Unexplored Worlds - The Steve Ditko Archives Vol.2

This second volume in an ambitious series reprinting the early work of legendary comic-book artist Ditko offers some three-dozen vintage short pieces. Even though he’d only been working in comics for a couple of years when he drew these 1956 tales, they already display Ditko’s distinctively cockeyed style and his characteristically powerful compositions. Most of the selections were done for low-budget publisher Charlton, which paid its artists the lowest rates in the industry but in return offered freedom from editorial interference. The company’s scripts—most in the then-popular genres of science fiction and watered-down horror, eviscerated by the introduction of the Comics Code two years earlier—are often hackneyed and contrived, but in Ditko’s hands they’re rendered somehow compelling. As Bell remarks in his insightful introduction, what makes Ditko’s early work notable is “the dichotomy between what he was given and what he was able to accomplish.” This volume also includes Ditko’s first efforts for Marvel, launching a relationship that would lead to his move into the superhero genre six years later when he and Stan Lee would co-create Spider-Man.