Unusual Tales - The Desert Spell

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

I've been concentrating on the eighty or so never reprinted stories from this period up until now, but I'm skipping ahead a bit for this beauty, for reasons to be discussed elsewhere.  I figure some people might want to see all five pages...

"The Desert Spell" is a 5-page story, all of those pages appearing in Charlton's STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #34 [1957]. Opening with a lone WWII era German tank in the desert, we get the story of a high ranking Nazi officer who managed to escape at the end of the war and use a chemical to put himself in suspended animation.  Ten years later, he's ready to resume his dreams of world conquest.  Lucky for the world he's not that sharp.  Think Bouncing Boy's origin, for you Legion of Super-Hero fans...

A wonderfully drawn story, especially noteworthy for the rather unusual use of mechanical tones for Ditko. I'm not sure of the exact artistic terms for the stuff, but in addition to the dot-screen zipatone that shows up in some of Ditko's work from the era, there's also a different tone of tightly drawn lines.  Is that doushade paper, or some other technique?  Whatever it is, it's really expertly done, look at the monocle in that closeup, and all of page 3 for that matter.  Man, that's a good page.  Unfortunately the scans don't do it justice (though at least they're all there), but then I don't think any reproduction of the story based on the printed comic can do it justice, even moreso than most comics of the era. Man, I hope the artwork for this one survived and got back into Ditko's hands.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
With all sorts of unusual art techniques
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
New issue coming soon
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Frequently including all the pages, even
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 images to big-up.

Ghostly Haunts #32 [1973]

"The Shetabi Legend" is an 8-page Joe Gill scripted story drawn by Ditko.  Winnie the Witch narrates the story of a pair of researchers who go into the Canadian northwest to investigate some old legends about a large, hairy beast named the Shetabi, basically Sasquatch. An old native takes them to the mountains, where one of the men gets injured when a storm comes up.  Their guide leaves them, and then they encounter the Shetabi, who ends up taking them to safety in a cave.

Kind of an odd second half to the story, as the structure really seems to imply that the old native turned into the Shetabi, but that turns out not to be the case.  So an unexpected twist is always good.

Ditko's art is excellent in the stormy mountains, really detailed and expressive.  I especially like the first panel of page 6, seen below, a great use of heavy blacks and key details to set the mood of the scene.

New Mr. A. for sale, Old Mr. A. question

If anyone is interested, I have just one copy of the latest Ditko book, the MR. A. reprint, on hand, which I've put on Ebay, benefiting the CBLDF.  I'll probably get some more copies later, but it might be a few months.  Still have a few sets of the other recent books (see sidebar or here) and some of the older stuff, if you're interested.

Of course, all of them are always available from Robin Snyder, and if you know of a retailer interested in carrying them, they can get them wholesale from Snyder at a better discount then they get most other independent comics from their distributors.

And speaking of Mr. A., Brain Franczak pointed out this finished auction to me. Does anyone know if the Mr. A. image in question was ever published, or anything else about the image?

Thane Of Bagarth #24 [1985]

Thane Of Bagarth was the back-up feature by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo in the late 1960s HERCULES series from Charlton.  Towards the end of their publishing life, Charlton had two issues reprinting the earliest stories, plus some other material.  In this issue, that included "The Hammer Of Thor" from OUT OF THIS WORLD #11 [1959], a 5-page story drawn by Steve Ditko.

The old mythic Norse hero Thor made any number of appearances in comics prior to the most famous one that Jack Kirby drew in 1962, including several by Jack Kirby.  In this short story, the legend of Thor is traced to a weak young man named Thor back in the days of the vikings.  In the forests where he retreats to be in peace Thor finds a cave where, for some reason, he gradually "grew strong in the rays of the cave's mysterious energy beams", and also found a metal hammer which had destructive potential when he threw it.  Later, Huns invade from the east, conquering all until they run into the now bearded Thor, who drives them away with his hammer.  Thor then retreated to the solitude of his forest and into legends passed down through the ages.

More like an outline of a story than an actual story, and some of the parts which might have made for the best visuals are just described in the captions, and no real explanation of the cave and the hammer.  A decent example of Ditko's work from the time, solid but a bit more sparse than some of this work either a few years earlier or later, made slightly more interesting by what was later done in comics with the same legends (and the probably coincidental finding of the hammer in a cave).

This issue also features a full page ad for Ditko's STATIC series which was starting up from Charlton that same month, using a large panel from the first story.

Unusual Tales - The Men From Hsin-Chiu

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

Charlton's SPACE ADVENTURES #26 [1958] features the odd 5-page "The Men From Hsin-Chiu" drawn by Ditko.  It features a teacher in China telling a story about a doomed planet and their version of Jor-el having slightly more luck in saving some of his people from the destruction of his planet when his predictions aren't believed by the leaders.

