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Wrightson cover; COMIC BOOK IMPACT rating of 6 (CBI)



Artists Information

Steve Ditko was an American comics artist and writer best known for being the co-creator of Marvel superhero Spider-Man and creator of Doctor Strange. He also made notable contributions to the character of Iron Man, revolutionizing the character's red and yellow design.

Ditko studied under Batman artist Jerry Robinson at the Cartoonist and Illustrators School in New York City. He began his professional career in 1953, working in the studio of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, beginning as an inker and coming under the influence of artist Mort Meskin. During this time, he began his long association with Charlton Comics, where he did work in the genres of science fiction, horror, and mystery. He also co-created the superhero Captain Atom in 1960.

During the summer of 1958, writer-editor Stan Lee invited Ditko back to Atlas. Ditko would go on to contribute a large number of stories, many considered classic, to Atlas/Marvel's Strange Tales and the newly launched Amazing Adventures, Strange Worlds, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, issues of which would typically open with a Kirby-drawn monster story, followed by one or two twist-ending thrillers or sci-fi tales drawn by Don Heck, Paul Reinman, or Joe Sinnott, all capped by an often-surreal, sometimes self-reflective short by Ditko and Stan Lee. The first collaboration between Ditko and Lee was 2-Gun Western #4 (May 1956), which was also Ditko's only non-fantasy story.

These Lee-Ditko short stories proved so popular that Amazing Adventures was reformatted to feature such stories exclusively beginning with issue #7 (Dec. 1961), when the comic was rechristened Amazing Adult Fantasy, a name intended to reflect its more "sophisticated" nature, as likewise the new tagline "The magazine that respects your intelligence". Lee in 2009 described these "short, five-page filler strips that Steve and I did together", originally "placed in any of our comics that had a few extra pages to fill", as "odd fantasy tales that I'd dream up with O. Henry-type endings." Giving an early example of what would later be known as the "Marvel Method" of writer-artist collaboration, Lee said, "All I had to do was give Steve a one-line description of the plot and he'd be off and running. He'd take those skeleton outlines I had given him and turn them into classic little works of art that ended up being far cooler than I had any right to expect."

During the 1950s, Ditko also drew for Atlas Comics, a forerunner of Marvel Comics. He went on to contribute much significant work to Marvel. Ditko was the artist for the first 38 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, co-creating much of the Spider-Man supporting characters and villains with Stan Lee. Beginning with issue #25, Ditko was also credited as the plotter. In 1966, after being the exclusive artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and the "Doctor Strange" feature in Strange Tales, Ditko left Marvel for a variety of reasons, including creative differences and unpaid royalties.

Ditko continued to work for Charlton and also DC Comics, including a revamp of the long-running character the Blue Beetle and creating or co-creating the Question, the Creeper, Shade the Changing Man, and Hawk and Dove. Ditko also began contributing to small independent publishers, where he created Mr. A, a hero reflecting the influence of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. Ditko largely declined to give interviews, saying he preferred to communicate through his work.

Ditko was inducted into the comics industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990 and into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994. He will be posthumously honored as a Disney Legend in 2024.

Bill Everett was an American comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner, as well as co-creating Daredevil with writer Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. Everett fell into comics almost by accident in the industry's earliest days, creating the character Amazing-Man for Centaur Publications in 1939. That same year saw Everett contributing the first Sub-Mariner story for Marvel Mystery Comics #1, the very first book from Timely Comics (which would eventually become Marvel Comics). Sub-Mariner would prove to be one of Timely's earliest hits, and Everett would continue drawing Namor's adventures until 1949. In the '50s, Everett would continue working for what was now Atlas Comics on numerous titles, occasionally reviving Sub-Mariner. With the explosion of the Marvel Age in the '60s, Everett joined Stan Lee in co-creating and drawing the first issue of Daredevil. He also found regular work contributing to Tales to Astonish and Strange Tales. The Sub-Mariner would return again in Tales to Astonish #85, continuing there (and then in his own title) with sporadic contributions from Everett. Bill Everett died suddenly at the age of 55 in 1973.

Starting out as an amateur, a meeting with Frank Frazetta at a comic convention in 1967 inspired Bernie Wrightson to pursue his dream of becoming a comic book artist, he began working for DC after contributing work samples to Dick Giordano, in the Silver Age he would illustrate short stories in horror anthologies, in one of those tales he invented the Swamp Thing, who would be granted his own title, which Bernie drew the first ten issues of, then he moved over to Warren, known for their macabre content, and grew his fan base, at one point he was living in the same building as Al Milgrom, Howard Chaykin and Walt Simonson. He left comics to form an artist's collective known as 'The Studio' where he would concentrate on posters and lithographs, portfolios and the like, his adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is commonly regarded as his finest achievement. His pen and ink and brush work on this black and white collection is elegant and emotionally resonant. He also collaborated with Stephen King on adapting his work like Creepshow. In later years he did spot work on comics, while continuing his poster work, notably illustrating the popular Batman: The Cult series. He passed away in 2017 after a long battle with brain cancer.