Steve Ditko - Strange Suspense!

Strange Suspense is volume one in The Steve Ditko Archives from Fantagraphics. This handsome and highly readable tome brings together in chronological order Ditko's earliest work in comics. That order is the order in which the work was produced and not necessarily when it was published, so the reader can watch Ditko's style develop over time. This is his Pre-Code work, the raw stuff which informed comics before the Comics Code was created and leveraged public opinion to make comics more palatable to the parents of the country. These stories are violent, sometimes wildly so. Steve Ditko was a young man, fresh from the military and from his training at The School of Visual Arts under comic masters such as Jerry Robinson. Bringing his adoration for Will Eisner and blending it with a palpable respect for Mort Meskin, Ditko of this early time creates stories filled with movement and vibrant realistic backgrounds. He's drawing for the most part wild stories of science fiction and horror, so his characters are outsized deformities of reality but memorable. I find Ditko's eyes are the feature that seems most dominant to me on his pages from this era. He's drawing for several folks, including briefly the Simon and Kirby studio, but most of the work in this book is from Charlton books such as This Magazine is Haunted, Strange Suspense Stories, and The Thing. (These were titles inherited by Charlton from the going-out-of-comic-book-business Fawcett folks.) The best stories in fact are from the latter, a comic for which Ditko created several very memorable covers as well. 

Now the work here will surprise folks used to classic Ditko, as in these early years he's still developing and hasn't become that distinctive talent we're accustomed to. His work is very like his teacher Robinson and his mentor Meskin. Some say he and Joe Kubert, another up and comer at the time, have very similar styles and in years past have been mistaken for one another. I like this version of Ditko. IT was not only good on horror and sci-fi tales but effective on a single romance tale and one western and a single gangster yarn from his earliest days. I find its use of detail effective for the kinds of stories being told, gothic horrors with a science fiction edge. His eyes are distinctive in particular. My favorite two stories from this period are "Cinderella" and "Rumplestiltskin", two very weird and dark interpretations of the classic fairy tales. The former in particular is a romp with twist on twist and ironically, it's also the subject of Ditko's very first cover as seen above. The story "The Worm Turns" is a ferocious tale with an amazing giant monster creation. Here are the remaining covers Ditko produced in order during this period. 

Steve Ditko had to leave comic book work for a couple of reasons. One was that the arrival of the Comics Code knocked off a lot of the work he'd been getting, and he became deathly ill. More on that next week. 

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Ditko In 3-D!

For any fan of the work Joe Simon and Jack Kirby one oddity that always pops up is the single issue of Harvey's Captain 3-D from 1953. What we have is a full-blown superhero adventure, the first costumed hero the team had produced since the ill-fated Stuntman for Harvey many years before. What we have is a comic which makes pretty good use of a trendy technique which from time to time captures the whimsy of pop culture. Sadly, what we don't have is a very good comic book story.

Captain 3-D was one of several 3-D offerings from the company when the technique caught fire in the early 50's. But just as fast as it blazed into being it sputtered out. Harvey comics went away from the idea arguably because the craze was short-lived but also because they came under legal scrutiny for the way in which they used the technology which other comics publishers claimed was poaching. Whatever the reasons, the story of Captain 3-D lasted one single issue.

Briefly the tale is about a young lad named Danny Davis who is given a mysterious book by a mysterious man who is promptly melted into nothingness by another mysterious figure who likewise goes up in smoke, thus making Danny's pleas to the police seem like tomfoolery. But soon when he is alone, he activates "The Book of D" by putting on some weird glasses and out of the pages leaps a costumed hero named Captain 3-D who immediately battles some thugs who are breaking into Danny's digs. After dispatching the baddies, the Captain explains to Danny that the book is a relic of an ancient time and place dubbed "The Land of D" when the Captain's people (of whom he is the last survivor) and the "Cat People" battled for control of the world. Both were seemingly destroyed but not before the Captain was hidden as a safeguard in the book which had been passed down for generations beginning in mankind's prehistoric past. In the two remaining stories Captain 3-D emerges to battle Tigra the queen of the Cat People and a mobster by the name of "Ironhat McGinty" (because he has an iron cap surgically implanted in his noggin no less).

