RIP Steve Ditko

Last week, Steve Ditko passed away at the age of 90. Legend? Titan? Master? I'm not sure what kind of descriptor to use for this guy.

He was one of a very small group of people who shaped the Marvel Universe, which rocked and redefined the comics world, and decades later became the biggest thing in entertainment pop culture.

His style was an interesting contrast to Jack Kirby's - while Jack had bold, highly dramatic layouts and bombastically heroic looking characters, Steve made his bones at Marvel with the wiry, acrobatic poses of Spiderman and the Vincent Price-looking, odd hand gestures-making Doctor Strange. It's compelling stuff to look at (as were the fantastic background environments, especially in Doctor Strange), and I'm glad the early Marvel Universe had the Ditko variation in those books.

Ditko made other early contributions to the developing Marvel Universe, too - apparently the Hulk getting stronger the angrier he gets was Steve's idea. That's a very important part of the character in the comics, though it hasn't really figured into the movies yet as far as I can remember.

In his later years, before retiring, Steve would do very unique comics of his own, which fans could apparently order only by mail. That's postal-service only. No email.

What an interesting guy Steve was. He kept an extremely private life and I respect that a lot.

Rest in Peace to one of the absolute giants of the comic book industry!

Here's my mini discussion about Steve Ditko from last year.
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/sep/20/steve-ditko/

And a very interesting article shared with us at the time by Abt_Nihil
http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/steve-ditko-doctor-strange-c-v-r.html