Creepy Presents: Steve Ditko
Dark Horse, 2013
138 Pages
Young Adult
This is the third book in the Creepy Archives’ Artitst Collections Series by Dark Horse Publishing. The Creepy Archives (differentiating between the reprint licensing of titles that went to Harris, like Vampirella, and those retained by Warren and sold to Dark Horse,) have already given us magnificent collections of the work done by both Bernie Wrightson and Richard Corben for the Warren Magazines. (Not to mention all of Creepy and Eerie in beautiful hardcover format.) The latest volume compiles the complete sixteen stories of work by Steve Ditko appearing in Creepy and Eerie.
In 1964, Warren publishing had the ground-breaking, out-of-the box idea that in order to bypass the restrictions of the Comic Code Authority, they would publish their graphic stories in a magazine format, (like their flagship Famous Monsters of Filmland,) not to be sold on comic-book racks, but rather next to Modern Science and Cosmopolitan. Sneaky? Yeah, but I have a real problem with censorship.
I am one of those kooks who believe that colorization is an abomination. When you look at Creepy and the other Warren titles and others (like Marvel’s Tales of the Zombie and Vampire Tales) that were published in black and white, you’ll notice the same contrasts as when comparing an old film with a modern color movie. The shading, the lighting, is an art form in itself. Color is great if you’re watching Dawn of the Dead, but for finding that spooky old film noir feeling, the Black and White format is a necessity.
These publications are one of the reasons that the graphic novel has begun to be accepted as a respectable form of both art and literature. They returned to the tradition of EC’s horror, a short story with a gruesome twist at the end written for a more mature audience. There are gory dismemberments and topless voodoo dancers, murder, insanity, and explorations of the deepest corners of the human soul.
Steve Ditko is best known for his early contributions to Marvel Comics: his original design of Spider-Man and the personalized origin of Doctor Strange. In many of the dark delights reprinted here, you can see images that could easily have come right out of the pages of classic Strange Tales. (Not to mention the spider-signal on shields and belt-buckles!)
My favorties are:
Collector’s Edition
(For obvious reasons,) when an ancient grimoire is discovered by a dark and peculiar bookshop, a collector of occult writings will do anything to get it!
Room with a View
A simple story about a cursed mirror that harkens back to Lovecraft’s The Gable Window… but with its own uniquely weird ending. The things in the mirror are awesome!
Black Magic
An evil sorcerer turns to necromancy against the advice of his mentor. Yup. He should have listened.
Isle of the Beast
A singular adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game. A great shot of mounted human heads, and an epic climax not to be missed!
Many of the Creepy/Eerie tales draw on the same twists of fate as old time radio shows, where people trade bodies through varied magicks only to discover that they’ve stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire. There are also Conan… “tributes” here, some of which are quite well told. It’s all about the delivery and the emotion conveyed by the artwork, and backed by Archie Goodwin’s storytelling, Ditko definitely delivers.
Eerie #135 offered a collection of Ditko’s work, but good luck finding it. (It seems to be as elusive as the Katy Manning issue of Girl Illustrated.) The back-issue is also missing the stories “Room With a View”, “Deep Ruby”, and “Black Magic,” which are in this Dark Horse edition.
This new hardcover is only $20, which is a great deal. I only wish they had chosen different cover art; it doesn’t really compete with the other books Dark Horse has pressed. The binding and repro may not be fully up to Creepy Archives standard, (those are $50 each), but it is a sewn binding and the paper is strong and will last through many readings. (It smells good, too.) I received the electronic version of the Ditko book free, but I also checked out the hardcover Corben book from my local library. I was equally impressed with the Corben edition, (which is almost twice the size of the Ditko collection and includes color pages.) I found the feel of the paper and the ability to examine the line strokes close up to be incomparable to squinting my eyes at a .pdf, so I will be purchasing the books in collectible hardcover. If only my wallet could manage the weight, I would be first in line for the entire Creepy/Eerie Archives, they are well worth the cost.
This book was received from a publisher or author in exchange for an honest opinion of an artistic work. Neither Awake at Midnight nor the reviewer received monetary compensation for this review.
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