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STEVE DITKO ISSUE REVIEW
(5/25/04) We were promised...
THE COMICS JOURNAL #258
...what we received was one of the largest quantity of articles on Ditko's career in one magazine, but one that had difficulty living up to the hype of "comprehensive," "massive," covering "Ditko's 50 years of work," or exploring "the nooks and crannies of what makes Ditko a vital, important figure in our medium's history" (or "December," since it arrived in late February).
If I didn't share some of the Objectivist traits of Ditko - in this example, complete disbelief in the Supernatural (unless it's Supernatural Law - the fabulous self-published comic by my buddy, and friend in Ditko lore, Batton Lash) - I'd testify to any project attempted on Ditko is destined to be cursed. But the concerns with The Journal's Ditko entry are man-made and should have been noted before publication.
The issue marked the last of then-current Editor-in-Chief, Milo George, and the construction of the Ditko section suggests it was a victim to the circumstances surrounding his exit. The organization of the section - its contextual foundation - is haphazard at best. Those unfamiliar to Ditko's work and career would be hopelessly lost upon entry into the suite of articles. There is a hastily arranged, poorly constructed and chosen set of images that pose as the title page to the Ditko section. It does not allow the section to stand out, nor would it pique the interest of an unfamiliar reader. The images are 50 years into Ditko's career (Colan, Severin, Heath is Ditko not, in terms of issuing consistent, quality work as strong as when his career started) and, even as motifs, are hardly representative of Ditko's body of work.
A greater concern is the section lacks a single word of context for those unfamiliar with Ditko. There is no overview of his career accomplishments (even barely hinted at in the table of contents blurb); instead we are launched into an article about one Ditko motif (his use of hands). Replacing the "Table For One" advertisement (although appropriately placed, since Fawstin exhibits Objectivist traits in his writing, according to Lash) with a contextual piece about Ditko's career would have set the reader up for success.
As for the articles themselves, Milo George's comments from his opening editorial ring hollow: "Ditko is the 'Cherokee' of comics criticism...since, judging by the remarkable number of rejected articles about his work I had in my junk folder at the time, Ditko separated the wheat from the chaff when it came to writing." Milo is right that describing Ditko's unique style with anything other than generalities have humbled the best comic historians and Ditko's peers. This issue of the Journal proves the mountain unconquered.
While one can question beginning the section with an article on one of Ditko's motifs, perhaps it was chosen because it was one of the few that should have made it out of George's "junk file." While not presenting wholly-original thoughts about said motif, Bill Randall does a decent job encapsulating how the placement of hands in a panel is at the forefront when Ditko's mind begins composing. Most writers resort to the simple, "Aren't his fingers draw funky?" when describing the look of Ditko's drawn hands, but Randall outlines how they are used for emotional impact, rather than just idiosyncrasy.
The above could have served as a set-up for a more in-depth overview of his career (before launching into more detailed articles touching on a given period). Instead, a curiously arranged, and chosen, set of articles barely seeks to give a cohesive picture of Ditko's 50 years. At the Small Press Expo convention last September, Larry Rodman advised me his article would focus on Ditko's Marvel pre-superhero work (1958-1962). The title of his article suggests something similar - "Beyond Atlas: Ditko's Supernatural Work" - but the article wanders from appearing to be about one Monster story from Ditko's pre-superhero work to commentary on how Dr. Strange was "deep escapism" and how that mirrored television in the 1960s (?). The article seems to be maybe three articles minimum, but all seem to be about Ditko in the most peripheral sense. Besides the article's complete inability to stay on focus for one page, its contribution to comics' criticism is null and could have easily been replaced by even a chronological examination of Ditko's pre-superhero work, the trends and how it influenced his Spider-Man and Dr. Strange material.
Craig Fischer's "Unmasking the Villain: Notes on Ditko, Kirby and Marvel-Style Plotting" appears to have been pulled from a rejected, "Why I Like Kirby Better Than Ditko" issue of TCJ. As one who studies Ditko's work, I wouldn't have been interested in a sycophantic slab of love-in articles on Ditko, but four pages on the alleged tedium of Ditko and Lee's two-part battle plotting formula (I always assumed #10-12, 17-19 and 31-33 were trilogies, but...), and the majority of the article on the loveliness of the later Kirby Fantastic Four, seem awfully out of place. This was to represent a Spider-Man contribution to the issue? Who would come away from this article believing that Ditko, within his most popular work of his career, was an important figure in the history of the medium? The article hardly supports the Journal's own thesis for the section, appearing to have been placed here in lieu of someone providing an appropriate one of substance mirroring said thesis.
The strongest entries are those that revolve around Ditko's Objectivism work. That's no small feat, given how many writers resort to potshots at Objectivism as a philosophy, Rand and/or Ditko as fanatics, or Ditko's inability to "out dialogue" Gerry Conway.
Jonathan Hastings' article, "All or Nothing: Ditko's Didactic Comics," poses one of only two interesting theories in the whole Journal issue: "Ditko's purely didactic comics, the ones that speak directly to the reader with a conventional narrative delivery system, without a story or genre trappings, are far more successful," than Ditko's 8-page morality tales that centred on - but not exclusive to - Mr. A's adventures. That took a moment to ponder and Hastings backs up his claims with evidence not only in the examining Ditko's message but how the message was conveyed through Ditko's compelling mastery of "surgical abstraction," as Hastings calls it.
Rich Kreiner tackles what few, if any, have dared: Ditko's written essays of the past 30 years. He brings up the interesting point that "the fundamental advantage of these essays over his comics is this: As Ditko builds his case, often from the nethery sub-basements up, he reveals the progression of his thoughts so readers may more accurately assess where disagreements arise and where they must part company (whereas his comics arrive very much as bandes dessinees accomplies)." Superhero fans want to know where the bodies of 1960s Marvel are buried, but Kreiner rightly points out that you can trace Ditko's original thought processes through these articles. If only Ditko himself realized how much easier that would be, and how much more his points would be amplified, if he did it in one-quarter the verbiage.
When Donald Phelps finally puts away the Thesauraus (and grabs hold of the steering "wheel" that sees the article veer three times across a dark, literary highway), the middle portion of his "Letter Of The Law: Ditko's Mr. A Era" article reinforces to an appropriate degree the theme of "farce" in Ditko's 1970s material.
The problem with asking for a bit of context to set up the unfamiliar reader is that a writer can resort to a simple retelling of plot instead of criticism. Mari Wood's review of Mysterious Suspense #1 seemingly spends 95% of the article retelling the plot than offering any new opinions about this seminal Ditko work. Gregory Cwiklik's article on Ditko's Warren work and R. Fiore's piece of Shade the Changing Man both fall into this trap.
To create a section of substance on a man like Ditko with 50 years under his belt needs an editor to take strong charge of the content and themes, rather than just throwing out a call to contributing writers and accepting the best of what was returned. Had George started with a core concept of what would best represent an overview of Ditko's career, he could have courted articles fitting that concept (or at least vetted those that would have most closely aligned) instead of barely being able to capture 12 years of Ditko's career (you'd be able to achieve a sense of Ditko's work and career timeline from 1967 to 1978 by reading this issue of the Journal).
The lack of a core concept here brings us back to the notion that any attempt at an extensive overview of Ditko's career will require an iron will, and strong constitution, to be realized. A reader unfamiliar with Ditko's career will be left unlikely to explore his 50 years of work based on these articles, and the choice of them. The Ditko aficionado will be left thinking that an opportunity was left to dangle by an outgoing editor not focused on what was required to do justice to Ditko's career.
- Blake Bell
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