Wolk on Ditko

I don't suppose, uh, someone could copy it here so I don't have to go through that day pass rigmarole (which isn't working for me anyway)?

Does this work?
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/06/03/ditko/print.html

Nope.

I just emailed the text to you (I'm not sure what the etiquette is about posting full articles), I hope that works.

Sweet, thanks.

Uh, Huk, you post full articles all the time on ILE!

Ah. A friend did e-mail me this. The usual mythology about Ditko (not wanting to deal with journalists = recluse) and a number of factual errors into the bargain. Nothing new or especially interesting.

I'd love to know what the factual errors are if you'd care to point 'em out. Also note that the point of this piece was to try to explain Ditko to people who read Salon, rather than people who have all the Marvel Masterworks books on their shelves.

Huk, I never got your e-mail!

I just tried again, Jordan.

And I mainly post stuff NOT by ILXors. If Douglas wants to post the article, I'll leave that to him.

FWIW, Douglas - the only error I could possibly pick out is something I heard a few places, which is that Jack Kirby actually co-created (or designed) Spider-Man, not Ditko. Of course, I did some G00gling while typing, and found this tidbit @ SpiderFan.org (via an article in a Starlog magazine) -

Stan wanted to write a super-hero series starring a teen-ager. He asked Jack Kirby to develop one. Jack came back with a concept that he and partner Joe Simon had once discussed... a feature called "The Silver Spider" that Jack thought should be called "Spider-Man". (And, actually, it sounds like the idea predated Jack and Joe. According to the article, Jack Oleck and C. C. Beck created a series called The Silver Spider that Harvey Comics rejected in 1954.)

Anyway, in 1958 Joe Simon took his and Jack's Spider-Man concept and created The Fly who was secretly orphan Tommy Troy who became the adult Fly when he rubbed a magic ring. Simon later said, "Kirby laid out the story to Lee about this kid who finds a magic ring in a spiderweb, gets his powers from the ring and goes forth to fight crime armed with the Silver Spider's old web-spinning pistol." Stan asked Jack to develop the Spider-Man idea but along more realistic lines. Jack drew the first few pages but Stan wanted a less "super-hero" approach so he brought in Steve Ditko.

Steve redesigned the costume, got rid of the web-gun. Steve also recognized the similarity to Joe Simon's The Fly. He told Stan this and Stan told Steve to redesign everything... only keeping the name Spider-Man. The article says that "Ditko pencilled and inked the premiere Spider-Man tale from a verbal plot provided by Lee." It concludes with prior quotes from Stan, Jack, and Steve.

For giggles, here's a page of quotes from pros re: Ditko. No, wait - HERE IT IS!