|
Post by realjla on Jan 1, 2016 17:31:09 GMT -5
Silver Age comics simply don't come any better than early Amazing Spider-Man, in my opinion. The Lee/Romita period that followed Ditko's tenure on the book is every bit as good as those earlier issues and, in some ways, is probably superior. Conversely, the Spider-Man TV show, which I ate up with a spoon as a kid in the late '70s, is actually dire. Oh, man, I know. Watching it right now, and it's production was AWFUL. The police captain is J. Jonah Jameson (which is different...), perfectly, but I recall as a child, his voice made me so nervous. I wasn't used to men who got so easily angered. hahahaha! I do, to this day, though, love Judy Tyler's dress in that pilot, and would totally wear it today. They kind of did cast Peter Parker too old, though. I have vague memories of the Spider-Man show from when I was about 5 years old. A bit too young to understand that it couldn't have Spider-man on camera throughout the show. Skip ahead a bit, 1982-83, I'm in third grade. For whatever reason, a local TV station in S.F. re-ran all the episodes, in "movie" format(two episodes re-edited into a two-hour "feature". It was, indeed, "dire" and "awful". It was like a bad dancer got a hold of a Spider-Man outfit,and, accompanied by a disco soundtrack that was somehow worse than the disco soundtracks that were everywhere in 1978, chased such miscreants as habitual car-keyers and guys who steal from the penny jar in Granny's New York Bakery. Not even Kraven the Leopard-Skinned Litterbug could have saved this mess! "Spidey" on "The Electric Company" had a more badass rogues' gallery than "CBS Spider-Man". I have no desire to revisit that 70s slice of shlock. Nicholas Hammond being "the stuck-up kid in 'The Sound of Music' is not enough Spider-cred. As for "The Incredible Hulk", it is the opposite of everything the Spider-Man show had to offer. Revisiting it on Netflix awhile back, I was really impressed with Bill Bixby's acting. He makes Banner a perfectly sympathetic figure, but still has flashes of his sitcom background. This Banner can crack at least one joke per episode to take the edge off, while not distracting from the seriousness of what he has to live with. On the other hand, he isn't all non-stop "eff my life" like the Banner of the comics. Maybe it's because David gets to keep at least half his shirt,and isn't stuck in purple pants every week?(plus, it's easier to find replacement shoes on TV than in the Marvel Universe). All in all, Hulk was the one Marvel character CBS did right.
|
|
Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,924
|
Post by Crimebuster on Jan 1, 2016 17:31:45 GMT -5
From ROM: Ditko drawing the Avengers and the X-Men?! And of course, from the 1990's, Ditko's greatest contribution to comics: Squirrel Girl!
|
|
Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,924
|
Post by Crimebuster on Jan 1, 2016 17:38:11 GMT -5
He did an annuals for the Avengers and drew Rom. It was sad to see how fall he'd fallen. I'd argue kind of the opposite here. I don't think the problem was with Ditko, it was with Marvel. You're right that Ditko's style didn't really fit in with the superhero stuff Marvel was doing in the 80's, but I don't think it had anything to do with Ditko's art being worse. By then Marvel had adopted the Buscema overmuscled look as a standard house style, which clearly wasn't Ditko's style at all. But rather than just let Ditko be Ditko, they wanted him to work in the house style, so they gave him inkers who tried to superheroify his pencils. I think if they had just let Ditko be his quirky, weird self - and found comics for him to draw that fit that aesthetic - his stuff would have been just as interesting as it ever was. But Marvel was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.
|
|
Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,924
|
Post by Crimebuster on Jan 1, 2016 17:49:11 GMT -5
For those who don't know, Ditko is actually still putting out comics on his own dime. His new work is even more minimalist than it used to be, but he still has mad storytelling chops to beat the band. Some of this recent work: ACTION! DRAMA!
