DC's first DITKO OMNIBUS, including Shade, Stalker and various short anthology stories, is still a few months away and a second one is already on the horizon. Currently listed for December and at 384 pages and a cover price of $60, though all that is subject to change, of course. Hopefully that 384 pages isn't set in stone, since it's just a smidge lower than you'd need to include every published Ditko page for DC that's not included in either last year's CREEPER book or probable for the first Omnibus. And of course there are some unpublished pages I'm sure most of us would like to see if they're available...
In any case, the book will almost certainly include Ditko's three The Hawk and The Dove stories and his dozen Starman stories. Also likely are his seven Legion of Super-Heroes stories, and his three Demon stories. And MAN-BAT #1 is a pretty solid bet. There are also single stories for the Spectre, Black Lightning and New Gods, and some single page stuff like his gorgeous SUPERMAN #400 pin-up. The big question is if they'll include DC SPECIAL SERIES #9 and ACTION COMICS #642, since Ditko only drew a few pages for longer stories by other artists (featuring Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, respectively). Hopefully they'll include the Ditko pages with a note of explanation (I wouldn't mind seeing the full stories, actually, but that would add almost 100 pages to the book). It would be good if by the end of the year you could point to a selection of three matching hardcovers that contain every bit of Ditko art originally published by DC.
I know that nearly all if not all of this art was created in the non-royalties era as well as work-for-hire, but is it known if Mr. Ditko receives any kind of payment for these reprints of his work? I love seeing more and more volumes of his work, both classic and obscure, getting published, but it seems wrong to buy any of it in this form if he's not somehow personally benefiting from it while he's still alive.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that DC pays royalties for these reprints, even those that pre-date the contracts specifically mentioning reprint fees. Not sure about all the Marvel reprints (I know they don't pay royalties to the Kirby estate for all their Kirby reprints, not sure if it's different for living creators).
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