New Ditko - New and Reprint Essays (1 of 3)

The latest issue of Robin Snyder's newsletter THE COMICS, Vol. 23 No. 9, has a four page section with the title "The Four-Page Series", containing five essays by Steve Ditko, I'd estimate nearly 4000 words of Ditko in all.

First are reprints of "The Knowers & the Barkers" from #17: SEVENTEEN and "The Silent Self-Deceivers" from THE COMICS Vol. 23 No. 7 (July 2012), followed by three new essays.

And, just to be me, I'm only going to tell you the title of one of them today. More on the rest of them... soon. Maybe tomorrow.

From "A Newspaper Article, A Reporter's Report" by Steve Ditko, 2012

A 6-issue subscription to THE COMICS is available for $15 in US ($19 foreign), payable to Robin Snyder

Robin Snyder
3745 Canterbury Lane #81
Bellingham, WA
98225-1186 USA

SnyderandDitko @ icloud.com

Ditko books in print.

Ditko in 2012 wrapup

Fairly light year for the Ditko fan out there. Only two issues of his on-going series of one-shots co-published with Robin Snyder.

#16 Sixteen [Robin Snyder and Steve Ditko]

#17 Seventeen [Robin Snyder and Steve Ditko]

The latter contained the first in a new series of essays by Ditko.  The second appears in Robin Snyder's newsletter (with more perhaps on the way, it's running a bit behind schedule).

The Comics v23 #7 [Robin Snyder]

Rob Imes got out three issues of his fanzine devoted to Mr. D.

Ditkomania #87-89 [Rob Imes]

Et si vous parlez français, il y a une nouvelle biographie de Ditko par Tristan Lapoussière.

Steve Ditko - L'artiste Aux Masques [Les Moutons Électriques]

The only really notable reprint of classic Ditko came from DC, with a book reprinting his work on The Hawk  And The Dove and Starman, plus other DC characters that he didn't create or design. This means DC has a nearly complete set of Ditko work they published in three matching hardcover volumes.

The Steve Ditko Omnibus #2 [DC]

Other than that there was the usual assortment of public domain reprints and some minor stuff from other publishers.

A List of Ditko Articles and Essays

The recent announcement of Steve Ditko's new essays seems to have generated some attention, including some from people who weren't aware of Ditko's extensive history of such essays.  Robin Snyder has helpfully provided the following list of those he's published (including both text and illustrated form) in his quarter century of publishing Ditko. I've added the location of the most recent printing of each entry (as Ditko often revised essays when they were reprinted, I recommend the most recent printing).

The most up-to-date version of this list will be hosted here.
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SNYDER AND DITKO

mark 25 years of publishing

Here is a list of the many articles and essays by Ditko. Did we list them all? How many have you read?

“At Some Point” [AW]

“Creator’s Rights & Wrongs” [AW]

“Tools of the Trade” [AW]
“History Of The Mocker” [Mocker]

An Insider’s Piece of History: “Jack Kirby’s Spider-Man” [AW]

“ART!?” [AW]

“Identity, Identification” [AW]

“ART—the Panel” [AW]

“First Choice” [Charlton]

“Laszlo’s Hammer” [AW]

“The Sore Spot Cause and Crusade” [AW]

Tsk! Tsk!: “Whatever Happened to Common Sense?” [32Page]

Tsk! Tsk!: “Why Do Some People Seek the Unearned...” [32Page]

Tsk! Tsk!: “Comic Fans Keep Blowing Meaningless Sound Waves” [32Page]

Tsk! Tsk!: “Public ‘Debates’” [32Page]

Tsk! Tsk!: “The Fallacy of the Half and Half Men” [32Page]

Tsk! Tsk!: “The Unearned” [32Page]

Tsk! Tsk!: “Stolen Art Pages” [32Page]
Additional Tsk! Tsk! pages [32Page, see notes]

Tsk! Tsk!: “Has the Age of the Anti-Hero Become the Age of the Anti-Self?” [THE COMICS V11 #4 2000]

“The Self-Proclaimed” [THE COMICS V11 #5 2000]

“The ‘Stolen Art Page’ Problem and the Error of Non-Principled Thinking” [AW]

“A Mini-History” [The Comics, serialized, see notes]

