I will be updating this page as I go along.
Such as this is the first comic book I purchased in my younger days, Amazing Spider-Man #38. Back when you bought comics off the rack in a drug store.
This is, and always will be, my favorite Amazing Spider-Man cover. Steven Ditko was a master of storytelling. He really delivered and I love his work on Spider-Man, Creeper, Hawk & Dove, Mr. A, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and so, so many others.
It's been fun to find reprints of his older stories in hardback recently and on Kindle (including early Captain Atom stories.)
I will enjoy a more person retrospective of comic books on this page.
Awesome, gotta love Steve Ditko's work! I have those same hardcovers for the same reasons. I only with some of those series had lasted longer!
ReplyDeleteThe Creeper was my introduction to Ditko. The origin story (from SHOWCASE 73, reprinted in DETECTIVE 443) was my introduction to the character. And then I just >>had<< to have those 6 issues of BEWARE THE CREEPER from 1968-1969. And they were very hard to track dowwn in the pre-internet 1970's and early 1980's. But worth it.
ReplyDeleteI also lucked onto a coverless copy of SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL 6 from 1969, reprinting the "Secret Six" story from SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL 1, and the Kirby/Ditko "The FF Meet Spiderman" (from FF annual 1), and Kirby/Ditko "Spidey Tackles the Torch" (from SPIDER-MAN 8.) Man, talk about good fortune!
I later got the origin stories in Stan Lee's ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS and SON OF ORIGINS for Spidermsn and Doctor Strange.
But my favorite Ditko stories remain his monster stories from the Pre-Marvel period of 1958-1963. Marvel Masterworks I'm so glad to have are of TALES TO ASTONISH volumes 1-3 and TALES OF SUSPENSE 1-3.
Plus most of what I don't have in hardcover I have in 1970's reprint titles like FEAR, CREATURES ON THE LOOSE, MONSTERS ON THE PROWL and similar titles.
At some point I realized, Ditko is probably second only to Kirby in the number of characters he's created, for Marvel, DC and other publishers.
Before he went on to comic artist Valhalla. Sleep well, noble warrior, your works endure.