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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Blake Bell is a writer who resides in Toronto, Canada. His next book, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko will be on shelves in June of 2008. He has written a myriad of essays and introductions for Marvel and DC Comics, and his first book, "I Have To Live With This Guy!" was published by TwoMorrows in 2002. Prospective employers can EMAIL BLAKE about commissioning him for articles, essays, introductions, comic books, fiction and non-fiction work.
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Steve Ditko is one of the most famous comic-book artists in history. He has been working in comics for 55 years and has brought you characters diverse as Mr. A, Spider-Man, The Creeper, Captain Atom and Dr. Strange. Look it up...
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Blake Bell's
STEVE DITKO
BOOK
Reviews/Media Page
Updated
Thursday August 7, 2008
Other links:
Ordering Information
Events/Appearances
Previews/Excerpts
Project History
New York Times Book Review gives full page (Added Aug 17)
Sunday's New York Times Book Review dedicates a full page to an overview of my book. Here's the link to the overview on their site.
More A=A+ reviews continue to flow in! (Updated Aug 17)
Publisher's Weekly, who is one of the most important voices to the booktrade, and to libraries, loves it.
Booklist, another extremely influential magazine for the library circuit, also loves it.
Village Voice calls it "engrossing" (2nd review down).
Synergy magazine, down in Australia, loves it.
Happy Harbour, one of Canada's top retailers, loves it.
Barnes & Noble says "masterful, copiously illustrated biographical study. With passionate yet unremittingly objective scholarship...".
City Pages says "Bell has inpeccable taste."
Nova 100 says a whole bunch of stuff in Italian.
Johnny Bicardi calls it an "outstanding work."
Montreal Mirror says it's a "tome overflowing with effectively presented artwork."
Mark Evanier has more thoughts.
Steve Bissette has his first of what may be many thoughts.
Comic Book Bin gives the book a very detailed review and an "A+" that focuses more on my writing than most reviews do.
The A.V. Club has three people review the book and gives it an "A" rating!
Newsday calls the book a long-awaited treat.
Art Blog by Bob writes a very lengthy review of the book that also goes into detail about my writing versus the images themselves.
Even the "competition" loves the book! (Added Jul 21)
Top Shelf Comix is easily one of the best publishers of top quality comic books in North America, run by two of the nicest guys in comics, Brett Warnock and Chris Staros. Brett just posted a review of my book to his Top Shelf blog saying "this book will easily end the calendar year 2008 in my Top Five books of the year, if not Number One!" High praise indeed coming from the producers of some of the best books on the market!
Canada's national Maclean's gives full page! (Added Jul 19)
For all our American friends, Maclean's is Canada's equivalent to Time Magazine and they have given the book a full page in their July 28th issue! Even better is that they'll be putting up an expanded version of the article this weekend on the web site. Here's a picture of the article...
Entertainment Weekly gives the book an "A-"! (Added Jul 14)
This week's issue - July 18th - of the mega-popular magazine gives the book an entire page and a top-flight review! Here's the link to the review on their site, and click on the image below to see the full page...
Misc. reviews (updated Mon Jul 21)
The Honolulu Star Bulletin raves about the book.
First Post does a nice 9 page visual preview.
Wally Conger thinks it's fantastic.
Even in the U.K., they have Ditko Fever!
Missed Toronto's Eye Weekly review from weeks back.
Alan David Doane gives a lengthy look and says we "create as complete a picture of the man as is likely to be created."
Newsarama.com's Tim Janson says we do a "magnificent job of showing all sides of Ditko."
Comicmix.com's Mike Gold says "it’s well-written, well-researched, and wondrously designed by Adam Grano. If you’re into Ditko or comics history, it’s a must-have. Kudos to Blake." We're especially pleased that Mike liked the book, because he knew and worked with Ditko back in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
Hometown Toronto Star gives monster review! (Added Jul 14)
Nice to see such an in-depth and sterling review by this past Sunday's Toronto Star; my hometown newspaper. And it's great to see they dedicated that much space to a piece of Ditko's artwork. Here's the link to the review on their site, and they even featured it on the front cover of the section. Below is the centrespread of the paper...
Featured on the front cover of the L.A. Times Book Review!
Sunday June 22 saw the book featured on the front cover of the L.A. Times Book Review section of the newspaper! The review itself consumed the entire centrespread of the section (click on the image below to see the full-sized review, courtesy of Robert A. Falls)...
Here's a link to the web version of the review by Geoff Boucher who says "the book is an extremely satisfying archive of the artist's work, both famous and obscure, and that it intensely documents the twists and turns of his career." And since that's what we hoped to achieve with the book, we'll take that as the highest compliment!
A=A+! SCI-FI MAGAZINE reviews the book!
The first review has come in for my book and it's from the Sci-Fi Magazine, the official magazine of the Sci-Fi Channel! They've given my Ditko book an A+ review! Out of dozens of film, tv, book, game and comic reviews in the upcoming August issue (that features Christian Bale, aka Batman, on the cover), it's the only "A+" given! Click on the picture below to read a larger version. And we've already forgiven them for getting the price wrong!
Another glowing review: The Library Journal!
The Library Journal.com, courtesy of reviewer Michael Rogers, has given the book a big thumbs up!
Quick-hit mentions of the book!
Tom Spurgeon says about the book: "I have this. I'd read this, but I keep being mesmerized by the art. This is one handsome book. Handsome like the lead hunter character in a safari movie handsome."
Irving Klaw's grandson, Rick, discovers more of his grandfather's legacy.
Javier Hernandez blogs about my appearance on his radio show.
Valerie D’Orazio calls the book "fascinating" and recounts her "Ten Reasons Why I Like Steve Ditko Just A Little More Than Jack Kirby" after having finished my book.
Writer Mark Evanier - he of the Kirby: King of Comics hardcover that blessed our shelves earlier this year - had some nice (preliminary) words about the book.
All characters and articles inside are copyright of their respective owners. Thanks to Jon Lovstad for housing the site, courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.
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