are tough to beat.
That first Crime Master story was brilliant in every way. Just the
addition of another villain who dared to take on the Goblin at his
own game (who could even make him retreat!) sparkled in the
imagination of a young boy. And that great last scene where the
Goblin walks in on The Crime-Master! It reminds me much of the thrill of when
Dr. Doom and Sun-Mariner got together to kick some arse in
Fantastic Four #5.
Who actually saw the Spidey cartoon of the Spider-Slayer
before they read the issue? I would run home from lunch to catch
those wicked Spidey cartoons at noon back in Grade 1 (circa '76-7).
I can never read a Ditko-Spidey without having his drawings of each
character speak to me in the voices from the cartoons. Whomever
voiced for Jameson should get an Oscar.
The most underrated of the bunch is the Mysterio issue where he
tries to drive Spidey nuts (#24). The cover of all time may be #27; great
color, posing and frenetic action truly bringing out the best in the
scene.
The next Ditko-phase for me was probably the 30's. The tone in
these ones is much like watching the final season of Tom Baker as the
fourth Doctor Who (which I was doing at the time). Any of that
naivete that was around in the first 20 is replaced by a much more
sombre tone, almost as if a death is about to occur (and yet one did,
when Ditko left).
I didn't pinpoint it until I re-read them again in the summer of '92
and, what was once a nothing issue with me, took on new meaning
when in #29, Pete graduates, setting the tone for the ones in the
'30s (complete with black cover). Hell, even Aunt May almost bites
it!
One of the key elements here in the development of P. Parker can
be found in contrasting issues #3 and the famous building-off-my-back
portions of #33. Back in issue #3, Doc tosses Spidey out the window
with ease. There are no stakes and Pete comes in unready. Now with
Aunt May on the line, he becomes a man in those famous panels in
#33 and "throws off" all his adolescent shackles. The Goblin may have
been Spidey's deadliest foe, but it was Doc Ock that showed him he was
a child (in #3) and made him a man (in #33). It couldn't have been planned
better (if it was).
I met Len, another recently joined Ditko-list MeMbor back in the fall
of 1982 at a new school (Upper Canada College in Toronto) in Grade 7 class,
and when he stopped throwing rocks at me, he realized I collected comics and wheez
was fast frenz evry sintz. He's lucky, in a way, because he could paint you
one hell of an accurate dot-to-dot portrait of his beginnings as a comic
collector and, rightfully so, they all center around Ditko-Spideys.
I had been trying to drag him to a con for a good year and finally
nailed him to one in 1984. Ron Frenz was the guest but it was months after his
January award for the best Ditko-impersonation ever with A.S. #251.
I can't remember what Len picked up but I nailed down A.S. #36
with the Looter; the last Ditko-Spidey I would ever read. Weird to think
you come home after a con at 13 years old, stare at the book with
your best friend sitting across from you and mourn that heavily for
something you'd never get back. It was a little anti-climatic since I
had a sense that most thought it was one of the weaker efforts (and
they were right).
But that was it for any Ditko-Spidey phases. Except for the dream-phase
of Ditko doing #39 and #40 - a phase which one lives through everyday.
Like those Spidey pocketbooks, I picked up the Fantastic
Four ones and the Hulk one. I was particularly fascinated
by the Hulk one because of the Ditko one in #6. What changed
things for me was when I picked up the two Dr. Strange ones.
I would just be rambling on, in words already better
spoken, if I tried to recount the evocative nature of those
netherworlds that Steve conjured in those issues. In
pocketbook #2, the Strange-on-the-run story commences and I just
couldn't get enough. Just the thought of the Master of Magic
facing a force so deadly that he had to hide all over the globe
took my 11 year-old mind to those corners of the world with him.
Again, the first issues of Dr. Strange matched the first of
Spider-Man, with its ''unclean'' look (with the ''Asian'' Dr.
Strange). By pocketbook #2 (like the later Spideys) he was
mighty sharp and clean looking.
That convention in 1984 also marked another significant phase
in my Ditko collecting. On a lark, I saw a copy of the ''Journey Into Mystery''
right before it went super-hero (#82). It was a buck and I
figured what the hell. Luckily it opened up a Ditko-world that
still is in pursuit today.
''Take A Chair'' was the first 5-page Ditko story I read that
I knew was Ditko. The art was simply fantastic and the characters,
for only five pages, were so well pin-pointed. Most of those
Atlases are marked by the proto-typical Kirby ''eewww-big-monster''
stories that have little spark or imagination, but in the back of
#82 was something for which I was unprepared. When the villain of the
piece is invited at the end to take a chair by the man whom he is
trying to rob, and the chair eats him in that wonderfully drawn
last panel, I was shocked, horrifying and exhilarated all at once.
What a great ending! The Kirby ones were predictable to the
bland-max, but the smoky atmosphere Ditko had called up with his
artwork matched the perfect twist of an ending.
From that point on, much of the next six years was spent
hunting those ''five-page stories'' in whatever form they took.
In fact, the first one I ever saw was in a reprint of X-men #90
back in 1979 where a guy finds a space-ship and searches all
over for someone to believe him, eventually discovering HE was
the alien in the ship but had amnesia. I didn't know it was Ditko
at the time, but it captured my imagination all the same.
Those two, and another, stick out as my favorites. Tales To
Astonish #7 has since been written up in Ditko-Mania and reprinted
in either Curse Of The Weird or Monster Menace. It is the ''Bald
Mountain'' one and has some of my favorite Ditko art ever in it.
