Steve Ditko R.I.P.

The comics industry was saddened last night to hear the news that Steve Ditko had passed away. His body was found in his Manhattan apartment on 29th June, and he's thought to have passed away a few days earlier. A sad end for the co-creator of Spider-Man, yet he lived his life as he wanted to, avoiding the public gaze and minding his own business. 

The first imagery of Steve Ditko's I saw as a child was when Odhams' Smash! weekly began reprinting The Hulk stories in 1966. They began with reprinting Hulk No.2, and that powerful image of the Hulk emerging from the swamp burnt itself into my brain forever. The art was actually by Jack Kirby, but it was Steve Ditko's inks that dominated the images, in a positive way. 

Odhams later went on to reprint Spider-Man in the pages of Pow! in 1967, with Steve Ditko on art, co-creating the character with Stan Lee's scripts, producing arguably the most popular superhero in the world. 

It was Doctor Strange that enthralled me the most though. Another Lee-Ditko co-creation, Odhams reprinted the strips in Terrific weekly in 1967. Comic readers had never seen anything like this before, with the stories taking us on unexpected journeys to nightmare realms and other dimensions, expertly realised by Ditko's unique artwork. This sequence from the first Dr.Strange story, where Strange says he will enter a dream amazed my 8 year old self and still leaves an impression today. 

The British reprints were in black and white, but we didn't mind. All the better to see Ditko's stunning designs in a way without being distracted by colour. 

Steve Ditko's run on Doctor Strange concluded with an astonishing battle between Dormammu and Eternity, - pretty much Marvel's equivalent of Satan vs God at that time. Was it any wonder I wasn't impressed by the likes of Victor and Hornet comics when such wonders as these lay in the pages of Terrific? 

Over the years I've discovered Ditko's earlier works, through reprints of his 1950s horror/mystery stories and they're moody and magnificent strips well worth checking out. 

Steve Ditko was quite reclusive, refusing interviews and publicity, but he carried on producing his own comics right up to his death. I'm sure others will go into more detail about his life, but today I just wanted to post my personal thoughts about his work. His classic strips continue to be popular, and Panini UK's Mighty World of Marvel is currently reprinting his early Doctor Strange strips every month. Check them out!

I'll also recommend the hardback books on Ditko published by Yoe! Books / IDW that reprint his early work. Essential reading!

Rest In Peace, Mr.Ditko, and thank you for the memories of such amazing work, and for the work of yours I've still to discover!

Frantic Fun (TERRIFIC, 1967)

It was the 1960s, and England was swinging like a pendulum do, or so the song told us. It was a great time for pop culture though, and Odhams were at the height of their powers with five weekly 'Power Comics'; Wham!, Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic, and Terrific. The first three had a nicely balanced mixture of home-grown humour and adventure strips alongside reprints of Marvel strips, whist Fantastic and Terrific mainly contained Marvel reprint and one originated adventure strip (The Missing Link/Johnny Future in Fantastic, Don Starr in Terrific).

What's often forgotten now is that a few issues of Terrific also contained originated gag cartoons under the title of Frantic Fun. How did these come about? Well, when Mike Higgs submitted his strip The Cloak to the editors of Pow!, he mentioned that he also had some gag cartoons with him. They liked what they saw, and decided to run those in Terrific. 

Back then, Mike Higgs signed his work as 'MiK' (or 'OMIK' as myself as some others misread it, due to the distinctively dotted 'i'.). Whilst The Cloak became one of Pow's main strips (and highly popular it was too), Frantic Fun was mainly a "filler" in Terrific. Even so, it was new content in a comic dominated by reprint, and they provided a nice light relief to all the drama on the other pages, so the cartoons deserve some recognition.

The cartoons that Mike drew started in Terrific No.6 on 13th May 1967 (cover dated 20th May), - the exact same day as The Cloak debuted in Pow! - and ran until No.10 (dated 17th June 1967). They'd clearly run out of Mike's cartoons by issue 10 as only one appeared, with others on the page drawn by 'J.Mead'. The feature ran for a few more issues (with J.Mead supplying cartoons) and was then quietly dropped.

I thought that readers of this blog might like to see those Frantic Fun cartoons by Mike Higgs as they're nice examples of his very early work, so here they all are. Mike's style developed in leaps and bounds over the next few years, so Odhams must have seen that his work had potential. 

I've scanned the whole pages to show them in context. The News from the floor of 64 page from Terrific No.8 also mentions Mike, along with fanzine editor Tony Roche. While Fleetway and D.C. Thomson kept their contributors anonymous at the time, Odhams were very happy to name their artists and writers, and even helped to spread the word about the early days of comics fandom.

