One of comics’ greatest creators was born 94 years ago…
The late Steve Ditko is many things to many people — but one thing’s clear: It’s impossible to easily boil his career down to a simple gallery of images, largely because he was one of the most important and influential creators in comics history.
Still, boiling things down to 13 images is what we do, because it’s fun. Now, typically, for a Ditko birthday salute, we’d focus on Spider-Man because he’s my favorite Marvel character and the artist was (natch) his co-creator.
But this year, we’re going with Doctor Strange, another co-creation. I’d love to do 13 COVERS, but Ditko didn’t do 13 Doctor Strange covers. So we’ve got the next best thing — 13 SPLASH PAGES culled from his epochal run on Strange Tales, from Issue #110 to #146 (1963-66). Mostly they’re first-page splashes but I’ve included a couple other mind-blowers, just for kicks.
So hop on board the train to the astral plane…
Strange Tales #110
Strange Tales #115
Strange Tales #137
Strange Tales #138
Strange Tales #120
Strange Tales #122
Strange Tales #146
Strange Tales #134
Strange Tales #133
Strange Tales #138
Strange Tales #127
Strange Tales #146
Strange Tales #146
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MORE
— 13 SPLASH PAGES: A STEVE DITKO Birthday Celebration — 2020 Edition: SPIDER-MAN. Click here.
— STEVE DITKO: A Fountainhead of Creativity. Click here.
November 2, 2021
I’m totally blown away by Mr. Ditko’s art style here!
November 2, 2021
Just like Kirby, Ditko was an acquired taste for me growing up. Then as I got older I began to appreciate the creativity of both of those guys. And now, I see the sheer genius of Ditko and Kirby and the worlds they were able to build. Just like a vocalist that comes on the radio and you know exactly who it is, these guys did that in their medium.
Loved these splash pages!
November 3, 2021
There’s some of Ditko’s work that I just flat-out don’t care for — his Legion of Super-Heroes stories come to mind. HOWEVER, I can’t think of any character-artist combo that can top what Steve Ditko brought to the visual telling of Stephen Strange’s story. The uniqueness of that character’s world never seemed to be a challenge to the uniqueness of Ditko’s style and imagination. Would have loved to have been in the room to hear Stan Lee marvel over every Strange page Ditko turned in.
Some of my favorite Ditko remains the work he did for Marvel’s Phantom 2040 issues. Someday you’ll have to feature it in a story on the site.