Dark Horse's reprints of the 1960s Warren horror mags gets to some Ditko in CREEPY v2 late this year, namely "The Spirit Of The Thing" and "Collector's Edition" from #9 and #10 respectively, the latter sometimes cited as Ditko's best of his 16 stories for Warren, or even best ever. Presumably a volume of EERIE will follow shortly, with several more tales. I keep hoping they'll do some artist-specific books, since spreading Ditko's 117 pages across five $50 hardcovers isn't ideal.
As previously mentioned, Pure Imagination has a volume of early Ditko work, along with some work by his studio-mate Eric Stanton.
CREEPY ARCHIVES VOLUME 2
Archie Goodwin (W), Larry Ivie (W), Gray Morrow (P/Cover), Reed Crandall (P), Alex Toth (P), Al Williamson (P), and others
On sale Dec 10
b&w, 288 pages $49.95
HC, 8 3/8" x 10 7/8"
This vein-chilling second volume showcases work by some of the best artists to ever work in the comics medium, including Alex Toth, Gray Morrow, Reed Crandall, John Severin, and others. Each archive volume of Creepy is packed with stories (usually up to eight short stories were featured in every issue!) running the gamut of gruesome subject matter, from reimagined horror classics such as The Cask of Amontillado, to spectacularly mind-twisting shorts such as The Thing in the Pit, or the macabre maritime yarn Drink Deep. This volume collects Creepy #6-10.
STEVE DITKO: EDGE OF GENIUS SC
by Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko fans will be enthralled by this collection of 160 pages of his earliest work! Super-rare stories from 1954 and 1955 run the gamut from crime and humor to horror and science fiction. Also included is a previously unknown 30-page serial with Eric Stanton.
SC, 8x11, 160pgs, B&W $25.00
When I read about DH doing archival reprints of Creepy and Eerie, I stated on their forum that I'd really like to see artist collections (all of Ditko's stuff, all of Wood's stuff) as well as collections of the various series from Eerie (Rook, Hunter, etc).
ReplyDeleteI would get the above, whereas the chronological collections they are doing doesn't interest me.
I'm definitely with you on that, but don't really expect it. In reference to the EC books, where such artist-based collections are also often requested, it was once explained to me that the publisher would rather have the steady dependable sales of a chronological complete series than the sometimes higher / sometimes lower sales of artist-based books (higher for the Ditko/Wood types, obviously, but lower for other artists, maybe low enough not to even be worth doing). And they won't do both since they figure, probably correctly, that the artist books would cannibalize the sales of the complete books.
ReplyDeleteBob, that makes sense. Maybe DH should consider doing prestige artist-based collections - hardbacks with high-quality paper. That way they could target the diehard fans. Personally I'd pay premium price for a Ditko-only book, but I'm not likely to buy the facsimile issues.
ReplyDelete