It is alleged that Steve Ditko left New York City and the comic-book industry behind, returning home to Pennsylvania, in the Spring of 1954. Speculation on the reason why has ranged from accounts drying up due to the impending Comics Code to some sort of illness which forced him back home. He returned to New York and comics in late 1955 and spends the start of 1956 working exclusively for Stan Lee at what would be known as Marvel Comics. While a single Ditko drawn Marvel book shows up in 1957 (WORLD OF MYSTERY #6, Apr '57), he was thought to have returned exclusively to Charlton in late '56 (the second last book for Ditko at '56 Marvel has a cover date of October). The point being is Ditko was not thought to have touched a Marvel book until the cover date of December 1958, when Stan Lee had worked through a closet full of inventory and started hiring again.
Myth has it that Marvel owner Martin Goodman found a closet full of inventory and said not to produce any new work until the inventory had been used. In reality, Goodman was convinced by his business manager to abandon his distribution company, Atlas, and go with A.N.C, who went belly-up six months after they took over on Nov. 1, 1956. Goodman gets D.C. (National) to distribute the books via their distribution company, Independent News Co., but they will only let Goodman published a much smaller number of titles, cutting the Marvel line from 75 or so books to 16 bi-monthlies. Goodman was forced to lay off everyone but Stan Lee until getting Independent News Co. to accept distribution. After the last week of April 1957, work at Marvel for Stan Lee was very difficult to come by, hence books cover-dated October '57 to November '58 were made up of plenty of inventoried stories.
The interesting question about this pre-working-for-Charlton-period-of-1957 is how did Ditko survive living in New York city in 1956 only producing 67 total pages and NO covers for Stan Lee? Marvel probably paid better than Charlton, but not THAT much better! What are the odds Ditko had income from sources outside comics at this point? Pretty slim, one would say. Is there a chance Ditko was ghosting/assisting on other artists' work to pay the bills?
 On your right is the cover to "The Art Of Eric Stanton : Master Of Bizarre". Eric Stanton was a classmate of Ditko's at New York's "Cartoonist & Illustrators School". Ditko was very influenced by Jerry Robinson, his instructor, and made friends with Stanton, who wanted to be a Calendar Girl artist, and quickly evolved into a Fetish/Bad Girl artist.
Stanton has been quoted as saying Ditko and he shared a studio at 8th and 43rd in New York City from about 1958 to 1966. Certainly in the early '60s, as quoted again by Stanton, Ditko heavily inked his studio-mate's fetish material, examples of which can be seen on this site HERE, reprinted in the '90s by Eros Comics (an imprint of Fantagraphics).
According to Tristan Lapoussiere's "Ditko In Bondage" article in DITKOMANIA #45 (May '95), Tristan states Stanton "took Ditko as a partner in 1955 (a year during which Ditko produced almost nothing for the comics)." Later though, as if to confuse the issue, Lapoussiere states "the questions we are left with are what did Ditko do for Stanton in 1955 (if we assume that he actually joined him in 1955)."
Work backwards to DITKOMANIA #31 from Christmas '92, and fanzine founder Bill Hall has reprinted a "Stantoon" which Bill believes to be inked by Ditko. In Bill's written text on the opposing page, he states "in 1955 Ditko worked for Eric Stanton's studio producing cartoons for girly magazines. These cartoons are signed 'Stanton' and we have yet to uncover the extent of Ditko's contribution."
While neither Bill or Tristan mention a source for this information (Cat Yronwode?), if true it suggests there is another story to Ditko's output in 1954-55. It also forces us to explore the possibility of Ditko doing other work, "ghosting / assisting" if you will, to pay the rent when times in the '50s were tough (as they were often in the comics industry).
It is also relevant data because it questions the time frame surrounding the partnership of Stanton and Ditko, which led to them sharing a studio. Did Ditko do work for Stanton in 1955 upon returning to New York before hooking up with Stan Lee, and did this work take place at Stanton's studio? Did Ditko return to New York, and both artists decided to get a studio together, but did so before the supposed 1958 date? Are there any clues out there to suggest the 1958 date is inaccurate?
Below is a picture of Steve Ditko in the studio allegdly shared with Stanton. The picture comes from the above-mentioned Art Of Eric Stanton, and also features a solo shot of Stanton, as if each artist just handed the camera to the other for a quick shot. One assumes the shot was taken in 1958, but are there clues inside the picture that tell a different story? Take a look at the two covers in the top-middle and top-right of the picture...
Difficult to see the covers when they are at such difficult angles, correct? Allow me to turn them right side up...