Not quite sure what I think of this story, I guess if I was generous I'd say it's a dated product of its time.

Nice art by Ditko, though.  Of interest to those looking for echoes of work a few years in the future, take a close look at the window in the background of the middle panel of page 2.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
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 images to blow up images like doomed planet.

 

Ghostly Haunts #44 [1975]

The 7-page "Trophy Room" is the lead story of this Charlton comic. The writer is Gary Petras, and it features an arrogant young big-game hunter named Woodrow Kingsley. The opening is a great shot of him in this trophy room, full of the usual array of stuffed and mounted animals. As he shows off his various prizes, he rebuffs a lecture on conservation by one guest, while another expresses interest in going with him to hunt some elephant. Later in Africa, Kingley makes some joking comments about wanting to hunt humans, but it turns out he wasn't joking when the guide they hire fails to find them some illegal elephants to shoot. The guide's grandmother doesn't buy that accident story, and curses Kingsley, which he dismisses until he returns to his trophy room.

Kind of a half-formed story, really. There are some really nice bits in Ditko's art, especially the animals and the shooting scene, which captures the fear and insanity on the faces well, but other parts are the more workmanlike style with minimal backgrounds that a few stories from this era feature. And it's not a very inspiring story in any case.

Where Creatures Roam #3 [1970]

Two Ditko 5-page reprints in this issue.

"I Am The Victim Of The Sorcerer" is from TALES TO ASTONISH #16 [1961], a great little showcase for Ditko's art, featuring a confused and desperate man on the city streets at night, with no memory of who he is or how he got there, but with a a definite sense of fear of an evil entity drawing him closer.  The level of increasing despair Ditko brings to the character as he approaches his inevitable end is intense.  I especially like how for pages 4 and 5, he changes the layout to a less common 4 panels per row, increasing the sense of constriction the character is feeling and making the reveal in the last larger panel all the more satisfying.  Definitely a highlight among the many great shorts Ditko did in that period.

Later in the issue is "I Live Again" from TALES TO ASTONISH #8 [1960]. It's a sequel to "I Spent Midnight With The Thing On Bald Mountain", which was reprinted in the previous issue.  It's a comparatively lesser story, as the statue come to life survives its fall from the previous story (with some selective memory about what caused it), terrorizes the nearby village, then decides to head for America to fulfil its dreams of world conquest. So he takes over a fleeing ship, orders it to head to the US, sinks it as it gets close to Florida, just to be mean. Fortunately for Earth it decides to hide out in a steel structure in a fenced in field to plan some more, which just happens to be a rocket being fired out into deep space.  Seriously. Oh well, at least Ditko does his usual good job with the art to elevate the story.  The stone texture of the creature is great, and it punching out an alligator and tossing around a bull is kind of funny.

The cover is the Kirby/Ditko cover from TALES TO ASTONISH #16 [1961], with a lot of little modifications as was common for cover reprints at Marvel around that time.

Morlock 2001 #3 [1975]

Like most books in the short-lived Atlas/Seaboard line, MORLOCK 2001 saw a quick shift in creators and focus, as this third issues sees a title change on the cover to "Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men" (with "Midnight Men" in larger type) and Gary Friedrich comes in as writer, and art by Steve Ditko and Bernie Wrightson. Even if it wasn't the final issue of the series, the art team at least was only going to be a one-shot deal, as the letter column says the next issue would have art by Jose Gaul.

Anyway, I haven't read those first two issues, but they seem to set up a future world borrowing from literary works like 1984 and FAHRENHEIT 451, with Thought Police and book-burnings, and toss in the title character, a man who turns into a mindless walking tree. In this issue, he's going to try to get help from a scientist named Whitlock, just as Whitlock's library is discovered by the police. For no reason we're given Whitlock manages to survive third degree burns all over his body, and takes Morlock to the subway based refuge of a band of rebels plotting against the mysterious Tribunal (you know they're mysterious since they always sit with their chairs facing away from us). Whitlock comes up with an ugly costume for himself, renames himself the Midnight Man and makes plans to use Morlock's powers, but then the Thought Police discover them, so he shoots Morlock and gets ready to blow up the refuge.

Weird hodge-podge of ideas, though there's a hint of something interesting in there, although never to be developed, of course. More interesting is the artwork, the only time Ditko was paired with Wrightson on inks. It's a combination that works very well, very similar to the better Ditko/Wood combinations, with some nice brushwork and shading never getting in the way of the solid Ditko compositions, though clearly not being done justice by the printing. Shame we didn't see more of that.