Steve Ditko: Visual Storyteller
- P. Ryan Anthony
- Jul 16, 2018
- 4 min read
This icon created tales with pictures and inspired generations
Comic book legend Steve Ditko is usually referred to as an artist, but he was more than that. I'm not talking about the fact that he co-created Spider-Man and created a gaggle of other characters including Doctor Strange, the Question, the Creeper, and Speedball. I mean that Ditko, who died on June 29th, was a true storyteller who not only drew comics tales in innovative and exciting ways but also plotted and even scripted them. Wired's Graeme McMillan said Ditko "was an auteur in comics long before 'comics auteur' was a common descriptor."
One could say that he had an advantage over earlier creators because he came from the first generation to have grown up with comics, and so he was able to study them and see what his predecessors did right as well as what he could improve on. He also had a master instructor in veteran artist Jerry Robinson, who made sure Ditko understood a story's structure and characterizations. When he began drawing professionally, the young artist knew how to pace the story, heighten the drama, and create mood, atmosphere, and tension, thus strengthening what the writer had put in his script.
By the time he got to Marvel Comics in 1956, Ditko was so skilled with storytelling that editor Stan Lee was compelled to work with him as a plotter and scripter, despite the fact that Lee had turned over the writing chores to his brother, Larry Lieber, and was concentrating on the business end. Lee came up with plot ideas for short strips to be featured in such titles as Journey into Mystery, Spellbound, and World of Suspense; Ditko pencilled them and jotted down rough dialogue as a guide. The writer-editor then provided final dialogue as well as any additional ideas for consistency, and Ditko finished by inking the art. So, the artist was already carrying the load of the storytelling.
The process for the later superhero comics was similar: Lee would dash off a one- or two-page synopsis (at most) and let Ditko break down and expand the story however he wanted (this became known as the "Marvel Method"). In fact, this is the way they worked for only the first ten issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, after which the artist took over the plotting himself. Lee had provided the barebones of the origin and main character; most everything else was Ditko's. He became the first work-for-hire artist to create and control a series' narrative arc and to develop the first truly revolutionary comics hero since Superman. By issue #25, Ditko was getting a "plotted and drawn by" credit rather than just "art by."
With "the Sorceror Supreme" Doctor Strange, virtually the whole product was Ditko's creation, from the character's origin to the plot to the art. All the bewildered Lee contributed to these supernatural tales was a muted version of his signature dialogue. Ditko proved his deftness with writing by conjuring sprawling, extended storylines and numerous subplots. His storycraft proved inspirational to future comics auteurs such as Jim Starlin, who professed that his writing "was more influenced by Steve than any other cartoonist."
At Warren Publishing, where Ditko went after his angry exit from Marvel, writer-editor Archie Goodwin always tried to include the artists in the story process for the horror magazines Creepy and Eerie by asking them what kind of story they wanted to do, in what setting and historical period, etc. Ditko was energized by the collaboration and the freedom to create the strips visually.
Ditko once again had the opportunity to create new characters over at Charlton, where he came up with Captain Atom, the Question, and the second Blue Beetle. He plotted and drew the stories for these heroes, but sometimes scripters were brought in to write new dialogue, "to make the story sound more like the way people actually talk," in the words of Steve Skeates.
Indeed, dialogue was one of Ditko's few weak points. When he went to DC Comics, his new titles The Creeper, The Hawk and the Dove, and Shade the Changing Man were scripted by Dennis O'Neil, Steve Skeates, and Michael Fleisher. O'Neil and Skeates did make contributions to their series, but Ditko and editor Dick Giordano had final say.
Though no longer as popular or in-demand, Ditko still did some significant work for mainstream comics in the 80s, but most of it was short lived. Part of the problem was that he had control of the whole product, including the dialogue, which he tended to overwrite. This was because he'd become obsessed with foisting on the unsuspecting readers his extreme philosophical beliefs, which were based on writer Ayn Rand's conservative Objectivism. Another issue was that Ditko couldn't seem to get his storytelling out of the early sixties; characters' clothing and speech reflected that era. Thus, the series Static featured villains in 60s style suits and hats, and the panels were so filled with dialogue balloons that they often overwhelmed the art.
Eventually, Ditko found himself outdated and left behind, and he removed himself almost entirely from the public arena, choosing to concentrate on his own self-published Objectivist-themed comics, including tales of Mr. A, a masked reporter who battled crime in an uncompromising (and often lethal) way. His scripting was very hard-edged, his dialogue extremely unrealistic, and his visuals severely simplified.
Still, his death brought forth universal outpourings of respect and admiration for his contributions to comics art and storytelling. Dennis O'Neil called him "one of the four or five best visual storytellers the medium has ever had." He wasn't just an artist, but also the spinner of a damn fine tale.
References
Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, by Blake Bell, 2008.
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