“Who Owns Original Art?” [AW]

Tsk! Tsk! Examining a “Creator”/”Creation” Claim” [AW]
“Violence, the Phoney Issue” [AW]

The Tsk! Tsk! Forum: “…On An Unresolved Issue” [THE COMICS V13 #11 2002]

“The Avenging Mind” [The Comics, serialized, see notes]

“An Issue, Question” [The Comics, serialized, see notes]

“Toyland” [AM]

“Roislecxe” [AM]

“Creator or Co-Creator?” [AM]

“Creative Crediting” [AM]

“He Giveth and He Taketh Away” [AM]

“Lifting and the Lifter” [AM]

“Revealing Styles” [AM]

“Martin Goodman/Stan Lee” [AM]

“They Are the…” [AM]

“The Mark and the Stain” [AM]

“The Ever Unwilling” [THE COMICS V20 #3 2009]

“The Ever Unreachable” [Online]

“The Knowers & the Barkers” [#17]

“The Silent Self-Deceivers” [THE COMICS V23 #7 2012]

To be continued

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[AW] AVENGING WORLD [2002]
[32Page] STEVE DITKO'S 32-PAGE PACKAGE TSK! TSK! [2000]
[Mocker] THE MOCKER, 2nd Edition [2000]
[AM] THE AVENGING MIND [2008]
[#17] #17: SEVENTEEN [2012]
[Charlton] STEVE DITKO'S 160-PAGE PACKAGE FROM CHARLTON PRESS [1999]
[Online] Online only, link no long active
[The Comics] THE COMICS newsletter by Robin Snyder

The first six of those are readily available, see here as usual. Contact Robin Snyder for availability on specific back issues of THE COMICS or to subscribe, address at the same link.

Included on Snyder's list are two earlier essays published in fanzines, "Violence, The Phoney Issue" (GUTS #5 [1969]) and "Who Owns Original Art?" (INSIDE COMICS #2 [1974]). Both were revised and reprinted in AVENGING WORLD [2002].

These essays were serialized in THE COMICS and not, as yet, collected elsewhere:

“A Mini-History”

THE COMICS V12 #5 2001
THE COMICS V12 #7 2001
THE COMICS V12 #10 2001
THE COMICS V12 #11 2001
THE COMICS V13 #1 2002
THE COMICS V13 #4 2002
THE COMICS V13 #5 2002
THE COMICS V13 #8 2002
THE COMICS V14 #2 2003
THE COMICS V14 #4 2003
THE COMICS V14 #5 2003
THE COMICS V14 #6 2003
THE COMICS V14 #7 2003
THE COMICS V14 #8 2003
THE COMICS V14 #9 2003
THE COMICS V14 #11 2003

“The Avenging Mind”

THE COMICS V15 #4 2004
THE COMICS V15 #5 2004
THE COMICS V15 #6 2004
THE COMICS V15 #7 2004
THE COMICS V15 #8 2004
THE COMICS V15 #9 2004

“An Issue, Question”

THE COMICS V17 #11 2006

THE COMICS V17 #12 2006

THE COMICS V18 #2 2007

THE COMICS V18 #3 2007

THE COMICS V18 #4 2007

THE COMICS V18 #5 2007

THE COMICS V18 #6 2007

THE COMICS V18 #7 2007

STEVE DITKO'S 32-PAGE PACKAGE TSK! TSK! [2000] contained 7 illustrated 1-page features reprinted from THE COMICS, as well as the following 24 original pages

Tsk! Tsk! “The Blah, Blahmill”
Tsk! Tsk! “What is…”
Tsk! Tsk! “A Con Mind, A Con Game and the Gullible”
Tsk! Tsk! “Some Facts Can Sustain a Lot of Illusion”
Tsk! Tsk! “Toleration”
Tsk! Tsk! “The Shielders”
Tsk! Tsk! “Property”
Tsk! Tsk! “The Communicators” C1
Tsk! Tsk! “The Communicators” C2
Tsk! Tsk! “The Communicators” C3
Tsk! Tsk! “I’m Indifferent”
Tsk! Tsk! “By Choice”
Tsk! Tsk! “Step Forward”
Tsk! Tsk! “The Trial”
Tsk! Tsk! “Its Judge…and Be Prepared to Be Judged”
Tsk! Tsk! “Who Has the Burden of Proof?”
Tsk! Tsk! “What?”
Tsk! Tsk! “Is There a Need to Outweigh Arbitrary Claims with Facts and Truth?”
Tsk! Tsk! “Why Me?
Tsk! Tsk! “The Envious”
Tsk! Tsk! “I Resent It”
Tsk! Tsk! “Parasites”
Tsk! Tsk! “Choice: Real Achievement”
Tsk! Tsk! “!?!?!?”

