ACE COMICS
AND THE ART OF STEVE DITKO
by Ron Frantz
Chapter Three
I sent copies of both letters to Gill before he began writing the first script. The
only remaining problem was finding a suitable inker for Ditko. At the top of my list was
Dick Ayers, thinking it would give the art a silver age Marvel look. I first spoke with
George Evans, who had worked with Ayers on some DC war stories a decade earlier. I called
the number Evans had given me and discovered that it was no longer in service. Marie
Severin had known Ayers at Marvel, but the address she had on file was ancient. Dick
Giordano checked the personnel files at DC, only to come up empty handed. I was beginning
to think that Ayers had vanished from the face of the Earth. There were some rumors going
around that Ayers had passed away. Under the circumstances, I had no choice but to look
for someone else.
Next on my list was Chic Stone. Once again, Marie Severin had an out of date address.
She checked at Marvel and turned up an address for Stone in Brooklyn, but no phone number
was available. Marie commented that Stone had a bad heart and it was possible that he was
deceased. The last place I knew Stone to have worked was at Archie Comics a few years earlier.
I made a phone call to Archie and had an interesting conversation with Victor Gorelick, the
Managing Editor. Gorelick was friendly, but not especially helpful. He confirmed that Stone
had serious health problems. To the best of his knowledge, Stone had not worked for some
time. Gorelick suggested that I might do better to find someone else.
By this time, I was starting to get a little nervous as the deadline for getting the job
to the printer was rapidly approaching. Jerry De Fuccio suggested several "old timers" of
his acquaintance who might be interested in inking Ditko: Kurt Schaffenberger, Tony Di
Prita and Gil Fox. De Fuccio gave me their phone numbers and I started calling.
My first call was to Di Prita. Much to my surprise, Di Prita was not very cordial. I
was a little surprised that De Fuccio had suggested Di Prita, who I presumed to be busy
drawing the Rex Morgan newspaper strip. Judging from his tone of voice, Di Prita found
my offer to ink another artist insulting. Evidently, Di Prita felt he was above that kind
of thing...or maybe he was just having a bad hair day. You never know what is going on in
another person's mind.
I found Gil Fox charming. While we chatted, Fox mentioned that he was ghosting one of
the syndicated newspaper strips for King Features, filling in for the regular artist who
had been ill. When I asked him about the possibility of inking Ditko, Fox seemed amused.
Fox commented that it had been many years since he had worked on a super hero character,
and he found the idea fascinating. Laughing, Fox said he was tempted to do the job just
for the fun of it. After a few minutes of discussion, Fox said that as much as he would
like to do the job, he was really too busy. Our conversation ended on a pleasant note.
Fox suggested that I stay in touch and he offered to check around and see if anyone he
knew might be interested.
I next gave a call to Schaffenberger. We had a short, but pleasant conversation.
Schaffenberger said that he was basically retired and really wasn't interested in doing
any work. It seemed that Schaffenberger had vision problems due to cataracts. I'm sure
this had a lot to do with his decision to retire.
I had talked to Pete Morisi about the possibility of his inking Ditko. Initially, Morisi
seemed at least marginally receptive to the idea. To give him some idea of what to expect,
I sent Morisi copies of pages that Ditko had recently done for an Avengers Annual. A short
time later Morisi replied:
"Sorry, but Ditko's breakdowns aren't my cup of inking tea.
I pencil tighter than that for myself...and I KNOW the result I want. The meat of each
panel seems to be there, but there's just enough missing artwork to require a lot of pencil
input by the inker -- a chore that would add quite a bit of time spent on each page. If
you're willing to pay Ditko for pencil pages...how come he's giving you breakdowns?"
I really didn't have a sensible answer for Morisi, beyond the obvious. With Ditko,
you either did it his way, or not at all. A couple of months earlier, I had met Jim Shooter
at the American Booksellers Association Convention held at New Orleans. Shooter, of course,
was the Managing Editor at Marvel. The fan press has never been kind to Shooter, but I
found him to be quite likeable. We talked about an hour, discussing various things. It
pleased me that Shooter spoke very highly of Ditko. It seemed to me that if Shooter didn't
have a problem with Ditko's pencils, why should I?
At this point, the story takes an ironic turn. Pat Boyette suggested that I use his old
friend, Art Capello as an inker on Ditko. My initial reaction was kind of lukewarm because
I was not familiar with Capello's work. After we had talked for a few minutes, Boyette told
me that Capello was getting on in years. His health wasn't very good and his finances were
in sad shape. Capello needed the work in the worst possible way. Finally, Boyette put it
this way: "I would consider it a personal favor if you would give Artie the job".
A person would have to have a heart made out of concrete to refuse a request like that.
