DITKO TAKES SAN DIEGO
COMIC CON '02 BY STORM!
Monday September 23, 2002
On Friday August 2nd 2002, the San Diego Comic Con hosted its first-ever ART OF STEVE DITKO panel, moderated by myself with guests GARY GROTH (Co-publisher of FANTAGRAPHICS and THE COMICS JOURNAL), JOHN ROMITA SR. (the man who followed Ditko on SPIDER-MAN), Paul Smith (X-men, Leave It To Chance artist who, in the mid 1980s, was responsible for the best DR. STRANGE artwork since Ditko left) and Batton Lash (creator of the fantastic self-published SUPERNATURAL LAW - web site at www.ExhibitApress.com).
First and foremost, thanks to everyone who A) came out for the Ditko panel; B) those dealers who helped out with artwork for the panel; C) those who met me on the floor of the Con afterwards and said nice things.
I worked until 2am the Wednesday morning before leaving for the Con on my "I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS GUY!" book and had to be up for 4am to leave on an early flight. As a result, I had NO questions prepared for the Ditko panel and (WORSE) no artwork prepared, minus four '50s images only on 81/2 x 11 paper.
I was disappointed, but the book took precedence.
 When I hit the Con on Thursday, across from the TWOMORROWS' booth was Mike Thibodeaux's booth and he had the DEMON SWORD splash from one of Ditko's Warren stories sitting on his rack for $7500! I casually said to Mike, 'Gee, I wish I could photocopy that for my Ditko panel' and he said, 'Sure, just take the thing.' (Left: Blake and Batton Lash with DEMON SWORD page)
I couldn't believe it! I had talked to Mike last year with David Schwartz but this was generosity beyond compare! I tried to photocopy it but because it was a wash cover, it didn't turn out too well as a B&W copy. I relayed this to Mike and he said just take the darn thing to the Panel! What a gentleman!
That gave me the courage to go around to other dealers, act all official-like, and request artwork to be copied. Conrad Eschenberg was very magnanimous about letting me copy and helping out with a Dr. Strange page from S.T. #125 and a great pre-hero Atlas splash. David S. helped me secure a Creeper page from Mitch Itkowitz, and David also provided a great Charlton cover. The most fun was having to photocopy each half of this stuff and tape it together, since the earlier artwork was too big! Batton Lash also brought the COLLECTOR'S EDITION story fully photocopied. Dominic Milano, a Colanut, also contributed a Kirby-inked-by-Ditko splash to be shown around.
The highlight for me was realizing I had a CD on me with the B&W image of the splash to WHO AM I? and was able to take it to KINKOS on Friday morning to blow it up into two 24x30" images, as well as blowing up the late '50s pic of Ditko that adorns the front of this site.
This Ditko panel was the first panel I had ever moderated, so Friday morning was awash with preparations concerning building questions. Unfortunately, they had cut the panel times down to 1 1/2 hours this year, but I still fretted over the amount of questions I had, and if they would be enough. Turns out they were double what I needed!
The worst was not having ANYTHING to put up the artwork on...until I saw two giant corkboards on wheels in the Pro Lounge and "convinced" the Con to allow me to use both. It was a frantic pace trying to get everything up on the boards, but it was worth it, presentation-wise. Rolling those two corkboards into the room for the panel was quite the experience because it was my first view at how packed the room was! During the question period, one guy piped up with the always-pertinent comment, "I'm just so happy to be in a room filled with people who like Ditko" and they were plenty.
I had known Todd McFarlane wasn't supposed to show for the first half-hour, due to some silly major league baseball dot com live chat, and he missed the whole thing, but it showed quite clearly how a good topic for a panel only needs four people.
 We had Gary Groth, the pinko-commie, to my left with Batton Lash (pictured on the right) at the far end: the admitted Objectivist. In between, we had Paul Smith next to Bat, and John Romita Sr. next to Gary. Paul has semi-recently converted to indie-publishing and took on Romita about the value of an editor, and Gary brought home so very salient points about how Ditko would agree that an editor had the right to have final say over a company's product, and that Ditko would just withdraw from a situation of that nature if he couldn't stand it, rather than stay and bitch.
I had asked Gary because he had published Ditko in the last decade-plus, had met Ditko, and had a wide knowledge of both "sides" of the man's work, as did Batton Lash, who I had asked for that reason and because of the Ditko influences in his work. I had asked John Romita because he had, on other occasions, articulated so well on the unique facets of Ditko's style, and Paul Smith had told me previous of how important Ditko was to his career, and I wanted as many as possible who could articulate on Ditko's style and not just trade hearsay anecdotes. We also had people take the Ditko/Kirby piece and the Warren piece around the room, and allowed for people to come up and view the artwork on the two giant corkboards placed on either side of the stage.
These panelists were all fabulous, and the panel moved at a VERY steady pace with no downtime at all. I missed the greatest pun moment of all time when we were talking about Steve and the lights dropped in the room. I should have pointed to the door and said, 'You never thought he'd attend a convention again, but would you please welcome...STEVE DITKO!"
I would have killed half the audience with shock.
We did have SOME time to open the floor to questions, but really, the whole thing could have EASILY gone on for another 1 1/2 hours. There was a Ditko buzz for the rest of the day, and I had the chance to meet plenty of nice people who came up to me and spoke nicely about
the panel and their desire to see another one next year. One gentleman who's on the comicart-l list but whose name escapes me now, came up to me and said, "great panel - I just wanted to show you my $12000 (!) page from Amazing Spider-Man #9"! It was a GREAT page, and then the
guy went back to his hotel on the bus! I love comics!
Given that next year will mark the 50th year Ditko has been published (1953-2003) in comics (that we know of), I've proposed another Ditko panel to the Con PLUS (as I did this year) a slide show/Power Point presentation outlining Ditko's career. Don't know who would be on the panel, as one never knows who will be there. I'd love to have Joe Gill out there.
There will be other events swirling around next year that will add to the Con's desire to do a Ditko panel IF they feel enough "heat" from the general public. If you want to ensure there's another Ditko panel, let the Con know your feelings. Their e-mail address is cciweb@nucgen.com.
Marc Svensson did tape this year's panel, and we are presently working on making it available on the 'Net in a streaming format for people who weren't there to watch on their computer screens! Come back in late October for that, I would suspect.
This doesn't even cover the whole story at the Con behind getting together with Fantagraphics to do the upcoming book project. There were FOUR publishers interested at the show, but Fantagraphics went for the gold and they were left standing at the top of the podium. As has been said previously, 2003 will be the year of Steve Ditko.
Blake Bell
ditko37@sympatico.ca
|
