Creepy Presents: Steve Ditko

Creepy Presents: Steve Ditko
Dark Horse / New Comic Company
2013

'Creepy Presents: Steve Ditko' (New Comic Company / Dark Horse Books, August 2013) is the latest in the Eerie Presents / Creepy Presents series. 

(Previous volumes are Creepy Presents: Bernie Wrightson, Eerie Presents: Hunter, Creepy Presents: Richard Corben, and Eerie Presents: El Cid). 

Like others in the series, the book is a quality, hardbound collection of comics originally appearing in Creepy and / or Eerie in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s, and an affordable alternative to the $50 volumes of the New Comic Company 'archive' collections for these Warren magazines.

Late in 1965, or perhaps early in 1966 (the exact date is unsure) Steve Ditko (b. 1927) quit working for Marvel, after increasing disagreements with Stan Lee rendered communication between the two men impossible. Ditko began working for other publishers, including Charlton and DC, and did not resume working for Marvel until 1979.

In 1966, Ditko began to work with editor Achie Goodwin at Warren, and over a two-year span he produced 16 strips for Creepy and Eerie. This volume reprints those 16 strips.

As always, New Comic Company's Mark Evanier does a good job with the Introduction, and the reproductions of the comics are of good quality. Ditko's work for Warren included classic horror stories, as well as some fantasy and sword-and-sorcery strips. 

Ditko took a varied approach to his illustrative style. Sometimes he relied on pen-and-ink line work, as in 'Collector's Edition' (where he also worked in Zip-A-Tone effects on the bottom-most panels):

But most of his work relied on an ink-wash technique:

With the exception of 'The Sands That Change', a really cruddy effort, the comics that Ditko did for Warren display his skills to good effect.

However, I suspect that most purchasers of 'Creepy Presents: Steve Ditko' will be people over 30 years of age, including Baby Boomers who fondly remember the Warren magazines from their youth. 

Ditko's artwork is probably too idiosyncratic to draw much attention from younger comics fans, who have been reared on comics composed and colored using PC software. It's increasingly difficult nowadays to find a comic book from any major publisher in which the stippling, shading, or cross-hatching that defined Ditko's approach, is a major part of any draftsmanship. 

With the exception of dedicated black-and-white publications, like the so-so  reboot of 'Creepy Comics' that Dark Horse has launched, most contemporary readers are going to be familiar with comics that have adopted the aesthetic of line drawings, flat colors, and 'manga' or 'indie'  stylings. To them, the visual flavor of the Ditko strips from the 60s may seem strange and unappealing.

 

 

If you're a fan of Ditko's unique artwork, then 'Creepy Presents: Steve Ditko' certainly is worth picking up.

Contact by Tim Conrad

'Contact' by Tim Conrad
from the October, 1981 issue of Epic Illustrated

Timothy Leary gets Cosmic....with the help of some great artwork by Tim Conrad.

 

Book Review: Cheon of Weltanland

Book Review: 'Cheon of Weltanland' by Charlotte Stone

Gor Fanboy score: 4 / 5 Stars
 
‘Cheon of Weltanland’ (205 pp) was published by DAW Books in November, 1983. It is DAW Book No. 552, and features a quintessential ‘barbarian wench’ cover illustration by Boris Valejo: our heroine, wearing – naturally enough- a metal bikini, totes the severed head of an enemy, while behind her, a a big-bootyed black girl, sporting an afro-puff, clings to a pillar, overcome with shock and awe.

According to the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, 'Charlotte Stone' is the pseudonym of Charles Nightingale and Dominique Roche. 'Cheon' apparently is their first and only published novel.

By the late 70s, the commercial success of the Gor books had cued sf and fantasy publishers to the fact that there was a huge readership available for tales of warrior woman in chain-mail bikinis who regularly underwent abuse and humiliation at the hands of mightily-thewed barbarians. 

Janet Morris’s 1977 Bantam book ‘The High Couch of Silistra’ was the first series to capitalize on the 'barbarian wench' trend, followed by Sharon Green’s ‘Mida’ series for DAW.

So it was only natural for DAW to want to expand the genre, and thus, ‘Cheon’ appeared as volume one ('The Four Wishes')  of a proposed series. For whatever reason, however, the remaining volumes never appeared, leaving Cheon stuck in the fantasy fiction publishing version of limbo.

‘Cheon’ is designed to cater to the Gor fanboy:

Our heroine has the looks of a swimsuit model, the body of an Olympic pole vaulter, and…..she’s SUPER BUTCH !

That last characteristic gives author Stone the excuse to regularly spice up her narrative with softcore porn scenes, in which Cheon seduces yet another nubile, innocent, teenage girl - !

Throw in assorted bloody battles against raiders and monsters, a first-person narrative that studiously adopts the stilted style of the Gor books, and you’ve got the ideal package to capture, and hold, the fanboys.

[In fairness, author Stone provides a passage in which Cheon openly mocks the premise of the Gor novels, thus making clear that, in this series at least, no barbarian warrior would come ‘round to persuade Cheon to wear slave bracelets and succumb to the dominance of a man.] 

In summary, I give ‘Cheon of Weltanland’, despite its orphan status, a Gor Fanboy Score of 4 Stars.

Mechanismo by Harry Harrison

'Mechanismo' by Harry Harrison

 

 

In the late 70s Harry Harrison authored several trade paperback, sf art books : 'Great Balls of Fire' (1977), 'Mechanismo' (1978) and 'Planet Story' (1979). This was something of an adventure in sf publishing, for at that time, art books with sf or fantasy themes were comparatively rare, and the chain stores (Waldenbooks, Coles, and B. Dalton) that dominated the retail sphere in those days were only just beginning to realize that additional shelf space and inventory should be devoted to the genre.

Mechanismo (120 pp) is printed on quality stock, and at 10 ¼ x 10 ¼ “, couldn’t entirely fit onto the platen of my scanner. So the images I’m posting here are cropped to some extent.

 

Angus McKie

Harrison’s contribution are 6 short essays on ‘Star Ships’, ‘Mechanical Man’, Weapons and Space Gear’, ‘Space Cities’, ‘Fantastic Machines’, and ‘Movies’. Additional text, apparently supplied by the publisher, provides commentary – some of it fictional – for the illustrations. Most (all ?) of the artwork in Mechanismo was previously published, usually as cover art for sf paperbacks published in the UK.

 Colin Hay

 Jennifer Eachus

 Richard Clifton-Dey

Overall, Harrison’s essays are entertaining rather than pedantic, and written with a note of humor. There are some tidbits dropped that may move readers to seek out 70s sf novels and story collections (for example, I’d never been aware of Harrison’s matter transmission anthology, 'One Step from Earth' (1970), prior to reading about it in Mechanismo).

 Robin Hiddon

Jim Burns

Angus McKie

The quality of pieces (which are reproduced in black and white and color) from the 19 participating artists varies; some are well done, while others are mediocre. The works by Jim Burns, a rising star in the sf illustration field, are among the most eye-catching. There are a large number of contributions from Angus McKie, the leading sf illustrator in the late 70s and a frequent contributor to Heavy Metal magazine. Ralph McQuarrie provides some paintings from Star Wars, and there are a couple of H. R. Giger submissions, too.

 Angus McKie (cover of the March, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal)

‘Mechanismo’ may not draw much enthusiasm from contemporary sf fans, who are used to the revolutionary changes in sf and fantasy illustration wrought by the use of computers and illustration software. But those with a nostalgic bent may want to pick up Mechanismo and take in the flavor of Old School sf illustration.

Angus McKie

  Ralph McQuarrie