Steve Ditko Week

As most of you hopefully know, I do a brief more-or-less daily column of links over at Craig Yoe's I.T.C.H. blog. Well, IDW, publisher of the YOE Books imprint, is celebrating Craig's recent ART OF DITKO book by declaring this week DITKO WEEK! Every day will offer Ditko fun, surprises, rare art and, yes, my links over at I.T.C.H. http://superitch.com/ . Here's the official IDW Press Release.


Now available in stores, IDW Publishing and its imprint, YOE Books, are proud to announce, The Art of Ditko, a beautifully designed, large format retrospective on the art and influence of Steve Ditko. All this week, the International Team of Comics Historians (ITCH) blog will be celebrating the new book and the creator who inspired it. The ITCH blog will feature daily full-length Ditko stories from the book, plus the regular ITCH feature, “It’s Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday,” will have a bizarre drawing of Wonder Woman and Hitler by Ditko, and Friday FLICKS will have a special Ditko documentary.

In The Art of Ditko, comics legend Stan Lee provides a glowing introduction, while P. Craig Russell, John Romita, and Jerry Robinson each offer their own insights into this enigmatic and incredible creator. In addition to these one of a kind essays, The Art of Ditko also introduces fans to the very best of Ditko’s rare and striking work. The Art of Ditko is the first book from IDW’s new imprint YOE Books, and is edited and designed by Craig Yoe (Secret Identity).

"I'm excited to show these rare stories that pull back the curtain on how Ditko pushed the comics medium's story telling techniques in radical, revolutionary ways that have been hidden by his steller co-creation of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange," said Yoe. “The Art of Ditko also meticulously reproduces, in color, full page pieces of original Ditko art--including unpublished works--that breathtakingly show off the creator’s powerful artistry.”

A lifelong fan of comics, Ditko began his professional career as a student of Robinson at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in 1950, and was quickly recognized as a hard working and talented creator. Ditko went on to add his unique style to some of the biggest names in the business, co-creating Spider-Man and Dr. Strange with Lee, and working at both Marvel and DC during his career. In addition to these famous characters, Ditko also heavily influenced the world of comics through his innovative and groundbreaking stories, challenging the accepted boundaries of the medium.

The Art of Ditko combines riveting essays about the legendary creator with some of his most revolutionary, yet little known, works. In his introduction, Lee details his relationship with Ditko and how their[The Art of Ditko cover] co-creating of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange came about. More fascinating essays follow by Robinson, who created the Joker. John Romita described what it was like to follow Ditko on Spider-Man and P. Craig Russell gives careful insight into the task of inking his idol. Drawn during his little known "Innovation Period,” the twenty-eight stories exquisitely presented in full color amply show Ditko as a great auteur experimenting with, twisting, and transforming the comics form.

The Art of Ditko is the groundbreaking first book of the IDW imprint, YOE Books, edited, designed and written by Yoe, winner of both an Eisner Award and the Society of Illustrator's Gold Medal. YOE Books continues with The Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories, Volume One, in stores on February 24, 2010. Yoe, co-founder of YOE! Studios and deemed by Vice Magazine “The Indiana Jones of Comics Historians,” is available for interviews.

The Art of Ditko is now available in stores. ISBN 978-1600105425.

The Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories, Vol One will be available in stores on February 24th. ISBN 978-1600105463.

Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

Adam Lambert

I have never seen an episode of AMERICAN IDOL in my life nor have I had a desire to do so. Until recently, my exposure to IDOL runner-up Adam Lambert consisted of his cover-featured interview in one of my final free subscription copies of ROLLING STONE last year. But then there was Brittany Rose. As previously stated, when one's muse says "Try this, you'll like it" what kind of muse would she be if I didn't take her up on it?

Thus we here present Adam Lambert's controversial 2009 AMA performance of "For Your Entertainment," set to a rather tame BDSM theme that he takes to relatively mild extremes for just the barest of moments and yet that was enough to get his name known by those like myself who simply hadn't been paying attention.