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 1, 2016 18:17:57 GMT -5
He did an annuals for the Avengers and drew Rom. It was sad to see how fall he'd fallen. I'd argue kind of the opposite here. I don't think the problem was with Ditko, it was with Marvel. You're right that Ditko's style didn't really fit in with the superhero stuff Marvel was doing in the 80's, but I don't think it had anything to do with Ditko's art being worse. By then Marvel had adopted the Buscema overmuscled look as a standard house style, which clearly wasn't Ditko's style at all. But rather than just let Ditko be Ditko, they wanted him to work in the house style, so they gave him inkers who tried to superheroify his pencils. I think if they had just let Ditko be his quirky, weird self - and found comics for him to draw that fit that aesthetic - his stuff would have been just as interesting as it ever was. But Marvel was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. And some of this is just that Ditko isn't a strong superhero artist per se. He's great at moody horror, surrealism, even physical comedy but his stuff is always kind of internalized and psychological, which isn't a great fit for most superhero books. Spider-man and Doctor Strange worked because the characters were designed around Ditko's skill set.
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Jan 1, 2016 18:41:48 GMT -5
It looks here like Byrne lent quite of bit of his style to Ditko's pencils, which I consider a good thing. I have a fair amount of Ditko's 70's and 80's stuff, and none of it looks this good.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2016 18:51:39 GMT -5
It looks here like Byrne lent quite of bit of his style to Ditko's pencils, which I consider a good thing. I have a fair amount of Ditko's 70's and 80's stuff, and none of it looks this good. Yeah as I said in one of my previous posts I think Bryne helped a lot rather than hindered and it shows tremendously. I haven't seen much of 70's or 80's Ditko at all so I can't really compare it to his 60's stuff.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,695
|
Post by Confessor on Jan 2, 2016 6:10:45 GMT -5
Silver Age comics simply don't come any better than early Amazing Spider-Man, in my opinion. The Lee/Romita period that followed Ditko's tenure on the book is every bit as good as those earlier issues and, in some ways, is probably superior. Have you read 'em both recently? I freakin' love the Lee/Romita stuff, and Romita has this advertising slickness (and pretty girls!) but Ditko is just at an entirely different level as an artist in terms of storytelling, mood, use of symbolism, comedy, and grounding his work in tangible reality. And spotting blacks. NOBODY EVER is better at spotting blacks. (To paraphrase Jim Shooter "I never could tell what Romita's web lines were attached to!") The Romita stuff is very well done and it's a "popier" more easily digestible product, and the Romita run became the model that everyone else followed. But Ditko's almost unanimously considered one of the top twenty mainstream American comics artists and there's a reason for that! Errr...semi-recently, yes. Definitely within the last 4 or 5 years. I do, however, know the first 60 or so issues of ASM pretty well, since I grew up reading them as a kid in the Marvel Tales reprints, back in the early-to-mid '80s. First let me just say that I love Ditko and Romita's art a lot, but the latter is my favourite of the two. The "advertising slickness" you mention works really well in conjunction with the increased soap opera elements that came into the book when Romita took over. There's a fluidity, a confidence and a freedom (for want of a better word) to Romita's art that fits in perfectly with Peter Parker's maturing character. It reflects his change from an anxious, ugly duckling of the earlier comics into a more confident, more handsome young man. Of course, I realise that these character changes were, in part, driven by the switch to Romita as Spidey's regular artist and that Stan Lee was very much playing to Romita's romance comic-honed strengths. But then again, plenty of awkward, geeky kids turn into more assured young adults in the years between 15 and, say, 17 -- hell, it happened to me! The way that Peter changes over those first 60 or so issues is one of the best things about Silver Age ASM in my view. There's a joy to be found in reading along with this hero as he begins to transition into an adult, becoming more sure of himself and starting to fit in a little more with his social circle. Romita's art is a large part of what makes that transition work, even at the same time as it was his art that was necessitating these changes behind the scenes. Ditko's art on the other hand is fevered, claustrophobic and paranoid. And it's precisely those qualities that make the early issues of ASM work so well. They reflect Peter's wounded and distrusting personality. The art also works well with the more street-level villains that he had to face (outer space aliens hiding in the back of a TV repair shop, not withstanding, natch!). There's a detectable noir element in those early issues of ASM and that's almost entirely due to Ditko's wonderfully moody and nervous art. There's also all those ungainly and creepy poses that Spidey strikes under Ditko's pencil too, which I love. However, I stand by my initial statement that, of the two artists, the dynamic pace, increased emotional palette and "freedom" of the Romita era is, to me at least, slightly superior to Ditko's uneasy and paranoid take on the character. By the way, excuse my ignorance, but what does "spotting blacks" mean? That's an artistic phrase that I've never come across before.