The two images are clearly covers to comic books from Stan Lee's Marvel Comics line (thought of as "Atlas Comics" by most fans today, due to the Atlas globe on each cover, which denoted Martin Goodman's distribution company for Timely/Marvel Comics).
This is not surprising, given that we are looking at a shot of an artist's studio, but there are many questions raised once one learns the identity of the covers.
First, note the size of the covers as being what is now referred to as "twice-up" original art-sized pages. In other words, do these not look like these are the original artwork to these two covers?
Second, from the first picture above, the cover on the top middle clearly rests on art envelopes, the ones an artist would use to receive/deliver original artwork to/from the company. So, would it seem fairly safe to say Ditko has received this covers to work on in some capacity, or has finished whatever work he has done on them, and is ready to send them back? Heck, the cover on the right looks like it is still on Steve's drawing board.
There is only one problem...
Neither cover is by Steve Ditko.
Neither covers has ever been credited to Steve Ditko, nor are they signed by Ditko, in fact at least one has the signature of another artist.
The two covers in the photo above are...
The covers in question are STRANGE TALES OF THE UNUSUAL #10 and ADVENTURE INTO MYSTERY #8. As it relates to Ditko, they have June and July cover dates from 1957, up to 8 months since Ditko's second last interior work for Marvel, cover-dated November 1956.
Now, is it just a coincidence that what looks like the original art to two covers that would have been worked on in the Spring of 1957 are at Ditko and Stanton's studio, even though it is claimed they shared a studio started in 1958?
Is it just a coincidence that neither cover has been credited to Ditko throughout the annals of persons studying Ditko's bibliography, including his current co-publisher, Robin Snyder?
And is it just a coincidence that both covers are by the same artist, John Severin, noted already for his work at E.C. Comics in the early '50s, and for Stan Lee throughout the '50s?
Or is it possible that Steve Ditko, in order to make ends meet in 1956 was ghosting/assisting (on top of his own work) at Marvel/Atlas for Stan Lee's stable of artists, and continued to do so long after his own pencilling work concluded for the company in late 1956?
As has been documented, Ditko would work exclusively for Charlton from very early 1957 until the Fall of 1958, but had already been hired previous to this time to ghost/assist artists at Marvel/Atlas like Severin to make ends meet?
Ditko would work on CRACKED Magazine (home to John Severin) in the mid '80s, and Ditko has been allegedly quoted by Comics Historian Greg Theakston as saying Ditko's own inking with a pen looked very similar to that of John Severin. In fact, Ditko expressly said he had to work very hard to make sure his pen inking didn't resemble Severin's work during Ditko's days at CRACKED.
So how best to shoot down this Ditko ghosting/assisting Severin, and maybe other Atlas artists, theory during the 1956-57 years? Ditko was certainly getting alot of work from Charlton during mid '57, but they paid horribly, worse so after the infamous Charlton flood of August 18th, 1955. And that wouldn't rule out what could have been happening in 1956, when Ditko was receiving no work from Charlton. If Ditko had already established contacts with Severin et al., a return to Charlton, and their pay rates, in 1957 would not make Ditko instantly give up assisting others.
Could these covers be something other than the original art? They just appear WAY to big to be the actual issues, and one can't even seen any other pages behind the cover, can one? How would Ditko acquire stats of these covers, and why? It seems VERY difficult to shake the notion that these are the covers' original art.
The other potential fly-in-the-ointment is that there doesn't appear to be a great deal of noticeable traces of Ditko's input on these two covers. Still, when one is ghosting/assisting, it is not uncommon to submerge one's own style, so as not to overshadow the front-line penciler. Observe Ditko's assisting on Captain 3-D for Simon and Kirby in late '53, and you would be hard-pressed to notice any signs of Ditko's inking.
So, we are left with Ditko producing virtually no work in 1956 for Marvel/Atlas (67 pages), but still living away from home in New York City. We are left with a picture of Ditko from that time period, where there are present two completed covers (on original art-sized pages) by the same artist (Severin) for the company Ditko had just found work at over the past year (1956). We are left with the fact that Ditko certainly did uncredited work inking for Eric Stanton, perhaps before but certainly beyond 1957 (since his Eros-reprinted work comes from the early '60s) and we know Ditko ghosted/assisted for the Simon/Kirby studio back in 1953.
Did Ditko do finishes/ghosting/assisting on other artists for Marvel/Atlas during 1956 and 1957? Do these pictures lie? If you care to contest the above, please e-mail me at ditko37@sympatico.ca. I'll take all comers, and anyone who can disprove the theories postulated above will be welcomed with open arms.
|