New Ditko - The Silent Self-Deceivers

As mentioned here, Ditko is working on a new series of essays. The first was "The Knowers & the Barkers", appearing in his comic book #17: SEVENTEEN, and the second has just appeared in Robin Snyder's newsletter THE COMICS Vol. 23 No. 7 (July 2012), "The Silent Self-Deceivers", about 1 1/2 pages of Ditko on some issues regarding the creation of Spider-Man. That's the opening of it above.

A 6-issue subscription to THE COMICS is available for $15 in US ($19 foreign), payable to Robin Snyder


Robin Snyder
3745 Canterbury Lane #81
Bellingham, WA
98225-1186 USA


Full subscription details for THE COMICS are over on this page, along with details on other in-print Ditko publications.

Upcoming Ditko - New essays

Just in from Robin Snyder:

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Steve Ditko and his work have been in the news of late.

Many readers have been thinking about, writing about, the creator of numerous comics characters such as Mr. A., The Hero, Madman, Stac Rae, Miss Eerie, and so many others.

Wondering what he has been doing, what he thinks about, why he does what he does, how and what if… and so forth.

There are real answers to some of these questions.

In addition to his fiction, Ditko is also an essayist.

He has written and published dozens of articles and essays from a biographical sketch to creator’s rights, page and panel composition and the development of Spider-Man.

For those interested in Steve Ditko, who he is, what has he done, why he does it, and what he has been thinking, I direct your attention to the source and a new series we have developed.

The first article (“The Knowers & the Barkers”) appeared in his recent comic book, #17: Seventeen.

The second in the series will appear shortly in our newsletter, The Comics!

Look for it.

From

Robin Snyder and Steve Ditko
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Back to me, ordering info for the aforementioned #17: SEVENTEEN, plus other Ditko books (including THE AVENGING MIND [2008], with many of his articles on Marvel history and other topics, and THE AVENGING WORLD [2002], with several earlier ones, plus lots of classic comics), and subscription information for THE COMICS newsletter is available here. I believe many of the earlier issues of THE COMICS with Ditko essays not reprinted in the AVENGING... books, including at least some of the 16 part "A Mini-History" about the development of Spider-Man, are still available if you want to ask Snyder for prices on those. I'll be sure to post here when I know which new ones have Ditko's new articles.

Upcoming Ditko - ATE TEA N 18 [?]

Well, I think the title is ATE TEA N 18. Anyone with a better guess feel free to comment. Anyway, as announced in the just released #17: SEVENTEEN, this is the next new Ditko scheduled to come out, featuring Hero, The Cape, The !? and I'm guessing that's a P Masks story. And a surprise. Hopefully available quicker than the seven months that #17 took.

New Ditko - #17: SEVENTEEN

Ditko's latest all-new 32-page comic, #17: SEVENTEEN, is now available. Returning features, as seen on the cover, are Miss Eerie, The Cape, The Outline and The Distorter, plus a new concept that will probably return and the usual single page bits. And another bit new to this run of books that might intrigue some of you.

As usual, all the new books and various other Ditko publications are available directly from Robin Snyder, details here, and the new book should be available from retailers who order from Snyder now or in the near future (interested retailers should contact Snyder for terms, which are probably better than you get for similar comics from your main distributor).

New Ditko - DITKOMANIA #89 available

DITKOMANIA #89 is now available, the Halloween issue, with a lot of stuff on Ditko's work at Charlton, including several reviews of a recent IDW book reprinting some Charlton stories, and an article about Ditko's stories with Dennis O'Neil at Charlton. Also a surprising amount of fan art featuring Doctor Graves.

Single issue and subscription information are over here, and the Ditkomania mailing list is down this way.