Departing Ditko Days

We've got just enough room left in the week for one more visit with Steve Ditko. Let's start where we left off, with some stories from the mid-50s...

This is The Voice Of ODD!, so let us take a hard turn into Odd territory for some completely different Ditko -

He even brought us the cover to that issue...

...and it was hardly his only trip into weird comedy...

This one was rarely seen, originally slated for Plop! and published in the Amazing World Of DC Comics, we get Steve Ditko working with Steve Skeates and Wally Wood -

And now we seem to have looped back around to where we started...

...so i guess it's time to move along...

page art by Steve Ditko (and Wally Wood) from Spellbound #29, Mystery Tales #s 40, 45, & 47, From Here To Insanity #s 10 & 1 (v.3), Amazing World Of DC Comics #13, and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (1955, 1956, 1964, 1975)

In The Company Of Ditko

I noted last that i had been getting sidetracked a bit by the folks with whom Steve Ditko was co-working back in the period i was mining (the mid-50s). A good way to lead into that might be through a few of the stories drawn by others for which Ditko drew the covers.

For example, here's Steve Ditko's cover for This Magazine Is Haunted #16 -

...and for the story, we've got Shelly Moldoff...

On Space Adventures #11, we get a Ditko cover...

...for a story drawn by Joe Shuster and Dick Giordano!

And on rare occasion, we get it the other way around. On Daring Love #1 we get a cover from Bernard Bailey...

...for a tale drawn by Ditko...

Appropriate to the types of tales we've been looking at, it's time for an odd Twist Ending!

That's not Joe Shuster at all.
<Dramatic Fanfare>

According to One Who Generally Knows (Martin O'Hearn), that's actually Bill Molno ghosting for Joe. Here is Martin's article Joe Shuster's Charlton Ghost on his site, Who Created The Comic Books?.

Damn. Even when we get credits, we still don't know who did it.

page art by Steve Ditko, Sheldon Moldoff, and Bill Molno for Daring Love #1, Space Adventures #11, and This Magazine Is Haunted #16 (1953, 1954)