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Post by cromagnonman on Jul 8, 2018 18:45:14 GMT
Very sad to hear of the passing of the legendary Steve Ditko. He was a true visionary whose place amongst the comics immortals is assured. Brilliant storyteller, consumate artist and a creator with a wholly unique and surreal imagination. One can never fail to marvel - excuse the pun - at his acid trip Dr Strange escapades. And as an avowed sword and sorcery junkie I'm very fond of a short lived series he did for DC called Stalker. (Could never make head nor tail of stuff like Shade the Changing Man).
But sad as his passing is, I find it equally sad that there are those who are using it as an opportunity to put another boot into the ailing Stan Lee (as if he didn't have enough to contend with currently). "Another butterfly crushed by the Stan Lee gravy train" is indicative of the sort of sentiment I've seen given expression in Ditko tributes.
Now I'm no Lee apologist by any means. Deliberately or otherwise he was often guilty of belittling the input of the artists he worked with. As the editor of the comic books he was the voice of the creative process and too often that voice served his own ego. His version of events documented in his ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS series of books - which so infuriated Kirby - is almost certainly wishful thinking on his part. I have no doubt that Kirby and Ditko alone were wholly responsible for most of the raw creativity of most of the signature Marvel characters and concepts. But be that as it may, I can't agree with this modern trend for marginalising the significance of Lee's input, or dismissing it altogether. He may have skewed the original intentions of the artist's stories and, in Ditko's case, allegedly - liberalised the intended right wing sentiments, but his distinctive word balloons and captions allowed Kirby and Ditko's work to enter mainstream culture in a way in which they never again achieved without him. And without them Lee never exhibited anywhere near the same sort of imaginative gusto. Those great 60s comic-books truly were collaborations, only not in the way in which either scripter or artist came to believe.
I find it sad now to read old comics that once gave me so much pleasure knowing the sort of poisonous bitterness and resentment that they were stewed in.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 8, 2018 22:26:45 GMT
But be that as it may, I can't agree with this modern trend for marginalising the significance of Lee's input, or dismissing it altogether. He may have skewed the original intentions of the artist's stories and, in Ditko's case, allegedly - liberalised the intended right wing sentiments, but his distinctive word balloons and captions allowed Kirby and Ditko's work to enter mainstream culture in a way in which they never again achieved without him. And without them Lee never exhibited anywhere near the same sort of imaginative gusto. Those great 60s comic-books truly were collaborations, only not in the way in which either scripter or artist came to believe. I find it sad now to read old comics that once gave me so much pleasure knowing the sort of poisonous bitterness and resentment that they were stewed in. I am with you here. As off-putting and idiotic I always thought Lee`s self-promotion, every time I read this about him contributing nothing worthwhile to Kirby`s and Ditko`s work, I wondered why the other writers didn't complain. Under Romita Spider-Man climbed new heights saleswise, what about Colan and all the others working with Lee? These books were true collaborations. Just look at the later solitary work of all those people. Just take Kirby. He is a great artist, but his writing is terrible.
I fear I never was a fan of Ditko`s style. Back when I read my first Marvels nearly 50 years ago, I had a hard time with the early Spider-Man. How could this artwork became such a success? But a few years ago I read his Dr.Strange again and recognized how unique this really was. Also I found a new appreciation of Spider-Man.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 9, 2018 13:29:19 GMT
But be that as it may, I can't agree with this modern trend for marginalising the significance of Lee's input, or dismissing it altogether. He may have skewed the original intentions of the artist's stories and, in Ditko's case, allegedly - liberalised the intended right wing sentiments, but his distinctive word balloons and captions allowed Kirby and Ditko's work to enter mainstream culture in a way in which they never again achieved without him. And without them Lee never exhibited anywhere near the same sort of imaginative gusto. Those great 60s comic-books truly were collaborations, only not in the way in which either scripter or artist came to believe. I find it sad now to read old comics that once gave me so much pleasure knowing the sort of poisonous bitterness and resentment that they were stewed in. I am with you here. As off-putting and idiotic I always thought Lee`s self-promotion, every time I read this about him contributing nothing worthwhile to Kirby`s and Ditko`s work, I wondered why the other writers didn't complain. Under Romita Spider-Man climbed new heights saleswise, what about Colan and all the others working with Lee? These books were true collaborations. Just look at the later solitary work of all those people. Just take Kirby. He is a great artist, but his writing is terrible.
