LIFE AS A
DITKOMANIAC
Blake Bell's history and tribute to
Bill Hall
"Okay, by now it shouldn't surprise you to learn that I am getting ready to
start a Steve Ditko fan club and publish a newsletter/fanzine, devoted to Ditko's work. Right now I am involved in the awesome task of compiling a complete chronological checklist of Steve's comics.
Bill Hall - MARVEL TALES #146 (Dec '82) lettercol
And so the seeds were planted. Store owner, Cerebus fan, and Ditkomaniac 'Wild Bill' Hall reached out to all Ditko fans in the early '80s with the above missive in Marvel Tales when that book began reprinting the Lee/Ditko Amazing Spider-Man run.
Mentions in the C.B.G. and by Robin Snyder in the Archie adaptation of THE FLY #5 (Feb '84 - with Snyder saying he has received issue #4 of Ditkomania, with Bill's new Connecticut mailing address listed) began one man's quest to unite Ditko fans across the continent.
The highest honour you can pay a man is to say he SUCCEEDED.
 Early 1983 saw the release of DITKOMANIA #1. Much later in the '90s, I had personally pestered Bill for copies of the early fanzines. Finally, he said the reason why he didn't want to reprint them was because "they sucked!" Too harsh were Bill's comments, but the first six issues were crude in comparison to the heights he would achieve in later years. The first six issues were free with a S.A.S.E., as Bill was allowed to run them off at the Insulation company where he worked at the time. Featured was the first attempt at basic Ditko checklist, on which Bill was determined to expand in future issues.
Bill already had interesting Ditko connections at that point. A quasi-friendship with editor Cat Yronwode led him to hear of Cat's assertion Ditko had assisted Eric Stanton on his works back in the late '50s/early '60s. The two had an explosive falling out when Cat accused Bill of stealing her checklist, and Bill printed her letter in Ditkomania! Cat bad-mouthed Bill in Eclipse Comics editorials, but given her track record of truth concerning the aborted (thanks to her efforts to go behind Ditko's back and interview his brother and class-mates, as opposed to the ludicrous "company flood" story) THE ART OF STEVE DITKO, one is inclined to side with Bill on this score.
 Issue #7 (in year 2 of the fanzine) represented the first big jump in quality, achieving the familiar booklet design it would carry throughout most of its run. Featuring an even better attempt at a Ditko checklist, the issue also featured a fabulous article by noted writer Will Murray, who's continuing contribution to DITKOMANIA would be amongst the highlights of the fanzine's run.
But the real highlight of the 'zine was just the fact that in the pre-Internet era, Ditko fans spread far and wide the continent did have a "homebase", if you will. Bill would often make reference to how being a Ditko was a lonely occupation, given it seemed to him like there was only one Ditko fan per city. Bill, in fact, was stunned when I shared with him that my schoolmate, Len Lumbers (who had a letter printed in #42), and I were two teenage Ditko fans living in Toronto and actually knew each other!
Having only been born in 1970, both Len and I were too young to know much of THE FLY, and were too chicken (and stupid/lazy?) to send off money to Bill from his listing for Ditkomania in the back of The Overstreet Price Guide. FINALLY, in 1993, we got off our collective bums, and sent in money to Bill. When Issue #38 arrived, 49 pages into Bill's dream version of his chronological checklist, we knew we had arrived home.
 Ditko is more revered now, in the late '90s and early '00s, than he was back in the early-mid '80s. Receiving Ditkomania on a monthly basis did provide that link, but it also provided so many special Ditko anecdotes. These weren't necessarily articles, but little Ditko-bytes of information that the fan would have never had access to without this central Fountainhead. Just look back at each issue, and you will find each a treasure trove of information not found anywhere else today even today.
By Issue #43 (mid '94?), on your left, Bill had reached his pinnacle in terms of production values and quality content. It was all about to come "crashing down" around him.
Whether it was the Stantoon on the inside cover to #34 or Tristan LaPoussierre's "Ditko In Bondage" article in Issue #45, or something else of which Ditko didn't approve, that forty-fifth issue from May 1995 would prove to be the end of an era, and the beginning of an exciting new one in Ditkomania's history.
