Steve Ditko actually wrote about Spider-man... A LOT 5 5

[kav]

12 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

The webbing on Spider-Man's mask looks more like reptile scales to me.

Because they are going in the wrong direction.  He had one job!

[Prince Namor]

Strange that it was Romita who drew a 'Sweeter' Gwen...

Not sure everyone will get that...

[VintageComics]

On 2/22/2020 at 11:40 PM, Randall Dowling said:

On 2/22/2020 at 11:46 AM, VintageComics said:

I think it's a safe bet that Spidey wouldn't have been as successful without Ditko.

Kirby could NEVER get Spider-man right, no matter how hard he tried.

Yeah, he was just terrible at drawing Spider-Man...  

I shouldn't have said never because he did nail that one cover image (although didn't Ditko ink that cover?)

But he NEVER got Spider-man right in stories again IMO.

[VintageComics]

22 hours ago, N e r V said:

A lot of artists struggled with the web pattern. I think Romita had Ditko explain it to him on how to do it when he did the Spider-Man crossover in Daredevil. I seem to remember him talking about it at some point. There was a system on how to get it right.

Kirby just couldn't give Spidey the fluidity that he (or Daredevil) needed.

It was fine for bulky characters but for some reason he couldn't make Spidey or DD look agile

[kav]

3 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

Kirby just couldn't give Spidey the fluidity that he (or Daredevil) needed.

It was fine for bulky characters but for some reason he couldn't make Spidey or DD look agile

He had trouble with Superman too.

[N e r V]

17 minutes ago, kav said:

He had trouble with Superman too.

He couldn’t do Supes face correctly hence DC resorting to redraws and his body looked more “New Gods” like. It makes it all the more ironic that he once claimed to have created Superman. Still I kind of like the weirdness of it all...

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by N e r V

[Ken Aldred]

2 hours ago, Chuck Gower said:

Strange that it was Romita who drew a 'Sweeter' Gwen...

Not sure everyone will get that...

I'm guessing it's an obscure romance comic reference.  But I'm not Googling.

[Ken Aldred]

33 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

Kirby just couldn't give Spidey the fluidity that he (or Daredevil) needed.

It was fine for bulky characters but for some reason he couldn't make Spidey or DD look agile

I felt that he tended to make Spidey himself look too bulky at times, whereas I always saw the character drawn right as looking very slim, but deceptively powerful.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Ken Aldred

[500Club]

5 hours ago, N e r V said:

FYI, I grew up thinking all those sales figures were accurate too. Seemed like a cool thing to have insights into what sold before my time. As a Marvel employee explained it was just something to get done and no one cared what you put in there or who did it. In their own words it could have been a janitor filling in those numbers. There’s a lot more going on with the then returnable basis for comics that I was told but I’m not going to derail this thread about it.

I vote for you to derail away.  I'd like to hear it.

[VintageComics]

34 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

I felt that he tended to make Spidey himself look too bulky at times, whereas I always saw the character drawn right as looking very slim, but deceptively powerful.

It's one of the things I liked best about his earliest Thor renditions as well.

In JIM #83 he looked so lithe and fluid until Kirby's art took a much bulkier turn shortly after. Joe Sinnot's inks really seemed to bring out this fluidity in everything he inked, especially Kirby's Thor.

I assume Heck's and Colleta's and Stone's inks later in the book changed the look.

 

[Prince Namor]

1 hour ago, Ken Aldred said:

I'm guessing it's an obscure romance comic reference.  But I'm not Googling.

Eric Stanton was a BDSM/Fetish artist who also shared work studio's with Ditko from 1958-1968. One of his long running characters was called 'Sweeter Gwen'. It is believed the two men helped each other with inking, backgrounds, talking out ideas, etc. 

Some Stanton quotes:

‘There were times Steve would spend twenty hours straight doing a comic,’ Stanton remembered.

"He thought my stuff was funny. We’d laugh a lot,’ Stanton said, as he fondly remembered years later. ‘Every experience that I had with Steve was terrific, as far as I was concerned.’”

According to Eric Stanton, “I made ‘Sweeter Gwen’ from John Willie’s ‘Gwendoline.’ I roughed out (penciled) 30 pages and took them over to Burtman and he said ‘Great,' but then I got another commission, and I had to stop on ‘Sweeter Gwen.' "

"I asked Steve Ditko to ink it for me, and we’d split the money 50% - 50%. So then we story-boarded, like we used to do for Spider-Man. We gave ideas to each other. We came up with a very beautiful story." 

It's difficult to find tame enough piece's of his work to share on this forum, but below is one of the few examples that I think can pass...

Source (NSFW): http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/695/ditko3.html

Edited February 25, 2020 by Chuck Gower

[N e r V]

58 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

It's one of the things I liked best about his earliest Thor renditions as well.

In JIM #83 he looked so lithe and fluid until Kirby's art took a much bulkier turn shortly after. Joe Sinnot's inks really seemed to bring out this fluidity in everything he inked, especially Kirby's Thor.

I assume Heck's and Colleta's and Stone's inks later in the book changed the look.

