May 11, 2009

Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #31 [1972]

Ditko does the 8-page story "The Heart Of Jeremy Mith" in this issue, also doing the cover for the story. This is about a rich young man with a poor heart who wants to buy a healthy heart. A stranger named Jeremy Mith shows up and offers to sell his heart for a dollar, and so it isn't murder just agrees to try to die of natural causes in the near future. Of course, it turns out he has ulterior motives, but didn't think through his plans.

Interesting visual hook in this story, the panels have a theme of being part on index files from the files of narrator Doctor Graves.  They start off fairly standard, but as the story progresses they get more scattered, including being used as inset panels, leading up to a really explosive layout in the final page. That visual theme is also part of the cover layout.

This story and 19 others by Ditko are reprinted in the still available 1999 collection from Robin Snyder and Steve Ditko.



1 comment:

  1. Design-wise this is one of my favorite Ditko stories. Ditko really shows how imaginative he could be, yet this aspect of his work is rarely noted. Neal Adams wasn't the only artist to play with page/panel designs!

    Nick C.

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