TERRIFIC No.6, May 20th 1967

TERRIFIC No.7, May 27th 1967

TERRIFIC No.8, June 3rd 1967

TERRIFIC No.9, June 10th 1967

TERRIFIC No.10, June 17th 1967

As many of you know, years later I was fortunate enough to work as Mike's assistant for a short time in the mid 1980s, which gave me invaluable experience. I still see him regularly for a pie and a pint and am proud to call him my friend. I don't call him OMIK any more though. 

WHAM! No.1 (1964)

One comic that had eluded me until recently was Wham! No.1. I didn't have it when I was a child, and in later years I always lost out on the bidding for it on eBay... until a few weeks ago, when I won a copy for far less than it usually sells for these days. It's a little tatty at the spine, but it's clean and complete, so I thought I'd show a few pages from it here today.

You probably know how Wham! came about, but if not, here's a recap: in 1964, Odhams Press wanted to produce a rival comic D.C. Thomson's Beano. The editors convinced Leo Baxendale to quit The Beano to develop stories for their new comic, which Leo envisioned as a sort of "Super-Beano" (or Wham! as it became) poaching Thomson's top talent. However, most of Thomson's artists would not leave the security of long-established comics to work on the new rival publication. Although the end result wasn't quite the "Super-Beano" that Leo had hoped for, Wham! still turned out to be a fresh and funny addition to the growing number of weekly comics in the Sixties.

Incredibly, in the first issue of Wham!, Leo Baxendale drew 17 of its 24 pages himself. Four of which were in full colour. Naturally, no one could keep up that tremendous output every week, so following issues saw other artists join the comic to imitate Leo's style on many of the strips. Meanwhile, over at The Beano, other artists were also imitating Leo's style on the strips he'd left (such as Minnie the Minx and The Bash Street Kids). As the 1960s moved on, Leo became the most imitated humour artist in the business, and elements of his popular style are still evident in comics today. 

Back to that first issue of Wham!, published Monday 15th June 1964, here's the strip that greeted readers as the opened the comic; General Nitt and his Barmy Army...

The Wacks was one strip that was swiftly taken over by another artist (Gordon Hogg) but for issue 1, Leo drew it himself...

The Tiddlers was very much Wham's version of The Bash Street Kids, but the twist was that teacher (Super Sir) was as wild as the kids. Sadly, this idea was dropped later, with Super Sir replaced by a teacher in conflict with the pupils. 

The centre pages gave us the first episode of Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy, a spoof of the popular spy genre of the time. The most important part of the strip though was its introduction of the baddie, Grimly Feendish, who would eclipse Eagle-Eye in popularity and go on to have his own long-running strip in Smash! (as well as a song about him years later by The Damned).

Another strip of note was Georgie's Germs, a gross version of The Beezer's Numskulls, that saw dirty kid Georgie having to deal with various ailments every week. This was another strip that other artists took over, but Leo set it off to a great start. 

With issue 4, Ken Reid joined the comic, bringing us Frankie Stein (see here) and Wham! became more manic than ever. It may not have been the "Super-Beano" that Leo had hoped for, but Wham! still turned out to be a great comic, with a cheeky, anarchic attitude, and still very fondly remembered by many. It inspired Odhams to launch companion comics for it, and soon we had Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic and Terrific, collectively known as the "Power Comics" that helped make the Sixties a great time to be a child.

You can read about the first issues of those other comics here:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/50-year-flashback-smash-no1.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/50-year-flashback-pow-no1.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/fantastic-50th.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/50-year-flashback-terrific-no1-1967.html

50 Year Flashback: TERRIFIC No.1 (1967)

The fifth (and final) addition to Odhams' line of 'Power Comics' was launched on Saturday 8th April 1967 with Terrific No.1. Closely modelled on its companion comic Fantastic, in that the new publication also featured 40 pages and reprints of three Marvel strips. 

The free gift in Terrific No.1 is one that readers fondly remember; an iron-on T-shirt transfer of Iron Man. I wore mine with pride back in the summer of '67 and still have it, cut out from the T-shirt it was on (washed of course)...

...and here's me wearing that very T-shirt in Blackpool on that happy summer of 50 years ago...

Back to the comic itself, and it opened with the start of a Sub-Mariner story reprinted from Tales to Astonish No.70, story by Stan Lee, art by Gene Colan (using the pseudonym Adam Austin), inked by Vince Colletta...

The editorial page trumpeted the arrival of Terrific in fine 'Power Comics' fashion...

