Space Wars by Steve Ditko
01/04/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
publisher: Vanguard. 144 page illustrated softcover. Price: $16.95 (US). ISBN: 1-887591-67-2. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.creativemix.com/vanguard
This book really should be called 'Steve Ditko: The Charlton Years' as this is a selection of 21 comic stories from the 50s prior to his working for Marvel and involved in the creation of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.
Looking at these stories, I remember reading collective anthologies in the UK during rainy break-times in 60s junior school which must have included some of these stories. Their release over here didn't say which company released them and I didn't really pursue them when I got interested in American colour comics.
I do remember Charlton pay rates were never particularly great and artists working for them had to work fast although mostly unsupervised. Ditko could work at a considerable pace and could layout and work quickly as well as tell a decent story. It's interesting looking at his early work a certain amount of stock heads that would later evolve into the likes of Peter Parker and Stephen Strange. Oddly enough, there aren't enough female heads here to spot the early Betty Brant or Clea. I make this distinction cos you can follow typical Ditko stock from Marvel to DC's 'Shade The Changing Man' later in his career.
It goes without saying here that the stories here are atypical of 50s style when there was considerable confusion between distances of stars and galaxies. Forgetting that, the whole point of these stories tends to work more as moral tales that we learn from with our encounters with aliens or them with us. There's some wars but they aren't always sorted out with the missile or invasion. In fact, my favourite has to be 'Way Out, Man' where beatniks, squares and aliens get together. If anything, this has to be an indication that Ditko wrote this one because I remember him not being exactly partial to beatniks but this comes out as particularly funny with the aliens having their own taste in our culture.
With most of these stories being around 5 pages long, it's a demonstration of how much story can be put in so little space especially with no repeating characters. I suspect this book will be favoured more by comicbook historians and Ditko fans more than the younger current comicbook readers which is a shame as it's a clear demonstration of how comic artists all have to come up from poorer beginnings. It is great that Vanguard has shown so much of Ditko's early work. It's no wonder Stan Lee thought he had the touch to bring Spider-Man to life.
GF Willmetts |
|
Add SFcrowsnest.com daily news updates to your
own web site or blog - just cut and paste the code
below...
POST YOUR COMMENTS  CLICK HERE TO HAVE YOUR SAY
|