|
|
|
Post by earl on Jan 2, 2016 8:45:08 GMT -5
Looking at the ROM and Speedball pages I was checking out, I think to me those look better than some of his Micronauts and Machine-Man which is where I really first came across Steve Ditko.
|
|
|
Post by Cei-U! on Jan 2, 2016 9:01:03 GMT -5
By the way, excuse my ignorance, but what does "spotting blacks" mean? That's an artistic phrase that I've never come across before. "Spotting blacks" is an industry term for the placement of shadows and similar effects on a page of comic art. One of the major differences between full pencils and breakdowns is that. in the latter case, the penciller leaves the decisions about spotting blacks up to the inker. If you contrast, say, Kirby/Colletta and Kirby/Royer, you can see how critical spotting blacks can be in determining the final look and feel of the art. Cei-U! I summon the definition!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2016 9:33:20 GMT -5
Oh, man, I know. Watching it right now, and it's production was AWFUL. The police captain is J. Jonah Jameson (which is different...), perfectly, but I recall as a child, his voice made me so nervous. I wasn't used to men who got so easily angered. hahahaha! I do, to this day, though, love Judy Tyler's dress in that pilot, and would totally wear it today. They kind of did cast Peter Parker too old, though. I have vague memories of the Spider-Man show from when I was about 5 years old. A bit too young to understand that it couldn't have Spider-man on camera throughout the show. Skip ahead a bit, 1982-83, I'm in third grade. For whatever reason, a local TV station in S.F. re-ran all the episodes, in "movie" format(two episodes re-edited into a two-hour "feature". It was, indeed, "dire" and "awful". It was like a bad dancer got a hold of a Spider-Man outfit,and, accompanied by a disco soundtrack that was somehow worse than the disco soundtracks that were everywhere in 1978, chased such miscreants as habitual car-keyers and guys who steal from the penny jar in Granny's New York Bakery. Not even Kraven the Leopard-Skinned Litterbug could have saved this mess! "Spidey" on "The Electric Company" had a more badass rogues' gallery than "CBS Spider-Man". I have no desire to revisit that 70s slice of shlock. Nicholas Hammond being "the stuck-up kid in 'The Sound of Music' is not enough Spider-cred. As for "The Incredible Hulk", it is the opposite of everything the Spider-Man show had to offer. Revisiting it on Netflix awhile back, I was really impressed with Bill Bixby's acting. He makes Banner a perfectly sympathetic figure, but still has flashes of his sitcom background. This Banner can crack at least one joke per episode to take the edge off, while not distracting from the seriousness of what he has to live with. On the other hand, he isn't all non-stop "eff my life" like the Banner of the comics. Maybe it's because David gets to keep at least half his shirt,and isn't stuck in purple pants every week?(plus, it's easier to find replacement shoes on TV than in the Marvel Universe). All in all, Hulk was the one Marvel character CBS did right. This made me laugh. Not only is it descriptively funny and perfect, it's alllll too true. And a truth we don't really want to admit because: Our childhoods were perfect, and all of that.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,695
|
Post by Confessor on Jan 2, 2016 10:00:46 GMT -5
By the way, excuse my ignorance, but what does "spotting blacks" mean? That's an artistic phrase that I've never come across before. "Spotting blacks" is an industry term for the placement of shadows and similar effects on a page of comic art. One of the major differences between full pencils and breakdowns is that. in the latter case, the penciller leaves the decisions about spotting blacks up to the inker. If you contrast, say, Kirby/Colletta and Kirby/Royer, you can see how critical spotting blacks can be in determining the final look and feel of the art. Cei-U! I summon the definition! Ah, I see. It's basically what I would clumsily refer to as "shadow work" then, by the sound of it. Thanks for the clarification, Kurt.
