New Ditko comics

[emb021]

All-

In the last year, Steve Ditko with Robin Snyder, has put out 4 new comic books of mostly new materials. I had held off on a 'review' of them, because of several continued storylines in the 3 more recent comics.

The new comics are:

"The Avenging Mind" $4.95, April 2008. Mainly a collection of reprinted articles from "The Comics", with some one page comic pieces.

"Ditko, etc." $4, October 2008. All new comic stories, both one pagers and longer stories (some continued).

"...Ditko Continued..." $4, January 2009. All new comic stories, both one pagers and longer stories (some continued).

"Oh No! Not Again, Ditko!" $4, March 2009. All new comic stories, both one pagers and longer stories (some continued).

Coming next will be "Ditko Once More". All can be ordered from Robin Snyder, along with many of their past works. I especially recommend the large "Avenging World" collection, and the complete stories of "The Mocker" and "Static". contact Snyder at robinbrigit @ comcast.net for pricing and postage.

So, reviews. Because the last 3 comics have the same style and contining stories, I'll deal with them as a set.

"The Avenging Mind" is a collection of short 1-2 page articles that appeared in Robin Snyder's "The Comics" newsletter. While they deal with issues like 'what is a hero', 'what is a creator' and the like, these are largerly tied to issues within the comic book world (issue of comic creator rights, comic book heroes, who created Spider Man, etc). So some in the Objectivist world that don't fully understand some of these issues may not fully appreciate what Ditko is dealing with. In addition to the articles are several one-page art pieces on different topics, many of them, again, on issues within the comic book world as seen by Ditko.

The next three "Ditko, etc.", "...Ditko Continued...", and "Oh No! Not Again, Ditko!" are 3 32-page black and white comic books of all new work from Ditko. All are done in Ditko's current 'looser' art style. There is a mixture of one-page pieces on philisophical and comic fan issues (a few times more then one), as well as several multi-page stories. Most stories use new Ditko characters, and we sometimes see several stories dealing with the same characters. Some of the stories are continued in the next book, which I personally found annoying because most of the stories were very short (4-16 at the most), and I would have preferred the story be complete in one book. I don't mind really long stories that must be continued, but a shorter page story shouldn't need to be.

So, instead of looking at each book separately, I will instead look at the stories. For brevety, I'll refer to the comics as #1, #2, and #3 respectively.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Bandit" (4 pager, only in #1)- a take off on the 'robin hood' type character, when the fools who defended the Bandit are themselves robbed by him, they just don't get it.

"The Cape" (1 pager, #1; 3 pager #2) new 'hero' character, an animated cape who shows people their mistakes.

"The Gray Negotiator" (2 pager, #1, 2 pager #2, 3 pager #2) character who believes in compromise, the gray. Maybe he'll learn from his mistake in the second story. Or not.

"The Hero" (8 pager, #1, 1 page #1, 3 pager #1, 16 pager #2 & 3) a new hero character, used in several stories.

"The Outline" (10 pager #1 & 2, 1 page #2) a new hero character who ensures that bad people get their comeuppance.

"The Partners" (6 pager #2 & 3) a short story about 2 people who become corrupted and get their come uppance. Last 2 pages give 2 alternate endings.

"Mr. A." (8 pager #2 & 3) a new story with Ditko's classic Objectivist hero, Mr. A. Sadly, he's fairly quiet in this one.

No idea if we will see a return of some of these characters in the next comic.

[emb021]

Ditko with Robin Snyder continues to put out 32 page b/w comic books.

So far, they have put out Ditko Once More, Ditko Presents, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4, with an Act 5 promised soon.

I recently got Ditko Presents and Act 2 & 3. So will do a brief overview/review of all of them soon.

[emb021]

This time I will cover the new Ditko comics: Ditko Once More, Ditko Presents, Act 2, Act 3

All of these are black and white, 32-page comics. You may order them directly from Robin Snyder. All are $4 each, but you must include postage. Full info on ordering them may be found here: http://ditko.blogspot.com/p/ditko-book-in-print.html

"Ditko Once More" is a kind of hodgepodge of stuff. Most of the work are single page items, in many cases a large panel filling the whole page. Some put forth Ditko's Objectivist ideas, others put forth his dislike of nosy fans. There are a couple of multi-page stories dealing with his new 'Hero' characters. We see the appearence of his "Outline" character in a few pieces, and an appearance of a new character I'll call the "A is A Man" in several one-page pieces.

The next 3 comics are different. They mainly consist of 8 page stories (all set in little towns in the 1930s) staring several of his new hero characters: Miss Eerie, Mad Man, !?, The Outline, The Cape, as well as some with The Gray Negotiator. I suspect that Act 4 (out, but I don't have) and Act 5 (coming soon) will continue in this style.

* "Ditko Presents" introduces the new character of "The Madman". He's really Matt Madder (a lot of the character names in this one are like that), who is an apparently violent man who has escaped from a mental ward and was accused of killing someone. So he decides to be a "Madman" and find out who's really behind the crime.

"The !?" is the next new character, a masked character who is taking money from criminals and returning it to the victims.

"A Crime Story", a continuing story of criminals getting their just deserts.

"Miss Eerie", is yet another new hero character, a women who dressing up with a frighful mask and fights crime.

* ACT Two continues this with the following stories:

The next "Madman" story, another story with "The Cape" (see my first item for more about this 'character'), the continuation (conclusion?) of "A Crime Story", another story with "The Grey Negotiator", and a new 'character' "the Almighty Zero" in a three page intro.

* ACT Three continues this with the following stories:

The next "Miss Eerie" story (and we learn who Miss Eerie really is), another "Grey Negotiator" story, a 2 page story introducing 'Fan-Man' and 'Fan-Boy' (who like anti-hero comics) against the "A is A Man", a VERY different story with "The Cape", which will be continued, a 2-page story with "The Outline" and "Hero", and several 1 & 2 page pieces.