Steve Ditko's 160 Page Package!

Steve Ditko's 160 Page Package is one of my favorites of his Indy productions with Robin Snyder. It hit the market two decades ago and it was at the time one of the exceedingly few collections of Charlton stories anywhere not featuring some of the "Action Heroes" (and even those were rare). It contains work by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko from 1971 to 1975 when the duo were at a long time teamed to create scary yarns to fill the pages of Charlton's ghost-host books such as Ghostly Tales, The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, Ghostly Haunts, and more. The tome includes a passage from both Joe Gill and Ditko reflecting on their work together and their friendship because as unlikely as it seems for two men with such divergent personalities, they were friends apparently. There's also a biographical sketch about Joe Gill by Robin Snyder I assume. 

One of the real treats in a Ditko ghostly tale was the clever ways he'd incorporate the host into the story. Some artists were content to have the host pop up at the beginning and again at the end, but Ditko regularly had Mr. Dedd, Dr. M.T. Graves, Winnie the Witch, Mr. Bones (or even Impy who Bones replaced in Haunted) hang around panel after panel and page after page mouthing off giving the whole affair a nifty fourth-wall-breaking illusion. 

These are done in tasty black and white and that's an advantage in many respects since Dtko's work holds quite well in black and white. I have many if not most of these in the original and some in later reprint volumes and the color is great, but this dandy too. Now Steve Ditko didn't create Mr. Dedd, the host of Ghostly Tales, that was mostly likely Rocke Mastroserio, but when Ditko drew him he made him his own. 

Likewise his Dr. Graves is more or less definitive for me, as Dikto took him and often fashioned him into a low-key Dr. Strange. But no one drew the eventual hostess of Ghostly Haunts Winnie the Witch like Ditko. She was demure in the hands of Pete Morisi or Wayne Howard, but beneath the inky pen of Ditko Winnie was buxom and bold and intoxicating. It's like she might want to smack you around any moment if you didn't pay close attention to her tale, and who could ignore her tail when Ditko drew it. 

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The Lonely One!

Konga is a name to conjure with. The movie, a bit of schlock from the 50's featuring a mad scientist (played to hilt by Michael Gough) who uses jungle potions to make things grow to vast proportions experiments on a monkey and gets Konga, a giant ape who prowls the streets of London before meeting his apparent doom. And that's the end. No sequels, no need. Konga the movie is a strange but oddly compelling flick.Here's a link to the trailer.


Konga the comic book series from Charlton is the same and different too. Konga survives the end of the first story and becomes something akin more to Godzilla than King Kong, his obvious inspiration. Konga of the comics can survive nuclear blasts and seems to wander the globe with great speed, impervious to the elements for the most part. He is at once part of the world and apart from it. Hence the title of this Robin Snyder produced collection of some of Joe Gill's and Steve Ditko's most curious Konga stories.


The first story in the collection is "The Monster Hunters" from Konga #11. It tells the tale of world-famous hunter E.Kellington Trent and his romantic partner Miss Lovejoy who want to trap the greatest game of all, and that happens to be Konga who is at once a real creature and almost a thing of myth. The pair stalk the great beast but become charmed by him, and the story ends much differently than expected.


"The Land of the Frozen Giants" from Konga #8 has Konga travel to the great white vastness of Antarctica where he gets frozen, becoming a living statue. He is discovered but before he can be captured he falls into a sub-world filled with dinosaurs where he must fight ceaselessly for his life.


"The Peacemaker" from Konga #13 has Konga get a bad cold and then invade a southern clime where he finds healing mud in the steamy swamps. While taking the cure, he finds himself at odds with a tinpot dictator who is kept in power by nefarious foreign powers. Konga saves people from broken train tacks and battles the full force of the dictator's military.


Finally there is "The Lonely One" from Konga #12 a story which reprises Konga's origin story from the movie adaptation, then has the great beast become stranded in the snow in the alps after a mighty avalanche. There mankind must decided whether to save or slay the beast and bring two of the humans who first cared for Konga back again to deal with his current situation.

Also on hand in this collection are two one-page gag comics from Henry Boltinoff and a Ditko short about the origins of mankind.

To say this is an idiosyncratic package is to understate it. But oddly the Konga stories themselves have a neat cohesion. The stories published in the order that they are have something of an arc to them as Konga prowls the world looking for peace and companionship, and all too often finding only strife and combat. The stories stand on their own well enough, but taken together to seem to work well. The ending is a happy enough one.

Konga stories have a humor and a charm not found in just every comic, at least these by Gill and Ditko do. Konga is an absurd character who seems to absorb atomic blasts, yet at the same time remaining an identifiable personality. He's big but not beyond the scope of human character. These are wonderful little morality fables with more to say about the human condition than might at first be surmised.

To order a copy check out this link.

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The Charlton Package!

Wahooo!!!

I've been wanting Steve Ditko's 160-Page Package featuring some of his choice work with Joe Gill for Charlton, forever! I finally got off my behind and ordered it along with The Lonely One a collection of Konga stories by Gill and Ditko from Robin Snyder.

The package showed up yesterday, overflowing in my meager mailbox. I ripped it open and found two pristine books, both rich with Ditko B&W goodness. I'm eager to read through them.

Snyder was a real peach and sent along a couple of neat extras, specifically a vintage Hulk comic with some typically outstanding Herb Trimpe artwork and the Archie TV movie adaptation To Riverdale and Back Again with some great work by Dan DeCarlo and Gene Colan.

But it's the Ditko that gleams so very brightly, and it's the Ditko-Gill stuff I yearn to tear into. Ditko's work is so very excellent in B&W, that despite the fact I might own a few of these stories already in the original, it's a great treat to see them anew sans color. Ditko's designs really show up when the color goes away.

He had a great way of blending the Charlton Ghost Hosts into the story. There are stories here narrated by Mr.Dedd, Dr.Graves, Mr.Bones, and Winnie the Witch. All of the stories seem to have the hosts appear throughout, making for some very clever panel layouts.The packag feature some glowing tributes from Joe Gill to Steve Ditko and vice versa.

The Konga stories are older Ditko, less muscular design, but no less intriguing. There are five Konga stories from various issues along with some smaller bits of buisness from cartoonist Henry Boltinoff. Pat Boyette does a tasteful introduction to the collection praising his colleagues Ditko and Gill.

All I can say is yummy.

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