Steve Ditko
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Steve Ditko (born 2 November 1927 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is a renowned comic book artist and writer best known as the co-creator of Spider-Man.
Ditko studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in New York City under Jerry Robinson and began professionally illustrating comic books in 1953. His early works were for Charlton Comics, producing science fiction, horror and mystery stories. Ditko then began working for what would become Marvel Comics.
He co-created the superhero characters of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange for Marvel with writer and editor Stan Lee. His idiosyncratic art style emphasizing mood and anxiety found favor with the reading public. The character of Spider-Man with his anxiety, angst and troubled social life meshed well with Ditko's personal style and interests which Marvel Comics eventually acknowledged with the artist getting a co-writer credit in the latter part of his run. After a run of four years on the title, Ditko is believed to have had a falling-out with Lee and left the company. The exact details of this are uncertain to this day, and although the last straw is often cited to have been a disagreement as to the secret identity of the Green Goblin, Ditko himself has said this is not the case.
He is said to have shared a studio with bondage artist Eric Stanton in the period 1958 to 1966.
He returned to Charlton where he produced such titles as Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and The Question. In the pages of The Question Ditko began infusing his own philosophy which stemmed from Ayn Rand's Objectivism.
By 1968, Ditko was producing work for DC Comics where he created characters such as The Creeper and The Hawk and the Dove. Ditko used these tales, ostensibly in the superhero genre, to espouse and explore various ethical issues. Either because many readers found the preachiness in some of these stories unpalatable, or perhaps due to disagreement with the artist's philosophy, Ditko's work was not as popularly received as previously. He worked less regularly for DC in the 1970's, creating one short-lived title, Shade, the Changing Man. Shade was later successfully revived, without Ditko's involvement, and was one of the longer-running titles in the DC Vertigo line. Ditko's more personal projects, such as Mr. A and Avenging World, display his political sentiments vividly, and have demonstrated little commercial appeal.
In recent years he has been doing collections of his works, both original and reprintes, with Robin Snyder, who was his editor at Renegade and Charlton. These have included Static, Missing Man, and the Mocker.
Ditko currently resides in New York City. Though a prolific and hard-working artist he is also an intensely private man. Preferring to let his work speak for itself, he has refused interviews, profiles and public appearances.
Characters Created
- Creeper (creator)
- Hawk & Dove (creator)
- Shade, the Changing Man (creator)
- Spider-Man (co-creator)
- Dr Strange (co-creator)
- Static (creator)
- Mocker (creator)
- Missing Man (creator)
- Question (creator)
- Blue Beetle (creator)
- Mr. A. (creator)
- Captain Atom (co-creator)
- Killjoy (creator)
- Speedball (creator)
External links
- Exhaustive Steve Ditko website (http://www.ditko.comics.org)
- Steve Ditko.com (http://www.ditko.comics.com)
- Steve Ditko discussion group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ditko-l)
- "The Amazing Steve Ditko" (http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/06/03/ditko/index_np.html) by Douglas Wolk, Salon.com, June 3, 2005de:Steve Ditko