It Stalks the Public Domain - Comeback

You know the drill, all of them listed here: http://tinyurl.com/ditko-stories

"Comeback" appeared in all its 5-page glory in Charlton's THE THING #15 [1954].

Circus freak shows were always a good setting for classic horror comics, so no surprise that Ditko had one with that setting in his early days. The feature of this sideshow is Flexo, the rubber man, who dreams of great wealth, and doesn't care if he earns it or takes it. Seeing the new girl in the show, Satana, the Devil Woman, has a fortune in gems along with her snakes, he drugs and kills her, but is soon enough broke again, and then finds out that crime does not pay.

Decent enough story, and a few really good Ditko visuals, like the old snakes that so often figure into Ditko stories.


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And some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Subscribe to DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from

ROM #59 [1984]

This is the first issue of Ditko's extended run on this series, joining original writer Bill Mantlo and lasting until the final issue of the book with #75. The 22-page story "A World Alive" starts with some quick catch-up, as we're in mid-story. Mantlo does a pretty good job throughout the book re-establishing the major points of the series, so this is a good introduction to ROM, an alien cyborg Spaceknight who has spent the previous 58 issues defending the Earth from his long-time foes the Dire Wraiths and their escalating attacks. The latest wave has the Wraiths infecting insects, so of course Ant-Man finds his expertise required. Ant-Man uses his shrinking powers to send ROM and his companion Starshine down into the body of an infected ant to discover the roots of the problem.

Very neat visual gimmick throughout this story of the pages featuring ROM and Starshine shrinking generally keep them the same size from panel-to-panel while everything around them grows, revealing greater detail as we get further down and some odd perspectives. Keeps it very visually entertaining in the midst of a pretty talky comic.  Also, Ditko gets to give his 30-year-old skills drawing ants a workout, and that's always neat.

Bob Layton is the inker for this issue, and I kind of liked the very slick, modern shine he puts on the artwork, the kind of style I wouldn't want to see on most Ditko work, but that I'm glad we did get to see a few times (Layton would ink one more issue of ROM).

It Stalks the Public Domain - What Was In Sam Dora's Box?

http://tinyurl.com/ditko-stories

"What Was In Sam Dora's Box?" is the 7-page story under consideration this time around, originally featured in STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #18 [1954] from the good folks at Derby's finest comic book publisher, Charlton.

Zach Marrow is found dead with a bloody knife in a small-town doctor's home, and the doc then narrates the story of the last few month that led to that, starting with the return to down of Sam Dora, who had been sent away some years earlier but returned after his parents died, and who always walked around with a sealed box on his shoulder.

Strange little story, with a very odd twist at the end. I'm not sure that Ditko really manages that final panel reveal as effectively as he could have, but there's a lot of great stuff along the way.

Also, the colouring on this story has some especially fine and subtle touches, moreso than you'd expect for a Charlton comic of the era.

Story in a bit, first the links I like to include:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Subscribe to DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from

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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.

It Stalks the Public Domain - Von Mohl Vs. The Ants

More classic Ditko at http://tinyurl.com/ditko-stories

"Von Mohl Vs. The Ants" is a 7-page story from Charlton's STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #20 [1954], and one suspects that the anonymous author had read Carl Stephenson 1938 short story "Leiningen Versus the Ants" not too long before.

In this version of the story, Hugo Von Mohl is a rubber plantation owner in Africa, cruel to his workers, ruthless to his competitors. Then a sudden attack of the dreaded red ants threatens the area, and Von Mohl insists on staying behind to fight them any way he can, which involves a lot of blowing things up, shooting things and burning things. In the end, well, you'll see, not quite the ending Leiningen got.

Lovely work by Ditko in this one, especially the close-ups of the ants, and some of the lush jungle scenes.  And Von Mohl, with his scars and moustache and monocle, is a great looking Ditko character, a shame he'd never appear again, but we'd see his kind later.

The usual links:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Subscribe to DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from

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Blue Ribbon Comics #1 [1983]

While Ditko was the regular artist for Archie's 1983 revival of THE FLY under their Red Circle imprint he also drew the wraparound cover for this first issue of BLUE RIBBON COMICS, which contains reprints of the original version of The Fly from 1959, by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Al Williamson and Angelo Torres.

Rudy Nebres on the inks, and there's some pretty heavy and lush brush work going on there, as you'd expect, so a lot of the Ditko doesn't come through until you look closely at the anatomy and composition. Good looking book overall, with some nice reprints inside.

It Stalks the Public Domain - Family Mixup

List and links, over here.

The last of five Ditko stories from Charlton's THE THING #15 [1954] is the 5-page story "Family Mixup". Pretty much your bog-standard EC-style plot of an unhappy couple planning to do each other in for insurance money, only to find their fates sealed in a more ironic fashion.

Not really among Ditko's best from the era, either, although the title page is nice, as is the panel of the couple begrudgingly making nice to divert suspicion on page 2, and the twin nightmares on page 3.

Most scans in this series adapted to my personal tastes from those found, and available for free download with registration, at the Golden Age Comics Download site. For comics on paper first head over here for ordering info on his available creator owned material co-published with Robin Snyder (including the upcoming DITKO PRESENTS) and head over here for info on recent and upcoming books with Ditko from all publishers, including the fanzine DITKOMANIA.

Click images to big-up them.

Monsters Attack #2 [1989]

MONSTERS ATTACK #2 [1989] is the second of five issues of this magazine from Globe Communications, all of them featuring a short story written and illustrated by Steve Ditko. In this case it's the 5-page "It's All In His Head". The table of contents lists the finisher as "E. O'Brain", who I believe may be editor Mort Todd, but I haven't confirmed that yet (see comments). It's pretty good, anyway. The linework is a little rough around the edges, but I do like some of the use of tone work, assuming that was part of "finishing".

A strange little story, with some echoes of the classic "Dream World" from TALES TO ASTONISH #26 [1961], with the gimmick of someone waking up from a series of nightmares, never knowing what's real. This one has the added visual of bodies flying into pieces (also a motif he's used a few times, like with Missing Man), and actually has an explanation in the end. A very nice little story, with Ditko taking a couple of visual ideas and running with them to extremes. I'd definitely like to see a collection of all of his stray bits of work from various magazines like this, QUESTAR and CRACKED.