 

I like Sinnott too. Below is one of my favorite covers in the run.

 

But despite the controversy over his erasing stuff I like Colletta on him best. His work on romance material gave the work a nice fine feather ink look. Cory Sedlmeier once said the mojo was just right. I agree.
 

(Not my copies above. All mine are minty mint... 

Edited February 25, 2020 by N e r V

[kav]

9 minutes ago, N e r V said:

I like Sinnott too. Below is one of my favorite covers in the run.

 

But despite the controversy over his erasing stuff I like Colletta on him best. His work on romance material gave the work a nice fine feather ink look. Cory Sedlmeier once said the mojo was just right. I agree.
 

Colleta absolutely destroyed Curt Swan's work but he could not destroy Kirby.  The Kirby/Colletta stuff is great.  My favorite thor cover is 156.  Favorite storyline is 132-134 the Tana Nile/Colonizers/Recorder.   Optimal movie material there.  When Tana Nile appears at police station to claim the earth that's some top notch Stan Lee scripting!

 

[rptcomics]

On 2/23/2020 at 4:29 PM, Chuck Gower said:

Yes, very interesting how ASM turned into a romance book after Romita took it over. Which is great - I'm a big fan of those books and his women are some of the best drawn of the era. Just that... it's very interesting.

I loved how the women were drawn then, also. I always felt though, that Ginger (Tina Louise) from Giligan's Island possibly had something to do with the creation of MJ. Does anyone else feel that? They just look so much alike. If they did a movie back then, I always thought she would be the perfect MJ!

 

[rptcomics]

1 hour ago, Chuck Gower said:

Eric Stanton was a BDSM/Fetish artist who also shared work studio's with Ditko from 1958-1968. One of his long running characters was called 'Sweeter Gwen'. It is believed the two men helped each other with inking, backgrounds, talking out ideas, etc. 

Some Stanton quotes:

‘There were times Steve would spend twenty hours straight doing a comic,’ Stanton remembered.

"He thought my stuff was funny. We’d laugh a lot,’ Stanton said, as he fondly remembered years later. ‘Every experience that I had with Steve was terrific, as far as I was concerned.’”

According to Eric Stanton, “I made ‘Sweeter Gwen’ from John Willie’s ‘Gwendoline.’ I roughed out (penciled) 30 pages and took them over to Burtman and he said ‘Great,' but then I got another commission, and I had to stop on ‘Sweeter Gwen.' "

"I asked Steve Ditko to ink it for me, and we’d split the money 50% - 50%. So then we story-boarded, like we used to do for Spider-Man. We gave ideas to each other. We came up with a very beautiful story." 

It's difficult to find tame enough piece's of his work to share on this forum, but below is one of the few examples that I think can pass...

Source (NSFW): http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/695/ditko3.html

A suave, ladies man JJJ without the mustache?

[kav]

1 minute ago, rptcomics said:

A suave, ladies man JJJ without the mustache?

Thats one weird lookin head on that dude.

[kav]

4 minutes ago, kav said:

Thats one weird lookin head on that dude.

Hey i think I saw that dude on Wild Wild West!

[N e r V]

Since Thor is brought up now in this thread how about this story by Ditko done a bit earlier...
 

 

 “Well, this is a surprise. From Charlton's OUT OF THIS WORLD# 11 back in 1959, we find a weakly blond man entering a cave in Scandanavia and emerging with impressive muscles and the Hammer of Thor. He uses this new power to repel invaders. Huh. There are more differences than similarities here to the Marvel Thor origin in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY# 83 three years later, to be sure, but it's interesting. Comics were a small world in that era, creators chatted and gossiped and swapped ideas cheerfully. Maybe Stan Lee or Jack Kirby read this story, maybe Steve Ditko was in the office one day and said, "You know, I did a Thor story a few years ago" and told them about it.”

 

 

[N e r V]

1 hour ago, kav said:

Colleta absolutely destroyed Curt Swan's work but he could not destroy Kirby.  The Kirby/Colletta stuff is great.  My favorite thor cover is 156.  Favorite storyline is 132-134 the Tana Nile/Colonizers/Recorder.   Optimal movie material there.  When Tana Nile appears at police station to claim the earth that's some top notch Stan Lee scripting!

 

You should like this...

 

[Bronty]

6 hours ago, N e r V said:

Since Thor is brought up now in this thread how about this story by Ditko done a bit earlier...
 

 

 “Well, this is a surprise. From Charlton's OUT OF THIS WORLD# 11 back in 1959, we find a weakly blond man entering a cave in Scandanavia and emerging with impressive muscles and the Hammer of Thor. He uses this new power to repel invaders. Huh. There are more differences than similarities here to the Marvel Thor origin in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY# 83 three years later, to be sure, but it's interesting. Comics were a small world in that era, creators chatted and gossiped and swapped ideas cheerfully. Maybe Stan Lee or Jack Kirby read this story, maybe Steve Ditko was in the office one day and said, "You know, I did a Thor story a few years ago" and told them about it.”

 

 

There were other earlier thor stories in the comics also.