Today is Steve Ditko's 79th birthday.  You may never have heard of him, but you've probably heard of Spider-Man, whom he jointly created with Stan Lee.  You probably HAVE heard of Stan Lee, but that's because Ditko is a cranky, introverted cuss who lets his work speak for itself, i.e. pretty much the opposite of Stan Lee in every sense.

Lots of artists have drawn Spider-Man since Lee and Ditko created the character nearly 45 years ago, but as any fule kno there's only one Spider-Man artist, and he's 79 today.

Ditko's one of the last surviving comic book artists of his generation, and one of the greatest.  There's an exaggerated, cartoony look to most of his work and the consensus view (shared by this blog) is that his work has been on the skids since the early seventies (possibly because of his fixation on loopy political ideas).  However, the work he did from 1953-1969 or so is, for the most part, stunning and unique.  There's a psychological and moral intensity to Ditko's work that no other comic book artist comes close to, and he's also the greatest surrealist ever to work in the mainstream comic medium - which is why no-one else has ever come close to his work on Dr. Strange, his most famous creation apart from the web-spinner.

There's much more that could be said, including the fact there'd be no Watchmen as we know it without Ditko, but as he likes to let his work speak for itself, here are three fine, lesser-known examples.




The best album cover Weather Report never had.


 

Mainstream comic book surrealism at its most mainstream comically surreal.



Exaggerated cartoonishness and psychological intensity ahoy! 

Happy birthday, you mad old coot.