What heaven then was ''Amazing Adult Fantasy'' with FIVE Ditko
stories in them? I only own two (#7 - including ''Why Won't They
Believe Me?'' [What a title!] and #13) but they are absolute
treasures.
Almost more than Spideys, pursuing these was the greatest pleasure.
This is where you found out what it was like to be a Ditko fan.
If you were one, you quickly found out you were in a more
exclusive club than the Kirby club. EVERYBODY loved Kirby. Don't get me
wrong. No sensible human being could ever deny Kirby's
gi-normous influence on the industry, but a Kirby Punch just didn't
touch me like a Ditko Spell.
There was no greater thrill than being in THAT club. This was the
club where Len and I, as 14-17 year-olds, would talk to 40-plus year
old dealers who loved Ditko and we just knew and felt that Ditko was
superior. You REALLY felt a kinship with other Ditko fans who thought
this, simply because you were so over-whelmed by these die-hard Kirby
fans. As Bill Hall alluded to, it felt like you were miles from the
nearest Ditko fan.
During this period, I started picking up those great Captain Atoms.
They weren't great because of Captain Atom, although I like the
adamant attitude of the hero here, but it was the Blue Beetle back-ups that
were the high-light. Contrary to Ditko's emerging black-and-white hero, here
was this straight-shooting guy who had an important secret to hide.
I became fascinated by the atmosphere Ditko was able to conjure and
the intensity of the suspense that was building as the female character
came closer and closer to what he was hiding. Both these and the
aforementioned ''five-page stories'' showed that Ditko had the ability
to conjure up universes of story and character-development in such a
short span of pages; something few others could do.
Comic collecting hit its peak in Toronto just
before the '80s slipped into the '90s. Where there
was once a major convention four times a year, now
there was one smaller one EVERY month. The scene
became horribly diluted.
To make matters worse, the Canadian
government had slapped a new tax on us called the
GST (7% on top of the 8% provincial tax). If you
came across the border to sell your Ditko-wares,
you were supposed to give customs 8% of the value of
what you were bringing across, and then claim what
was left over (after subtracting 8% from what you
had sold at the con) when you came back. Guess what?
American dealers stayed away in droves.
Combine that with the surge in Silver Age prices
AND a Canadian dollar that had been severely weakened
by 1993 and a Ditko collector in Toronto was in a bad
way. This also came around the time of rushing into
adulthood for me, which didn't provide a greater set
of funds to match the increasing prices.
Don't take for granted the impact those American
dealers not coming had. The aftermath of the diluted
convention market left a HUGE void in that area. Where
Chicago, San Diego, L.A, and New York all have major
cons (and many ''minor'' ones), by the early-to-mid
'90s, Toronto had nothing. You could see it in the
utter lack of quality comics coming in as well as the
pathetic guest lists of comic creators that would NEVER
come north of the border. It is difficult to believe
that a major centre like Toronto could be so dry, but
if nobody builds it, they won't come - such is the
Toronto con scene (and when they won't come, people
stop building and generations are lost and the inertia
grows exponentially).
All of these circumstances have marked a fundamental
change in my Ditko-Buying habits. The '90s has, so far,
been known as the ''Dollar Ditko-Book Decade''. You know
the ones I'm talking about; those Adventure Comics, those
Legion Of Super-Heroes. They are mostly '70s or '80s
books that are remarkably affordable (IS there a $30 Ditko
book? Everything seems to be $1 or $1000). Obviously you
are on the silver-medal podium with these types but, in
this comic-dead city, it is still a thrill to push aside
the Image-Teens and find ten Ditko books for $10, while
one of them plunks $50 down for a silver cover, destined
to be worth $10 a year later.
Due to the out-of-reach price for early Ditko books,
nutty things have made themselves known in the '90s. I
knew little of 'Witzend' and am now glad I do. Those
Eerie and Creepy's were invisible before 1992 and now I
own a healthy Ditko bunch, all in great shape. I didn't
know ''Seaboard's'' Destructor to save my ass during the
1980's but now have #1-3 and I was able to scoop all of the
World's Finest run which helped get me re-started way back there in 1979.
What stands out now, beyond the obvious run of Spideys,
Strange's and five-page stories, is that thrill of hanging
out with Len at the age of 13/14 (in 1984) to 18/19 ('88/9)
going to convention and finding on top of all those '50s
and '60s greats, things like the Coyote #7-10. It is because
back then few in the mainstream cared about Ditko; few
collectors older than us really cared about Ditko, and we
felt that, at our young age, we had found this great Well of
history that so few people were tapping into; a history that
was still being created before us with the wonderful Ditko/
Russell ROM'S, the great ''Avengers Ann. #13, ''Indiana
Jones''; or, later (when we were ''Ditko-Veterans'')
''Speedball', in which Len has many a letters printed.
And, as today, we weren't just in its BECAUSE of the
history, but because we truly thought Steve Ditko's art was
the best we had seen. We've gone from not really knowing who
he was; to liking John Byrne better than our #2, Steve; to
realizing nothing excited us more than a Ditko book and
installing him at #1 by the end of the '80s; to suffering
through the drop in numbers and dollars spent on comics
through most of this decade thanks to the death of Marvel;
to right here today, falling in love with Ditko's seminal work - Mr. A.,
in all his fanzine appearances. Above all, other artists, other
companies, and other eras in comics and our life have come
and gone (and will so again) but there has been this
important constant and that is Steve Ditko.