Curse of the Weird #1 [1993]

This is one of the reprint anthologies of Marvel science-fiction/fantasy/horror stories edited by Mort Todd in the early 1990s. Among other things, Todd hired Ditko to do some new illustrations for the books, including the cover to this issue, which is a nice image of people on the street in a story fleeing a man being struck by lightning. The image reminds me of the story "The Most Dangerous Man In The World" from WORLD OF MYSTERY #6 [1957], but that might be a coincidence.

The Ditko story reprinted in the issue is the 4-page "Do Not Panic" from STRANGE TALES #95 [1962]. A typical science-fiction parable of the era with the reaction of a city to the first landing of an alien craft. I do really like the space-suit that Ditko draws, though the colouring is a bit too modern for me.

ROM #69 [1985]

ROM #69 [1985] is one of five issues of Ditko's run on the series inked by P. Craig Russell, with the 22-page story "This World Alive". The story is, as always, by Bill Mantlo.

This story features ROM, in the aftermath of the defeat of the Dire Wraiths, searching for others of his kind, humans from Galador who had been converted to robotic forms to fight the Wraiths. His search takes him to an odd world which... well, it's Ego the Living Planet. The cover gives that away, so does the story title to a lesser degree. A shame, as that's the kind of reveal that would have made a nice surprise. Anyway, Ego was a great concept introduced by Jack Kirby in the pages of THOR back in the 1960s, and by this point had returned a few times to encounter the Fantastic Four.  ROM's quest for his comrades takes him deep into Ego's ecosystem, where he first encounters the Kirby-designed antibodies that are always on the attack against intruders, and then some half-digested Wraiths on his way to the brain of Ego.

Enjoyable stand-alone story mixing in one of the great cosmic concepts of the Marvel Universe.  Ditko's art works well on the almost abstract enlarged organic designs needed for Ego, and Russell's inking is really sharp, and the printing shows it off better than some other issues in this run.

Scary Tales #12 [1978]

SCARY TALES #12 [1978] from Charlton included the 10-page Ditko illustrated story "The Drowned Girl". This is one of the last Ditko stories from this run at Charlton, just a few more before the company would go all-reprint for several years. As you can probably tell by the scans, their printing presses were ready to give up long before the rest of the company was.

This story begins with Bently Cranford informing his summer fling Maryann that their relationship was finished, as he was returning home to marry his rich girlfriend.  When Maryann doesn't take that well, Cranford strangles her and throws her overboard.  That's never a good idea in a horror comic, and soon he finds himself haunted by Maryann's ghost when he returns home, straining his relationship with his fiancée until he's compelled to return to the scene of the crime.

If you can get past the printing, it's a pretty decent effort by Ditko, especially some of the slightly off-beat angles in the underwater scenes.  I also really liked some of the effects of the boat in stormy seas towards the end of the story.

This story was reprinted a few years later in Charlton's HAUNTED #65 [1983].

New Ditko - Dracula and Thunder

A pair of late entries to the Ditko in 2010 list.

Marvel's TOMB OF DRACULA OMNIBUS VOL. 3 should have a reprint of the 36-page black and white story "The Dimensional Man" from TOMB OF DRACULA #2 [1979].

And if you always wanted to sample some Tower Comics work, DC COMICS PRESENTS THE T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS #1 has about 100 pages of them from various issues, with the Ditko presumably being "A Matter Of Life And Death" from T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS #7 [1966].

Mad Monsters #1 [1961]

In the early 1960s Charlton ran a pair of magazines devoted to movie monsters, MAD MONSTERS and HORROR MONSTERS, presumably spurred on by the success of magazines like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. On a tangentially Ditko related note, the first issue of MAD MONSTERS featured an 8-page photo preview summarizing the story in KONGA. Ditko had, of course, done the comic book adaptation of the movie, and he'd go on to draw some 14 more issues of the series for Charlton in the next few years.

But much more interesting is the actual Ditko content in MAD MONSTERS #1, starting with a great lurid colour cover of a drooling wolfman. I'm not sure if Ditko did the colouring on this, but it's definitely a notch above Charlton standard.

Ditko also provides the only comics content of the issue, the 3-page story "K".  Done in black-and-white tone, it's a bizarre story about a monster who creates man.  Or something like that.  Anyway, the art is very intricate, even with the fairly shoddy printing, making this a real highlight of Ditko's work from the period.  The skeleton dog that "K" rides in the first page is just amazing, and middle panel of page 2, shown below, is just full of great stuff, from the scary tree to the walking eyeballs to the sexy four-armed woman to the house on the top of the impossible winding path. 

Unusual Tales - The King Of Planetoid X

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

"The King Of Planetoid X" is a 7-page story from Charlton's MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS #7 [1958].  It's been reprinted a few times, but not always successfully, as two of the reprints are missing a page (page 6 both time, oddly), so here are all the pages.

Kind of a convoluted story about the aftermath of interstellar war, when the king of a remote peaceful planetoid is tempted with the promise of great power, if he's willing to assume great responsibility.  Nice story with some great art by Ditko, definitely one of the better stories from that era.  Kind of an unusual layout on page 6, not something you see very often.

But before the story, some links:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Classic 1980s STATIC graphic novel available
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Many back issues available
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Softcover Doctor Strange Masterworks available
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
Scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies

Click on images to enlarge

Unusual Tales - Second Hand

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

"Second Hand" is a 5-page story from Charlton's MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS #7 [1958].

Strange little story about people vanishing and and then returning acting somewhat different, and the conspiracy theories that arise from that.  Very odd ending.  Ditko's art is pretty good, especially some of the close-up faces.  I really like that reporter on page 2 panel 4.

But before the story, some links:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Featuring new characters Miss Eerie, The !?, The Cape and more
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Many back issues available
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Softcover Doctor Strange Masterworks available
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
Scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies

Click on images to enlarge

Unusual Tales - The Angry Things

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

"The Angry Things" is the 5-page opening story from Charlton's MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS #7 [1958], a comic which had four Ditko stories in all.

Cute little offbeat ghost story with some interesting art.  One point of interesting, notice that on the last page the word "wrong" is very clearly a lettering replacement the two times it occurs.  I guess the comic code so prominently mentioned on the first page didn't like the word originally used, which I think you can figure out.  While they were at it they could at least have pointed out the superfluous apostrophe in "it's" on page 2.

But before the story, some links:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
New reprint of classic MR. A comic available
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Bi-monthly, sometimes includes fan art from Dave Sim, Michael T. Gilbert, Steve Bissette and others
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Recent Spider-Man reprint includes samples of pencil art
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
Scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies

Click on images to enlarge