New Ditko - CHEYENNE KID #100 and AVENGING WORLD

Almost 50 years after #99 came out from Charlton in 1973, we now have CHEYENNE KID #100, now from SD Publishing.  With a classic 1957 Ditko cover from #10 and a variety of Ditko western comic work, mostly from the 1950s (with one story from 1970).

The print-on-demand series of Ditko collections (previously including the five volume collection of Ditko's 32 Series and a collection of the Four-Page Series and other essays) has also expanded to include THE COLLECTED MR. A. VOLUME II: AVENGING WORLD, a 172 page book featuring one of Ditko's most striking covers (ISBN-13 : 978-1945307270).

Should be available now from the usual sources.

—Link— OUT OF THIS WORLD on Kickstarter

Currently on Kickstarter, a campaign by Robin Snyder for another issue of OUT OF THIS WORLD, a 48-page comic sure to be full of vintage Ditko work, including that unusual cover.

--Link-- CHEYENNE KID #100 Kickstarter

Robin Snyder's latest Kickstarter for the next SD Publishing book, CHEYENNE KID #100. That takes over from the Charlton series that ran from 1957 to 1973, ending one issue short of that milestone number. Presumably the cover will be the 1957 cover to #10 shown in the campaign, which was Ditko's one contribution to the series.

Presumably at least some of the contents will be drawn from Ditko's other western comics work for Charlton, which includes a half-dozen short non-series stories plus a whole lot of equine based stories in ROCKY LANE'S BLACK JACK and BLACK FURY.

New Ditko - TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER #32

TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER NO. 32 is now available from SD Publishing, with a striking classic 1957 Ditko cover. A variety of Ditko contents inside, including several 1950s stories, a 1970s story hosted by Winnie The Witch, a 1980s Traveler hosted story from the last days of Charlton and more. Even, unusually, a non-Ditko 2-page story by Rudy Palais.

But the big news is that there's also an original never before published 5-page Ditko story in here, I think the fourth entry in his "If... Then..." series (previously seen in STEVE DITKO'S 160-PAGE PACKAGE [1999], STEVE DITKO'S 176-PAGE PACKAGE HEROES [2000] and TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER NO. 27 [2018]). A nice example of later day Ditko storytelling, very clear and expressive within a deliberate well thought-out style.

Should be available now from the usual sources.

Happy #93

 

Upcoming Ditko - MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER Returns

The next SD Comics Kickstarter is running now, and features another issue of MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER, the old Charlton title which featured some of Ditko's earliest work, and previously was #16, #19 and #27 of this revolving anthology series. I'm not certain, but I think the preview image shown in the campaign is from a heretofore unpublished story.

New Ditko - THE COMPLETE FOUR-PAGE SERIES AND OTHER ESSAYS

S. Ditko, "Why I Quit S-M, Marvel", 2015

Apparently now available from SD Publishing is THE COMPLETE FOUR-PAGE SERIES AND OTHER ESSAYS, an 80-page collection featuring the nine issue series of essays by Ditko published from 2012 to 2015 and twenty other essays from among the many to choose from.

Available from various sellers, use the ISBN codes:

ISBN-10: 1945307269

ISBN-13: 978-1945307263

And I assume Robin Snyder will have copies available, especially if you're picking up other SD Publishing books.

Here are the 45 essays as published in the original nine issue series (* numbering assumed for unnumbered essays)

#1*:  The Knowers & the Barkers [FPS#1]

#2*:  The Silent Self-Deceivers [FPS#1]

#3*:  A Newspaper Article, A Reporter's Report [FPS#1]

#4*:  A Deadly Fantasy [FPS#1]

#5*:  Why Out Of Their Way? [FPS#1]

#6*: Circle The Mind [FPS#2]

#7*: The Fixated Negative [FPS#2]

#8*: For/Against One's Best Interest? [FPS#2]

#9: An Eternal Truth, Lesson Rejected [FPS#3]

#10: The Fantasy Lifters [FPS#3]

#11*: LINT [FPS#2]

#12: For Good Or Ill [FPS#3]

#13: Tsk! — The Still Unreachable — Tsk! [FPS#3]

#14: Labels And Labelers [FPS#4]

#15: Wants/Needs Shortchanged [FPS#9]

#16*: Honoring Or Dishonoring [FPS#2]

#17: …To The Last Drop [FPS#3]

#18: Anti-Ditko 'Fans' [FPS#3]

#19: Action/Reaction And The Self-Claimed, Self-Creators [FPS#4]

#20: Out Of Their Way [FPS#9]

#21: How Dare He! [FPS#4]

#22: He Should Have X@*#! Done... [FPS#8]

#23: The Intolerable Other [FPS#6]

#24: The Eternally Fixated [FPS#5]

#25: Choice: Either/Or [FPS#5]

#26: 4 tHe knot 2 BritE, rite [FPS#5]

#27: The Movers And The Freezers [FPS#4]

#28: Red Flag [FPS#6]

#29: Too Late [FPS#4]

#30: Repeater, Spreader, Reinforcer [FPS#6]

#31: Copycat Mind [FPS#8]

#32: With Everyone, A Free-Will Choice [FPS#5]

#33: X's 'Idea' [FPS#6]

#34: Memory [FPS#5]

#35: FP: Comic Book Fan Packs [FPS#6]

#36: CC: The Caller and the Called [FPS#6]

#37: Start & Finish [FPS#6]

#38: Correct, Corrector, Corrections [FPS#8]

#40: The Chosen Grey Mind [FPS#7]

#41: A Cure Or The Actual Disease? [FPS#7]

#42 [FPS#8]

#43: The 1st New York City Comic Book Convention [FPS#7]

#44: Foolish Fans [FPS#9]

#45: Why I Quit S-M, Marvel [FPS#9]

#46: Either/Or [FPS#9]

Dennis O'Neil, R.I.P.

Wanted to note the passing of Dennis O'Neil, long time comic book writer and editor with a long list of accomplishments. Among other things, he worked with Ditko several times over the years (as well as doing a lot of notable work on characters Ditko created).

Early in his career, O'Neil scripted the last two published Doctor Strange stories by Ditko over in STRANGE TALES, which I thought were pretty good.  Shortly after that he was also working at Charlton under the pen-name "Sergius O'Shaugnessy", and Ditko drew at least two of O'Neil's stories (a lot of stories in that era have no credits, so there might be more with both of them).  One credited one is the middle chapter of a time travel epic in SPACE ADVENTURES #2 [1968], in between chapters by Jim Aparo and Pat Boyette, which is a pretty great selection of artists.  The other one is uncredited originally, but credited in a later letter column and in the SD Publishing reprint, an entertaining horror story hosted by Mr. Dedd appearing in GHOSTLY TALES #69 [1968].  Around the same time O'Neil was brought over to DC by editor Dick Giordano, where one of his first assignments was scripting Ditko's BEWARE THE CREEPER series following the SHOWCASE story scripted by Don Segall. And then years later, back at Marvel, Ditko drew most of O'Neil's story in IRON MAN #160 [1982], which had some fun scenes (there's some interesting behind the scenes on Ditko not drawing the splash page, but that's for another post).

(I post about some of O'Neil's other work here and here)