Steve Ditko was born on November 2 1927 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He took an interest in comic strips while still young. particularly Prince Valiant by Hal Foster, the comic book character Batman, and Will Eisner's newspaper insert The Spirit. Mr. Ditko graduated from high school in 1945 and then joined the United States Army. While in the military he drew cartoons for a military newspaper. In 1950 he enrolled in the Cartoonist and Illustrator School (now the School of Visual Arts) in New York City.
It was in 1953 that Steve Ditko's first professional work was published in Daring Love no. 1 (October 1953), a romance title published by the imprint Gillmor Magazines of the minor publisher Key Publications. He worked for three months in the studio of comic book legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Afterwards he worked with another comic book legend, Mort Meskin, from whom he learned a good deal.
It was not long before Steve Ditko's first work for the company with which he was most closely associated would be published. While Mr. Ditko would work for many other companies, throughout his career he would return to Charlton time and time again until the company folded in 1986. His first work for the company was published in the horror comic book The Thing! no. 12 (February 1954). Unfortunately, Steve Ditko would contract tuberculosis and had to take a break from the comic book industry in order to recuperate.
It was after Steve Ditko returned to comic books that he did his first work for the company that would become known as Marvel Comics. He worked on the company's giant monster and sci-fi titles, including Journey into Mystery, World of Fantasy, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, and Amazing Adventures. It was during this period that Steve Ditko co-created the superhero Captain Atom with Joe Gill at Charlton. The character first appeared in Space Adventures no. 33 (March 1966).
Mr. Ditko would later make important contributions to two Marvel superheroes. Stan Lee had created Spider-Man after publisher Martin Goodman had requested that he create an ordinary, teenage superhero. Initially Mr. Lee approached Jack Kirby, with whom he had created The Fantastic Four, to illustrate the new character. While Mr. Kirby's work was good, however, Mr. Lee did not think it fit the character. He then turned to Steve Ditko. It was Mr. Ditko who gave Spider-Man his web-shooters and designed his costume. Steve Ditko would illustrate the character's debut in Amazing Fantasy no. 15 (August 1962) and the first issues for The Amazing Spider-Man from 1963 to 1966.
While Stan Lee was the original impetus for the creation of Spider-Man, it was Steve Ditko who came up with the initial idea for Doctor Strange. In addition to coming up with the initial idea for Doctor Strange, Mr. Ditko also illustrated the feature and co-plotted his adventures. Eventually he plotted the Doctor Strange feature on his own. He continued to work on Doctor Strange until 1966.
Steve Ditko left Marvel in 1966 for reasons that are not entirely clear. He had already done some work for Charlton in 1965, returning to the character he had co-created, Captain Atom. In 1967 Mr. Ditko created the Silver Age Blue Beetle. While Fox Feature Syndicate had published a character of that name during the Golden Age and Charlton had published a revamp of the character in 1964, Steve Ditko's Blue Beetle was an entirely new creation that owed very little to the earlier character. During this period with Charlton, Mr. Ditko also created The Question. In addition to his work at Charlton during this time. he also illustrated stories, most of them written by Archie Goodwin, for Warren Publishing's magazines Creepy and Eerie. It was also during this period that Steve Ditko created Mr. A, who first appeared in Wally Wood's underground comic book witzend. Mr. A expressed Steve Ditko's ideas on Objectivism.
In 1968 Steve Ditko moved to DC Comics. There he created The Creeper, who first appeared in Showcase #73 (Mar-April 1968) and then in six issues of Beware The Creeper. He also created the characters of Hawk and Dove, who also first appeared in Showcase before appearing in their own magazine. Afterwards Steve Ditko worked exclusively for Charlton Comics in addition to various independent publishers. He created and wrote the backup features Liberty Belle (not to be confused with the DC character of the same name) and Killjoy for Charlton's E-Man in the Seventies.
It was in 1975 that Steve Ditko returned to DC Comics, where he crated Shade the Changing Man (who would later be revived under DC's Vertigo imprint without Mr. Ditko's involvement). He also co-created the short-lived sword and sorcery title Stalker, and he worked on the first two issues of Man-Bat. He created a new version of Starman with Paul Levitz, who appeared in Adventure Comics.
Steve Ditko left DC for Marvel in 1979, where he took over Jack Kirby's title Machine Man. In the Eighties he would also work on Rom Spaceknight and Speedball. In the Eighties he also worked for various independent publishers, including Pacific Comics (for whom he created the characters Missing Man and The Mocker), Eclipse Comics (for whom he created the character Static--not to be confused with the later Milestone Comics character), and First Comics. He worked briefly on Archie Comics' revival of their superhero line in 1983 and 1984, illustrating stories featuring The Fly, Fly Girl, and The Jaguar.
In the Nineties Steve Ditko did his last work for Marvel. He co-created Squirrel Girl with Will Murray and worked on the titles Phantom 2040 and Saban's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, among others. In the Naughts He also did his last work for DC, illustrating a New Gods story. From the late Naughts onwards, Mr. Ditko's work was with Robin Synder, who had been an editor at Charlton. These included new Mr. A material.
While Steve Ditko was an adherent of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, fortunately for me and many others not much of his Objectivist views found their way into his mainstream work (not counting Mr. A, of course). Regardless of Mr. Ditko's philosophical views, there can be no doubt that he was a very talented artist. His style was certainly unique. It was slightly cartoony, very surreal, and often filled with detail. The vistas he created for his Doctor Strange stories in the Sixties were moody and have been described as psychedelic. Mr. Ditko's style was fluid and often idiosyncratic. His work on Spider-Man and Doctor Strange offered a sharp contrast to the more traditional work being done by Jack Kirby at Marvel at the time. No artist drew quite like Steve Ditko.
What is more, Steve Ditko would leave behind a legacy that only a few comic book artists and writers could match. He co-created two of Marvel's best known characters, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. While they would not gain the fame of the Marvel characters, he also created some of Charlton's best known characters: Captain Atom, The Blue Beetle, and The Question. He would have a lasting influence on comic books that is still being felt to this day. Indeed, Steve Ditko's impact can be seen in everything from DC's animated shows and features to Marvel movies such as Guardians of the Galaxy and, naturally, Doctor Strange. Few comic book artists and writers ever had the impact that Steve Ditko did.
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