This issue is of particular interest right now because it is among the very first professional comics work of Steve Ditko who was part of the Simon and Kirby staff at the time and in particular was enamored with the work of Mort Meskin.

 

And that was that. To read the complete issue check this, but bring your handy 3-D specs if you want to enjoy it completely.

There was going to be a second issue of Captain 3-D but it was scotched when the bottom fell out of the extremely hot but extremely brief 3-D trend. The artwork for the cover of that never was comic was at long last published in 1999 by AC Comics for an issue of Golden Age Men of Mystery. The issue featured a lot of unpublished art for that book as well other features on the work of Simon and Kirby for Harvey Comics. It seems Greg Theakston had the unfinished artwork for one story from the issue and sent it to Ditko's studio since he had been scheduled all those decades before to ink the Mort Meskin pencils. Ditko though decided to pin up the pages around his studio for others to take their pick to ink and many of the pages went missing. You can see the penciled pages in small format in this issue from copies which were made. 

The character was impactful for more than a few future pros such as Roy Thomas, Bill Black and Grass Green among others. And he proved to inspire other creations as seen below. 

And that sums up how I feel about Captain 3-D too, an interesting curiosity, but less effective because of the special effects than without them. Reading the story sans the 3-D effects the panels are woefully static (for logical reasons) and that undermines the general fluid tendencies of the usual Simon and Kirby effort. Also, the story of Captain 3-D himself is in places robust but overall cumbersome and if it had been given a few more outings would've in my opinion worn itself out purely in narrative terms.

Captain 3-D is a lovely image, a great icon of a long-lost time when we like to imagine life was simpler to understand, but aside from that nostalgic impulse, he's a mildly mediocre hero, and not up to the usual standards of Simon and Kirby. But it did give Steve Ditko a place to begin. 

In the 90's Ditko produced two 3-D comics of his own. Both were written by Jack C. Harris and produced by 3-D Zone. I hope to review both of these later this year. I own one, but I still need to acquire the other. 

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The Simon And Kirby Dream Works!

The Strange World of Your Dreams was a truly oddball comic book series from the Simon and Kirby duo. They were casting about in the days of the horror comic backlash for a different way tell a creepy story. With the eyes of the country's censors eager for comic books to foul up the industry was nervous. Books like this which had a staid style and were couched in a cloak of psychoanalysis offered a way in.

Actually for the true Simon and Kirby devotee there is relatively little of their work here. They contributed some evocative and memorable covers and each of the first three issues had a Simon and Kirby story but the key artist on the project was Simon and Kirby studio artist Mort Meskin. Meskin was a complicated fellow who seemed unusually suited for a comic book dealing with folks troubled by their dreams and his artwork was ideal for this kind of storytelling. Other members of the studio like Bill Draut offered up stories.

The stories vary a little, but mostly we have our narrator, a pipe-smoking expert named Dr. Richard Temple who would listen to some poor patient's dream and then offer up a rational explanation which usually put the patient's mind at rest, but sometimes not. Temple was a handsome fellow, aided by a lovely secretary who stood by as the resolute voice of absolute reason in and around the irrational images of the dreams.

Some of the stories read as more straightforward mystery tales, minus Temple's influence. Meskin usually did those. Later issues of the short run began to feature stories which focused oddly on Astrology as a key plot element. There were so many that you got the feeling you were reading a different comic. This was an interesting experiment with an oddly stately feel which allowed even the text stories (all featuring Temple) to be unusually readable.

There was to be a fifth issue of the series but it never materialized as the series wrapped after four installments.

There was another story which didn't feature Temple by name but was for all intents and purposes another Temple story which appeared in an early issue of Black Magic.

If you want to see these glorious stories at their best I recommend the Yoe Books collection which has some background information along with the tales themselves in an oddly handsome design.

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To Read, Perchance To Dream!

The summer is fading and another year of educational folly looms. But before the avalanche of eager learners descends upon me, I'd like to read a little bit more choice Jack Kirby goodness. The theme (such as it is) this month is dreams and that means taking a look at the Simon and Kirby studio offering The Strange World of Your Dreams, a four issue oddity which many devoted fans of the dynamic duo regard as some of their best.