In the case of The Avengers, it was probably felt that new readers might be confused with a team of heroes they were unfamiliar with, so Terrific presented condensed versions of each hero's origin in a useful set of short strips. Readers of Smash! and Fantastic would have already seen the stories these panels were taken from, except for the case of Giant Man/Ant Man, as the origin had never been shown in a Power Comic prior to this...

With the origins out of the way, the main Avengers story began. Earlier Avengers stories had already been reprinted in Smash! so Terrific started by reprinting Avengers No.6 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (with great inking by Chic Stone)...

The full-page ad for next week's free gift. (You can see a photo of the gift on an old blog post of mine here:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/free-inside-part-3.html )

Last but not least, the origin of Doctor Strange rounded off the issue, reprinted from Strange Tales No.115 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko...

...and on the back page, the regular Power House Pin-Up kicked off with the Sub-Mariner, drawn by Jack Kirby...

Sadly, Terrific only lasted for 43 weeks before merging into Fantastic. Perhaps it was one too many Power Comics for kids to afford, perhaps it was just too expensive at 9d (when most comics were 7d or less). Personally, it was one of my favourites and I had every issue along with Fantastic, although I dropped Wham! around this time, possibly due to the expense of collecting all the comics.

Terrific and its companion comic Fantastic were a great way for young kids to discover the Marvel Universe. I do wonder though what impact they had on the sales of rival British comics. After being hooked on the exciting, savvy, Marvel stories, I couldn't even look at the comparatively dull D.C. Thomson adventure comics of the period such as Victor and Hornet. Obviously, overall, the traditional comics won out because the existence of the Power Comics was short and sweet, but Wham!, Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic and Terrific definitely helped add to the 1960s sense of coolness and fun. 

This week in 1967: POW! No.12

As you were good enough to play along with my Pow! "mirror comic" April Fool, here's a few pages from the issue of the comic that was on sale exactly 50 years ago in 1967. 

The front cover highlights the SHIELD story inside (a reprint from Stange Tales No.140) but the cover image isn't a direct reprint of Jack Kirby's Strange Tales cover. It's actually a recreation for some reason, and lacking the skill of the original in places. (See here to compare it: 
http://www.reececomics.com/enlarged/STRANGE_TALES_140_9_0.jpg)

Odhams had a few covers redrawn like that, and I can only guess that they hadn't received a black and white copy from America and perhaps had someone trace a blow up of the actual American comic instead.

Pow's other Marvel strip was of course Spider-Man, with this issue of Pow! reprinting more of Amazing Spider-Man No.6 (which they serialised over three weeks). Script: Stan Lee, Art: Steve Ditko.

One of the Pow! strip I enjoyed the most was Kicks, drawn by Graham Allen...

A first glance at The Group might lead some to think it's Leo Baxendale artwork, but it's Mike Brown doing a great imitation of Leo's style...

There were four weekly Power Comics by this time, and the fifth (and final) one was to be added a week later. Here's the advert announcing Terrific, and I'll cover that comic next weekend. 

On the back page, Ken Reid only had a half page that week for his Dare-A-Day-Davy strip but he certainly packed a lot into it. The rest of the page was taken up with an advert for the very tasty Wiz ice cream lolly. They were delicious! 

I always felt that Pow! improved as it went on. These early issues were enjoyable but it wasn't until strips such as The Cloak and Experiment X were added that it started to find its identity. The 'Power Comics' always had a bit of a 'rough and ready' aspect to them though; robust stories and (sometimes) sloppy editorial design, but that was part of their appeal! They were an important part of children's pop culture in the sixties and I'm glad I was there to appreciate them.

Ironed Man 1967

When Terrific was launched in April 1967 it came with a free Iron Man T-shirt transfer, and there is is above. My mum ironed it onto a T-shirt for me when I was 8 years old, back in 1967. Clearing out some stuff the other day I discovered I'd kept the section of the T-shirt, cut out and perfectly preserved (after it had been washed of course) like some sort of Turin Shroud. So I thought I'd show it here.

Here's a photo below of me in Blackpool in the summer of 1967 wearing it, and eating a plate of shrimps. As you did in Blackpool in the sixties. The colours of the transfer look too pale on the photo but you can see how vivid they were in the image above. (The background of the actual transfer is more of a fluorescent orange but that doesn't pick up too well on a scan.)

...and I couldn't end this post without showing a scan of the cover to Terrific No.1 of course! As is evident, the colours on the cover image were not an accurate portrayal of the actual transfer but it's interesting to compare. (Well, interesting if you're into 1960s free gifts of course!) I suppose they contrasted it more to make a bolder cover image. 

How's that for just about the most trivial post you've seen here? :)