It might not have been a good business, but sometimes there are more important things to
consider when making a decision that affects other people's lives. With pleasure, I suggested
that Boyette call Capello and work out the details. Boyette called me back the next day to
say that Capello was ready to start inking anytime. Since I was still in need of a
letterer, Boyette agreed to letter the story before sending it on to Capello to be inked. About a week later, Boyette called again. I could tell right away that something was wrong. Boyette didn't sound like himself, his voice cracking with emotion. Finally, Boyette said: "I hate to tell you this, Ron...but Artie Capello died a couple of days ago. I guess you are going to have to find another inker. I really felt bad for Boyette as there are few things in life more painful than the death of a friend.
A short time later, Joe Gill asked if I knew Frank McLaughlin? I had never met
McLaughlin, but I had been a fan of his work for years. I recalled that McLaughlin had
inked several Ditko Captain Atom stories for Charlton in the 60s. I thought McLaughlin
would be perfect! Gill was kind enough to call McLaughlin, to see if he might be
interested. As things worked out, McLaughlin was between inking jobs at DC and had a
little extra time on his hands. Gill told me that McLaughlin would be expecting my call.
I called McLaughlin a little later in the day and we had a nice chat. McLaughlin found
it curious that I had chosen Ditko for the assignment. When I asked why, McLaughlin told me
(in a very diplomatic way) that Ditko could be difficult to work with. When I pressed him
for details, McLaughlin related the following story: A few years earlier, DC bought
publishing rights to most of the 60s Charlton hero characters. Dick Giordano wanted to
team Ditko with McLaughlin on a new Captain Atom comic.
Giordano set up a meeting in his office to discuss the project. The meeting started out
quite cordial. Then, Ditko said that he didn't like the story line, because "super heroes
should not take the place of the United States military". McLaughlin and Giordano had
difficulty understanding Ditko's viewpoint. Ditko said that he would consider drawing
Captain Atom, but only with a particular writer of his choice. To make things complicated,
that writer was unacceptable to Giordano.
After that, Giordano suggested that Ditko and McLaughlin team up on Firestorm. Again,
after reading the script, Ditko said he wanted nothing to do with it. At that point, Giordano
shrugged his shoulders and said to Ditko, "I guess we really don't have anything to discuss."
The meeting ended abruptly when Ditko said: "I guess we don't". Ditko left the room without
saying another word.
Let me say, for the record, that I never had a problem of any kind while working with
Ditko. I always found Ditko to be friendly, cooperative, and very professional. For example,
when Ditko was drawing the first issue of The Face, he wanted to make a minor change. This
involved adapting a two panel sequence into three. It was certainly no big deal as far as
I was concerned. While we were talking about it on the phone, I told Ditko to feel free to
make any changes he wanted. It wasn't necessary to clear it with me, as I respected his
judgement, However, Ditko was not comfortable with that. He had very definite ideas about
the division of labor. Ditko didn't mind offering a suggestion which he thought would improve
the story, but he had no intention of assuming the role of editor by making unauthorized
changes. In other words, he was not going to do my job for me.
Ditko probably had a good point. On several future occasions, Ditko suggested similar
changes. In my mind this was a formality, as each time I told Ditko to go ahead. But from
Ditko's point of view, the final decision was mine and not his.
I had some minor problems with McLaughlin while he was inking the second issue of
The Face. DC had called McLaughlin with a rush job on Superman. He stopped working
on The Face to do the DC job. This was a little annoying, but I could understand his
situation. It was almost a month before McLaughlin was able to finish inking the second
issue of The Face.
As much as I liked McLaughlin, I felt it necessary to find someone more dependable. I
started looking around for another inker. I discussed the situation with Boyette, who I
hoped might fill in for an issue. Boyette, cringed at the thought of working on a hero
character. I remember him telling me: "If I have to draw another fist fight or flying
crotch scene, I will throw up on my shoe". A short time later Boyette told Alex Toth
about my predicament. In passing conversation, Toth mentioned that he would be interested
in inking Ditko and wanted to talk to me about it.
I found that concept fascinating. To the best of my knowledge, Toth had never inked
another artist. That evening, I called Toth to discuss the matter. Toth had not been working
much, following the recent death of his wife, Understandably, Toth experienced a period of
depression. When I talked with Toth about inking Ditko, he was in a positive mood and
seemed quite anxious to start work. However, several weeks passed before Ditko finished
pencilling the third issue. In the meanwhile, Toth experienced a change of heart. After
Toth had seen Ditko's pencils, he no longer wanted to do the job. Toth's initial reaction
was that there was too much contrast between his style and Ditko's.
Of course, I didn't agree. I spent about an hour talking on the phone with Toth, trying
to get him to change his mind. For a good while, he seemed to waver back and forth. Toth
said: "Maybe I could do the job, but it would be necessary for me to redraw a lot of it".
I told him that was not a problem. I encouraged Toth to do the job any way he wanted. Then,
Toth decided: "I can't do that, it wouldn't be fair to Ditko".
With a growing sense of frustration, I told Toth that Ditko didn't care. If he didn't
believe me, I offered to give him Ditko's phone number so he could ask himself. Finally,
after a lot of conversation that seemed to be going nowhere, Toth suggested that he could
do a cover instead. That worked out quite well, as Toth did a marvelous painted cover for
Face #3.
CONTINUED...
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