One of my all time favourite artists and probably the first one I not only knew the name of but could identify by his distinctive style of art was Steve Ditko. I marvelled not just at his work on the early Spider-Man (the only time I was ever a fan) and Doctor Strange where he created a world of magic that enthralled the reader i it's beauty and infinite depth but also his work on those short horror or mystery tales they use to publish.
Much of Steve Ditko's work was reproduced in the UK by the Alan Class range of comics in black and white which really brought home the wonderful artwork and imagination of the artist. A man to be admired along with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby who between them created the basis of the Marvel Comics Universe between them.
Ditko however was a very private individual who had a very strong work ethic and was heavily influenced by the right wing writer Ayn Rand and her "objectivism". He was also somewhat of a recluse and refused interviews and as we find out in Regards Ditko very dismissive of fans who had no right to critique his work. In other words buy it or don't buy it your choice.
The premise of this tome on Kickstarter was that Jaison Chahwala was going to share his correspondence with Ditko and I expected that to form the bulk of the book not just an afterthought as it turned out. The writer weaves a personal tale with perhaps too much detail of his meanderings towards the hobby, the antics around his local comic shop and is pretty self-indulgent even up to the point one finally gets to read limited letters from the man himself.
That Ditko was a fairly introspective thinker along with his self-imposed isolation from the rest of comicdom meant when he sadly passed away last year it wasn't known straight away as we did when Stan Lee left us. I read Ditko's obituary in
The Daily Telegraph whilst in hospital. He was a a great creator though the stuff he produced at the end of his career hadn't really appealed to me but like the author recognised that Ditko was indeed one of the greats in comicdom, though from what we read Ditko would have been totally dismissive of that.
Eccentric to the last Ditko will be forever remembered as one of the founders of modern comics.
As for this book it's an easy read but in all honesty unless the author was going to publish the full correspondence with Steve Ditko this could have simply been condensed into a major article for
Alter Ego or
Back Issue magazines. I'm not sure it warranted a book sorry.
Still I got a Steve Ditko bookmark as part of the Kickstarter package.
