I get asked a lot about Steve Ditko, the great comic book artist who is perhaps best-known for being least-known. Ditko was a brilliant illustrator and innovator in his day and though his two greatest works — Spider-Man and Dr. Strange — have since been handled by legions of talented folks, I don't think anyone has come all that close to what he did on those characters. He left them in 1966 and the best thing I can say about his work since then is that occasionally, it reminds you how good he used to be.
He has famously refused interviews and photos and has repeatedly asked the world to leave him alone. This, of course, makes some people all the more eager to not leave him alone. In the last quarter-century, I have received perhaps two dozens calls or e-mails from journalists — in the comic art field and outside it — who were confident that their persistence and tact would result in them getting the grail. Each was going to be the one to land the first-ever real Steve Ditko Interview in which he would open up to them, lay bare his soul and tell all.
This has not happened and I suspect that if it did, people would wind up knowing less about Ditko and his career than they do now. But there is much to say about this man and there's a new article up by Abraham Riesman that says a lot of it.
Not that I like every word of it. Let me start by disagreeing strongly with Riesman's history of Spider-Man…
Historians generally agree that the idea for Spidey originated with Lee, who has variously claimed that he was inspired by seeing a spider on a wall or remembering a pulp hero called the Spider. He also thought it would be interesting to have this new character be a teenager, an age group previously reserved for sidekick roles. Kirby drew five pages of a Spider-Man story that historians believe depicted a kid who used a magic ring to become a spider-themed hero, though the whereabouts of those sketches are unknown. Lee decided Kirby's hero looked too beefy and conventional, and opted to give the project over to Ditko.
I don't know any non-partisan historians (i.e., those who have no financial reason to say so) who believe strongly that the concept of Spider-Man began with Stan Lee. Many would tell you it started with Jack Kirby telling Stan about an earlier Spiderman (no hyphen) character he'd worked on with Joe Simon, which he certainly did. My view is that it's arguable which of those two men first said something like "Hey, let's do a character called Spiderman" but it's a fact what they then started to do was a retread of that earlier premise offered up by Kirby.
I also think making the character a teenager was a later idea and I never believed the story that Kirby was replaced on the project by Ditko because Jack's depictions were too heroic. I'm finishing a long book about Jack in which I explain in grand detail what I think happened and why. Basically though, my theory is that it was because the Spiderman that Stan and Jack were developing was coming out too much like another character owned by someone who was quite litigious.
All that said, Riesman's portrait of Ditko today seems to me as accurate as it could be about someone who refuses to sit for such a portrait. Is it everything some yearn to know about this man? No but it's probably all you're ever going to get and it may be more than you're entitled to know. (Full Disclosure: I was interviewed for the piece.)
I admit to mixed feelings about Steve Ditko. I met him a few times long ago and corresponded with him for a time. He was nice to me up until the point when I disagreed with him on anything. As I get older, I more and more find the worldview of Ayn Rand repulsive, though maybe not as repulsive as the way it's interpreted by some of her followers. I have one good Rand-loving friend who repeatedly reminds me not to confuse what she actually believed with those interpretations, especially Ditko's.
So that colors my view of his recent work, as does the sheer preachiness of it at all. And the fact that before I gave up on it, I often didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
Still, he did some of the best work in comics that anyone's ever done in comics and I feel he has been undercredited and surely at times undercompensated. Some time ago, I decided that the best way to thank him for that is to accede to his wishes to leave him alone. He wants to let his work speak for itself? Fine. And if I don't understand what he's saying sometimes? Or don't like it? Well, those are fine too in a way.
If that's all we ever get out of him, I'm satisfied. He already gave us more than enough.