And of course there is The Sandman from the pages of Adventure Comics, the venerable DC feature Simon and Kirby took over (alongside Manhunter and new features Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos) when they took their talents across NYC to the still developing "Distinguished Competion". Simon and Kirby were bonafide stars when they signed with DC during this period and Sandman was a mainstay.

So identified with them that they finished off their decades long collaboration after a many year hiatus with a single issue Sandman which updated the concept. Kirby went on to draw more of these though Simon dropped off, and we'll take look at those too.

The "100 Days Of The King" feature finishes up as we close in on the centennial celebration of the King's birth. I've saved some of my favorites for the finale so hopefully we have something to look forward to.

Early on expect a review of the very first Inhuman stories from the pages of the Fantastic Four. Clearly Kirby was exerting more and more control of the plotting as he introduced and continued as a long-running sup-plot the saga of the genetically enhanced denizens of the Hidden Land.

And turning to another Kirby epic, I'd like to take a gander at Tales of Asgard, the back up feature with came to be a most significant expression of Kirby's interest in gods both old and new.

In the "Favorite Covers" daily feature, the Dojo presents this month and next some of the many dandy covers Jack Kirby produced for Marvel when he returned to the House of (mostly his) Ideas in the Bronze Age. He became a go-to cover artist for Marvel and generated some exciting images.

All that and whatever else comes across me noggin as August proceeds. Hang in amigos.

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The Usual Suspects!

This cover for Justice Traps the Guilty from Prize Comics features a cover by artist Marvin Stein. As promised by the title a  woman is identifying one man in the police line up as the guilty party. It turns out that tall perpetrator is modeled on editor Joe Simon. Also in this motley crew are a bunch of comic book talents. From left to right you have Ben Oda, Simon, Joe Genola, Mort Meskin and Jack Kirby. A lovely and daffy bit of comic book nonsense.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had appeared on their comics before, the one above an issue of Headline Comics which showcases Kirby as the hood and an edited Joe Simon as the cop.

According to some, the duo are on call again in the very next issue as a hold up is about to be foiled.

Seeing artists in comics is always a neat thing, and was made very famous at Marvel some years later. But as we see, it's a practice which had been going on for quite some time.

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The Good, The Bad, And The Brightly Clad!

This vintage Fred Hembeck cover from those long ago days of 1980 is a crack up of the highest order. Three brilliantly and blindingly hued heroes joined to create a crisis of color in the Hembeckian world at large. It's genius!

Jack Kirby and Mort Meskin

Captain 3-D, created for Harvey Comics during the Atomic Age by the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby duo is the oldest of this trio of colorful protagonists. Created to take advantage of a fad which seems to reappear every several years, Captain 3-D is a surprisingly serious character with echoes of Fawcett's Captain Marvel bonded with the more surreal elements of later comics. Here's a glimpse.

The Prankster is from the final throes of the Silver Age, a one-shot hero created by Denny O'Neil in his guise as "Sergius O'Shaugnessy" and top flight artist Jim Aparo.

Created for Charlton Comics, this futuristic gadfly battles an oppressive and humorless government in the distant future city of Ultropolis.

Pat Boyette

Never cover-featured, the Prankster made his one and only appearance in the tenth and final issue of Thunderbolt, the original Charlton run.

 And perhaps most obscure of all is Steve Ditko's Odd Man. The Odd Man was a truly bizarre creation.

Scheduled to debut in the pages of the ninth issue of Ditko's Shade the Changing Man, the exotically hued hero made his first actual appearance in the dubious offset rarity Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, a victim like so many of the infamous " DC Implosion" of the late Bronze Age.

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Thankfully though he did get a colorful presentation when that story was dusted off, revised and presented to a broader reading public in the pages of Detective Comics.

As you can see, Odd Man is perhaps the biggest eyesore among these disparate brothers-of-the-brightly-clad, his whole look seemingly designed to create a clash.

Only Fred Hembeck would think it a good enough joke to dig out these most obscure heroes (remember it was in those halcyon pre-internet days) for his devoted audience. Good show Fred on a true classic gag!

This Hembeck classic is reprinted in the awesome The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus, though I fear the color might be missing. I hope not.

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