 As spoken on the cover to the first Ditkomania issue in almost two years, Ditko had written a rather scathing letter to Bill (not for publication) stating he had no interest in receiving the fanzine any more. In one way, Bill described it to me as crushing, but in another way, it was liberating. We all grow up with heroes (celebrities, sports figures, family members), but to view them objectively, a shocking break usually has to occur.
Once recovered from the shock, Bill took Ditkomania in a new direction - a monthly, 50 cent, two-page newsletter made its debut in April of 1997. It was a shocker to be sure, as it had perhaps two of the only pictures of Ditko ever to see the light of day. Bill plugged away at keeping the fanzine monthly, which helped keep Ditko fans truly up to date on new works and made that sense of Ditko community feel even stronger.
One of the perils of that near-two year lay-off was the loss of subscribers whose addresses had changed. I was one of those individuals, who had moved to London, England and back to Toronto, in the meantime. The two-year gap was made even more canyon-like, as the World Wide Web rose to prominence in that time period. When Bill nailed down internet access, he began scanning the web for Ditko-related information.
In the early days of 1998, Bill was scanning the 'Net, when he happened across my
Thompson Twins web-site, with the URL including ~ditko37, and my e-mail address of
ditko37@interlog.com. He e-mailed me and asked if there was any Thompson Twins/Ditko
connection. I recognized the Ditkomania@aol.com address and the Blake Bell/Bill Hall
connection was born again!
Issue #57 (Feb '98) re-booted my Ditkomania subscription and it was clear Bill's
entry in the 'Net world (and posting his first message to the ditko-l e-mailing list on Sunday February 22, 1998) had an effect. My first issue received since #45 printed my review of SHADOWS AND LIGHT #1, and Bill reprinted some e-mails from the ditko-l from his first few days.
His comment "This electronic global Ditko village makes me wonder if, after more than a decade, DITKOMANIA is finally obsolete. You be the judge" was sadly prescient.
For awhile, the burgeoning 'Net community seemed to re-invigorate Bill. Issue #58 (May '98) saw a return to the booklet-sized format of #7-45.
April 8, 1998 marked a special day in my life, and I hope in the Ditko fandom community, as I unleashed my DITKO LOOKED UP web-site, which had 3 versions (alphabetical, company-by-company, chronological) of a Ditko checklist. Everyone has their own Ditko checklist story. Mine started in 1984-5, when I compiled my own from Overstreet and other sources, but Bill really was the master in that regard, and I lauded him so in the credits for the site. Bill graciously plugged my site every issue, and we began an e-mail friendship that I value very highly.
 One could argue Bill reached his peak, just as he was publishing what would be the last two issues of DITKOMANIA. Contact I had made with Ron Frantz, the delightful former publisher of ACE COMICS from the late '80s, ended up leading to Dick Ayers doing a Gabe Jones/The Face cover exclusively for #62.
Perhaps the finest issue Bill ever put out was his last - on your left - Issue #63 from Halloween. It featured an exclusive cover by famed comic-book artist and inker (and inker of Ditko's Phantom 2040) Bill Reinhold featuring a myriad of Ditko characters. It was the contents of the book which will remain as special to me. Ron Frantz had supplied me with an entire issue of Ditko pre-inked pages of RETURN OF THE SKYMAN and Bill matched me in Issue #63 with a host of pre-inked PHANTOM 2040 pages, provided by Reinhold! More personally, #63 had a co-written review (by Bill and myself) of Ditko's 80-Page MISSING MAN package.
It was a dream to contribute substantially to Ditkomania, and as the end was upon us all, I had achieved that dream. It is bittersweet now, because back in Nov '99, no one knew that was the end. Bill's life is a busy one. One hopes he returns in some fashion to expand everyone's Ditko knowledge, as he did for over 16 years.
People from all walks of life will e-mail me from my DITKO LOOKED UP site, but one must envy the amount of correspondence Bill had with professionals and collectors alike back in the halcyon days of print. Bill brought us all together at a time who no one else would take the torch. He filled SUCH a valuable need. His e-mail to me a couple of weeks back had the subject line "The mantle has been passed." The message said "Blake ole' buddy, Fred Hembeck-Cat Yronwode-Bill Hall-Blake Bell. Congratulations on the latest update - Sturdy Steve's legacy is indeed safe."
I only hope I can bring as much, and mean as much, to all Ditko fans as Bill brought and meant to us. Thank you, Bill.
Your Friend Always, Blake.
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