|
|
|
Post by Warmonger on Jan 2, 2016 12:11:18 GMT -5
Currently reading through The 'Nam
I had the first 22 or 23 issues I bought back in the 80's. Just recently bought the rest of the run.
One of the most underrated comic series ever IMO, until Murray and Golden (two former Vietnam vets) left and Marvel decided to throw realism out the window and start introducing characters like the Avengers.
Was really awesome how they originally did it. Played out in "real time" initially. There was a 1 month time lapse in between each issue and they would bring in a new cast of characters every 12 issues mimicking tours of duty. They also recreated a ton of actual skirmishes from the war.
|
|
|
Post by realjla on Jan 2, 2016 17:54:12 GMT -5
I have vague memories of the Spider-Man show from when I was about 5 years old. A bit too young to understand that it couldn't have Spider-man on camera throughout the show. Skip ahead a bit, 1982-83, I'm in third grade. For whatever reason, a local TV station in S.F. re-ran all the episodes, in "movie" format(two episodes re-edited into a two-hour "feature". It was, indeed, "dire" and "awful". It was like a bad dancer got a hold of a Spider-Man outfit,and, accompanied by a disco soundtrack that was somehow worse than the disco soundtracks that were everywhere in 1978, chased such miscreants as habitual car-keyers and guys who steal from the penny jar in Granny's New York Bakery. Not even Kraven the Leopard-Skinned Litterbug could have saved this mess! "Spidey" on "The Electric Company" had a more badass rogues' gallery than "CBS Spider-Man". I have no desire to revisit that 70s slice of shlock. Nicholas Hammond being "the stuck-up kid in 'The Sound of Music' is not enough Spider-cred. As for "The Incredible Hulk", it is the opposite of everything the Spider-Man show had to offer. Revisiting it on Netflix awhile back, I was really impressed with Bill Bixby's acting. He makes Banner a perfectly sympathetic figure, but still has flashes of his sitcom background. This Banner can crack at least one joke per episode to take the edge off, while not distracting from the seriousness of what he has to live with. On the other hand, he isn't all non-stop "eff my life" like the Banner of the comics. Maybe it's because David gets to keep at least half his shirt,and isn't stuck in purple pants every week?(plus, it's easier to find replacement shoes on TV than in the Marvel Universe). All in all, Hulk was the one Marvel character CBS did right. This made me laugh. Not only is it descriptively funny and perfect, it's alllll too true. And a truth we don't really want to admit because: Our childhoods were perfect, and all of that. Exactly! It's the same reason "Super Friends" was awesome...until it wasn't...and why the "bionic running in slow motion" was so much better than any computer-generated stuff in anything since 1980.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,695
|
Post by Confessor on Jan 2, 2016 20:04:43 GMT -5
Currently reading through The 'Nam I had the first 22 or 23 issues I bought back in the 80's. Just recently bought the rest of the run. One of the most underrated comic series ever IMO, until Murray and Golden (two former Vietnam vets) left and Marvel decided to throw realism out the window and start introducing characters like the Avengers. Was really awesome how they originally did it. Played out in "real time" initially. There was a 1 month time lapse in between each issue and they would bring in a new cast of characters every 12 issues mimicking tours of duty. They also recreated a ton of actual skirmishes from the war. I'm working on a complete run of The 'Nam. I have an unbroken run of the first 30 issues and quite a few random later issues. It's those early issues that are the best though. It's a really, really underrated series.
|
|