"RIP Steve Ditko" Topic

Still my favorite Spider-Man artist, and one of the all-time great comic illustrators.

True legend.

He deserves as much acclaim as Jake Kirby did when he passed. I hope someone is guarding his apartment in NYC. He had a amazing collection of art.

Sorry to hear this. Downtown here, there is a Comicon going today too … I'm sure he will be mentioned/honored.

THE Spider-man artist. May he rest in peace.

Ron

Bought a book on the Marvel characters through the ages yesterday, heard this news today, very sad. As much a part of the Marvel story as Stan Lee and Kirby. RIP.

As much as I like Ditko I must state that NO ONE deserves as much acclaim as Jack Kirby!

Both were hugely influential and instrumental in the development of the comic industry as we know it, and both were treated poorly by Marvel. Steve Ditko's story is a sad and lonely one indeed. This thread is about the passing of a comic legend, namely Steve Ditko. It's not really a contest about who deserves more acclaim, Ditko or Kirby.
Jeez dude, read the room.

RIP

I was just reading about Stan Lee's decision to give Spider-man to Ditko because Ditko drew more realistic heroes, while Kirby made his imposing and heavily muscled. Lee recognized that for the more vulnerable character of a teenager with real life problems, a less over-the-top look was crucial. An absolutely brilliant decision, and Ditko brought Peter Parker and Aunt May to life as much as he did Peter's alter ego, Spider-man. He also produced Spider-man's unique fighting style poses, carrying off the concept of a hero who wasn't a blunt-force brawler, but a nimble, acrobatic in-and-out artist-- truly a "spider man."

Thank you for years of joy, Mr. Ditko. RIP.

I found Spiderman on the comic book rack at the drug store one cold, snowy, day when I was 6 or 7 years old and had a bad, nose-running, feverish cold. It is possible that I was at the drug store because my mom was buying medicine for me.

Anyway, I started thumbing through the comic book and saw that Peter Parker, who I knew was Spiderman, was suffering through a cold, snowy day with a bad headcold. I asked my mom to buy the comic book, and she did, probably happy to give me anything that would keep my interest and let me feel less miserable.

Anyway, thank you, Mr. Ditko. You and Stan Lee kept my interest and let me feel less miserable for years.

Even my mom would read my Spiderman comics now and then.

I've gotta be honest here.

I read the name and had to ask "who?"

Maybe it's because 2000AD was something I'd read over ANY marvel or DC comic if given a choice. Over the years, I've only read about 4 Marvel comics (as in single issues, and one of them was Star Wars) and maybe a dozen DC titles (collections for TDKR, the killing joke, and a few others).

Steve Dillon's death meant something to me. Not because he was one of the co-creators of "Preacher" for DC, but because of his work on 2000AD.

Steve Dillon is dead???!!!

Well, Steve Dillon would definitely have known who Steve Ditko was (as, for one thing, Dillon got his own start drawing art for Marvel!). While I appreciate that you limited your reading to a British comic produced decades after Dikto's work, it's a bit like saying "Edgar Allen Poe who? I only ever read Stephen King." Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby broke new ground in late 20th century comics, issuing in the era that would lead to 2000AD and other works. Though you may not realize it, even satirical British SF comics owe their origins to Marvel and, yes, DC. Whether through art, story and setting concepts or the approaches to sequential storytelling, Lee, Ditko and Kirby greatly altered the comics world, and their influence is there in everything you loved, too. Sometimes it's hard to come along after the hyper-detailed art of the '80s through today and look at and appreciate the cleaner, simpler (and sometimes subtler) work of the '60s, but that work was father to the work that followed (and, frankly, was performed by artists working for less pay and with far less (if any) critical acclaim from the artsy crowd, compared to today, where comic book art is treated as fashionable, trendy and even avant garde). Quite seriously, without Spider-Man and his fellow "long underwear" types, there is no Judge Dredd.

So, whether you know it or not, Steve Ditko meant a lot to you.

I read a handful of marvel/DC supers stuff in the early 80s then stopped reading until the 90s, when I discovered Dark Horse. Pretty much ignored Marvel after the 80s.

I'm sure Steve Dillon would have known of Ditko's work – but I still wouldn't recognise it if you slapped me in the face with it.
I don't worship at the shrine of Lee, either.
These days, I don't even read comics. Local specialist store doesn't carry anything I want to read – and it's full of funko tat and chibi anyway.

The Angry Piper: Yes, Steve Dillon is dead. He died 22 October 2016.