He's a gifted singer with a nice, charismatic presence. One can easily see in him the influence of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury and even Elvis Presley. If he can reconstitute all of that into originality he may be around for awhile.

Don't know why this thing embedded only partially but if you hit the little button with the diagonal arrow, you'll get fullscreen and then you can get the whole effect.

The Sub-Mariner is Our Pal!

Another odd item from an early HUMAN TORCH fiche scan.

Carl Burgos' Hot Idea

Carl Burgos was a comic book artist who did journeyman work for several decades in the industry and eventually ended up editing and/or hacking out products like the mid-sixties CAPTAIN ("Split!!") MARVEL and the grade Z Warren mag rip-offs of the 1970's. One thing, however, that can never be taken away from him is that Carl Burgos created THE HUMAN TORCH! Here, from a fiche of that character's first Golden Age issue (oddly, # 2) is the "official" version of how that came to be.

Pulps on To Tell the Truth

Saw this over at Kliph's CLASSIC TELEVISION SHOWBIZ (http://classicshowbiz.blogspot.com/2010/01/to-tell-truth-with-host-peggy-cass-1970.html ) this morning and just had to share. This clip from a 1970 episode of TO TELL THE TRUTH is interesting on several levels.

First of all, the guest is Tony Goodstone who compiled the seminal collection of pulp fiction, THE PULPS (seen here) which was, for many of us youngsters our first exposure to those vaunted volumes of heroes, violence and villains.

Second of all, when the three contestants come out, contestant # 1 accidentally gives an incorrect last name. In order to cover this, contestant # 2 (the REAL guy!)also gives that same incorrect name. Not to be left out, the third guy then follows suit. Host Gary Moore, however, is not amused and has the curtain closed so that the gentlemen can come out again, this time offering the correct name.

Logically, this would immediately invalidate contestant # 1. Contestant # 3 should have been equally invalidated when he quickly stated that HP Lovecraft wrote love stories!


NONE of this had an impact on the generally very intelligent game-playing panelists who, on this late episode included veteran panelists Bill Cullen and Peggy Cass along with pioneering TV newswoman Nancy Dickerson and Larry Blyden, himself the host of the revived WHAT'S MY LINE? in the early 1970's.

Explain then why not one, not two but THREE of these seemingly smart cookies chose contestant # 1 to be the real Tony Goodstone!!!?? Host Moore was himself just incredulous! And the fourth player chose the equally obviously false # 3!!! Hahhahahahahahaha! The truth is stranger than pulp fiction!

Radio Once More

One of my favorite new things is the Internet radio station offered by RADIO ONCE MORE (http://www.radiooncemore.com/) which last night debuted rare surviving partial episodes of THE SHADOW along with the announcement that prolific author Martin Grams will be doing a book concentrating on THE SHADOW radio series. Mr. Grams returns to the "airwaves" tomorrow evening for an in-depth discussion of his soon-to-be-released book on THE GREEN HORNET (co-authored with Terry Salomonson), fortuitously timed to be available just before the upcoming Seth Rogan GH movie. When Neal Ellis, Terry Salomonson, et al are not doing their live call-in OTR discussions, the station presents a wonderful selection of radio episodes. Since last evening alone, I've heard JACK BENNY, OUR MISS BROOKS, FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY, an AMOS 'N' ANDY guest-starring Peter Lorre and a violent episode of Joel McCrea's TALES OF THE TEXAS RANGERS!Check out RADIO ONCE MORE if you're already an OTR buff or if you just want some good, old-fashioned entertainment like they REALLY don't make anymore!

Raquel as Mae

It's public knowledge that the biggest sex symbol of the 1920's (Mae West) had quite the feud with the biggest sex symbol of the 1960's (Raquel Welch) during the filming of 1970's MYRA BRECKINRIDGE. Yesterday, for the first time in four decades, I watched Ms. Welch's highly publicized TV special of that same year and was surprised to catch Raquel doing a more than passable impression of Ms. West!

That TV special--which also features Raquel and Bob Hope singing (and acting!) Paul McCartney's ROCKY RACCOON--deserves a blogpost unto itself but here's a comparison of the two Maes in 1970.