I fear I never was a fan of Ditko`s style. Back when I read my first Marvels nearly 50 years ago, I had a hard time with the early Spider-Man. How could this artwork became such a success? But a few years ago I read his Dr.Strange again and recognized how unique this really was. Also I found a new appreciation of Spider-Man. I think that Steve Ditko's run on Doctor Strange is the best that Marvel ever got. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 9, 2018 17:19:27 GMT
I love the occult trippiness of the Ditko-era Dr. Strange. He exploited the potential of the medium in a way that no one had before.
I've seen the film with Benedict Cumberbatch twice, and I think it does a fair job of capturing the weirdness of the setting.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 9, 2018 19:52:30 GMT
I think that Steve Ditko's run on Doctor Strange is the best that Marvel ever got.
In terms of sheer inventiveness you could be right. But as far as stories go, I would always vote for the Englehart/Brunner run. After that there were more downs then ups, untill the series died in the 90s slowly and painful.
The movie left me cold. I am not a big fan of the Marvel movies (or DC). Some I liked, most of them not. Strange took itself too seriously. I could live with the usual changes, even if the Ancient One was painful, but it was too much by the numbers.
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Post by cromagnonman on Jul 10, 2018 9:37:22 GMT
But be that as it may, I can't agree with this modern trend for marginalising the significance of Lee's input, or dismissing it altogether. He may have skewed the original intentions of the artist's stories and, in Ditko's case, allegedly - liberalised the intended right wing sentiments, but his distinctive word balloons and captions allowed Kirby and Ditko's work to enter mainstream culture in a way in which they never again achieved without him. And without them Lee never exhibited anywhere near the same sort of imaginative gusto. Those great 60s comic-books truly were collaborations, only not in the way in which either scripter or artist came to believe. I find it sad now to read old comics that once gave me so much pleasure knowing the sort of poisonous bitterness and resentment that they were stewed in. I am with you here. As off-putting and idiotic I always thought Lee`s self-promotion, every time I read this about him contributing nothing worthwhile to Kirby`s and Ditko`s work, I wondered why the other writers didn't complain. Under Romita Spider-Man climbed new heights saleswise, what about Colan and all the others working with Lee? These books were true collaborations. Just look at the later solitary work of all those people. Just take Kirby. He is a great artist, but his writing is terrible.
I fear I never was a fan of Ditko`s style. Back when I read my first Marvels nearly 50 years ago, I had a hard time with the early Spider-Man. How could this artwork became such a success? But a few years ago I read his Dr.Strange again and recognized how unique this really was. Also I found a new appreciation of Spider-Man.
I think that's an excellent point. Lee worked with a whole raft of excellent artists on those 60s books: Romita Sr and Colan you mentioned, but also Marie Severin, Gil Kane, Buscema, Heck and Trimpe to name just a few, but none of them were conceptualizers in the same way that Kirby and Ditko were, and I don't recall anything new arising out of those collaborations to match the rich seam of inventiveness he'd mined with them. If you take the 70 or so issues of Amazing Spider-Man that Lee wrote following Ditko's departure they boast very little new of any lasting significance, with the possible exception of the Kingpin. The same applies to the post Kirby period of Lee's stint on Fantastic Four. Critics would argue that this only serves to reinforce their view that Lee was very far from being the wellspring of creativity that he portrayed himself as being. But what Lee was very adept at doing was in exploiting the vast body of original concepts and characters that Kirby and Ditko had bequeathed him and making damn good comics out of them. In contrast Kirby's own work was devoid of warmth and humanity and gravitas because he couldn't write remotely plausible dialogue for toffee. At the end of the day it seems as futile to favour one creator's input over the other as it is to speculate upon who first set foot on the summit of Everest, Hillary or Tenzing. It doesn't matter because the one could never have achieved what they did without the other. |
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Post by helrunar on Jul 10, 2018 16:34:32 GMT
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