TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN: Spider - Man Month ends with Steve Ditko ?

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Spider - Man Month ends with Steve Ditko ?

You can't have a Spider - Man themed month on your blog and not do at least one post about Steve Ditko's iconic part, am I right ? Especially if you haven't done a full blown Steve Ditko post amongst your 1.385 posts.

Well, since I didn't have enough material for this post I almost skipped it but then I decided to make one anyways so after scouring the interwebs here is my tribute to the OG Spider - Man creators who started it all.

And I am saying " creators " because no matter how much Stan Lee did or did not contribute to the series on a day to day basis - and I don't want to go into that discussion because I have no idea what really happened since I wasn't there - Stan Lee's writing really is at its peak and while preparing the material for this post ( and a possible follow up post with some Steve Ditko DOCTOR STRANGE art thrown in for good measure ) I found myself getting invested almost against my will in the whole soap opera drama of Peter Parker's life and reading the issues in - between even if I did not have any original art page from that issue in question.

Something similar happened with the art. Anybody who has followed this blog over an extended period of time knows that while I can appreciate Steve Ditko's place in comicbook history and his achievements in art in general I am not one of these die hard Steve Ditko fans and there have been a lot of times where I was not too thrilled about him doing a fill - in issue in one of the series I collected. And I don't know if it is because of seeing his art at a bigger size or checking out the original pages or maybe it is trying to decide which pages NOT to post but I have to say these pages look darn good. Not matter if it is high flying action, over blown melodrama or quite character moments Steve Ditko excels at all of them and makes it look easy. Okay, some part of it might be nostalgia because these were the first issues of DIE SPINNE I read but going over these original art pages it's easy to see why this book became so popular so fast and had such a big impact on the entire comicbook industry too.

Somebody once asked me why AMAZING SPIDER - MAN has such a regard with comicbook collectors and my answer was that from the first issue to issue 350 the series just keeps getting better and better. Granted, there may be a few weak issues here and there but the writing and art on the title just keeps evolving and improving over a 28 year period. And if you like the Mark Bagley run we are even talking about 30 plus years. That's a pedigree not many comic series have. Anyway, I think that is enough of an intro just in case I can manage to do a second Steve Ditko post Today.