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Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell

When it comes to legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko, there are two paths of interest in his story. One is obvious — as the co-creator of Spider-Man who wrote and drew the first few years of the character’s existence, his skill as an great innovator in the comic book for is of great importance.

There is another side to Ditko, less known to those who might know of him from his work with Marvel Comics decades ago — his unwavering devotion to the philosophies of Ayn Rand and his compulsion to inject those philosophies into his work. It starts out as a guiding principle, but soon Objectivism overtakes Ditko’s talents, commandeering both the stories he told and the career that never seemed to rise to the level it should have.

In “Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko,” author Blake Bell mixes up a career history and art critique of the legend with a more intricate study of the apparent psychological and social decline of the man. More importantly, Bell provides the link between Ditko’s often outrageous imagery and the mind that conceived of them.

Ditko’s career was as a rather mild-mannered, working cartoonist of obvious brilliance when he hit what, back in the day, was the big time. Ditko became a major player at Marvel Comics, partnering with Stan Lee (antagonistically) and bringing glory to the company through Spider-Man and his other tour de force, Doctor Strange.

A bad experience with the business end of Marvel Comics sent Ditko on his decades-long spiral that had him exhibit extreme paranoia towards associates and fans alike. Equally, his work began to focus more and more on his Randian beliefs so that characters were created and utilized for the sheer purpose of acting out Randian-fused fables. It was a bizarre descent, one that saw uncompromising principles see public form as erratic and self-destructive behavior and turned his work away from the fresh brilliance of Spider-Man and into screeds often resembling a Randian version of the Jack Chick Christian comics — so much wooden lecture that the words almost crowd the pictures out of the frame.

The real focus of the book, though, is the art and that his handsomely covered through reproduction and discussion. Ditko was a great innovator regardless of his eccentricities and his work deserves to be celebrated beyond the comics medium. No one could depict the psychological landscape in physical form better than Ditko — his visuals were quirky and unique.

Ditko’s demise — he is still with us, but hidden away — is sad and perhaps one of the best arguments against the validity of Objectivism as full-proof philosophy of life. His story, though, is fascinating and his art, as with so many others touched with creative greatness, will outlive his peccadilloes, even as they function as the physical form of his own psychological landscape.

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Why do Americans love censorship so? We fight against fascists and dictators and communists, and yet we revere John Adams and the sedition act as a model for dealing with words and works we find uncomfortable. From Dixie-land music to hip hop, popular culture has been at the forefront of the threat against American culture. One of the ugliest — and least documented — movements in American censorship has been in regard to comic books, a recurring effort that resulted in the gutting of an industry populated by Jews, immigrants and women in the 1950s.

In “The Ten-Cent Plague,” author David Hajdu documents the dismantling of an American art form, where moral concerns — often misguided ones — bullied a vibrant, street level, populist creative format that eventually blossomed into the biggest selling entertainment in America, read by kids and adults.

Before the 1950s, comic books were not synonymous with superheroes — instead, it was populated by a multitude of genres, as well as pure drama and comedy, and millions were sold each month. Hajdu reveals the medium’s contribution to the post-1950s culture of America where, even as aboveground culture continued to maintain a choke hold on creativity, alternative and youth culture wanted something more than the prefabricated, canned artistry that was offered to them. Comics helped build that sensibility.

Almost from the beginning, comics were derided and fought by segments of the population — sometimes, it was assaulted by arbiters of the national morality, but other times by the judges of the national literacy and many others. Hajdu tells the sprawling tale of a creative industry’s fight against its opponents and of the gritty characters that helped build its success. Not only is it a history of a derided segment of American publishing, it’s also an examination of the American desire to limit exposure to dangerous ideas — and to some citizen’s betrayal of the principles on which the country has stood.

Although the final battle was in the 1950s, the fight against censorship was an ongoing one through decades — it was a process of chipping away that ran concurrently with any and all other efforts to censor other art forms that cropped up through the years.

In post World War II, ordinary citizens were burning comic books in bonfires — to the sharper social critics of the time, it was a sad commentary that only several years earlier, Americans were appalled by Nazis who did the same. When the fight against the scourge of comic books moved past the realm of pop psychology and religious fundamentalism and those sphere’s attempts to explain juvenile delinquency, it moved into the halls of government. Parallel to the McCarthy hearings, comic book creators were called into question not as enemies of the state, but as immoral scum. By the mid ’50s, the moralistic Comics Code Authority was enacted as a self-regulating device to get the government off the industry’s back, but it doubled as hari kari which was to dismantle the form.

By the time the code took control in the 1950s, it was used as a strong arm to put publishers out of business, to incite fear of prosecution for distributors and news stands and to push a conservative social propaganda in the stories. Comics involving Black Americans were often censored — romance comics, once a safe haven for tales of independent females became a shill for the institution of marriage as the result of all emotional journeys. No political criticism was allowed, no questioning of authority, so sexual deviancy — only good, American, Christian values. Consider-ing comic books were the num-ber one form of entertainment amongst American youth, is it any surprise that a decade later, youth would explode into a revolution against adult control of their entertainment?

If there is one hero in the book, it is William Gaines, publisher of EC Comics and, most importantly, Mad magazine. If Mad seems a little trite and superfluous now, that is because we live in the world Mad created, a world where satire and criticism are commonplace. In the 1950s, these were far less the norm, but that didn’t stop Gaines from pursuing the entirely American value of free speech. With actions that would make Thomas Paine proud, Gaines fought Senate committees and censors, using his publications for a political voice to kids who had no say otherwise. Gaines publicly and valiantly compared the Red Scare censors to the very Communists they were against and comes off as a fallible but brave American hero who ended up inspiring more American youth through Mad than any of the now-forgotten political shills who tried to tear him down.

“The Ten-Cent Plague” is an important and entertaining book, documenting the lively personalities who helped build the history of comic books, which are as important to American popular culture as movies are, though still maligned due, largely, to the efforts of the censors. The residue has not totally dissipated in half a century, but through the rise of graphic novels, it’s finally happening. Hajdu’s effort reveals the rich history of the form, as well as possibilities of its future, partly due to its resilience despite the efforts of conservative social engineers.

Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier

There is no argument — Jack Kirby is the single most important figure in 20th Century comic books. Whether you like his work or not, whether you appreciate his ideas or not, no single person has had so much of his output spread so vigorously throughout the industry.

And if you think this is something that should only matter to comic book fans, consider this — Jack Kirby had his hand in some of the biggest movie and television blockbusters of recent years. “Iron Man,” for instance — Kirby had a major hand in his creation, doing the initial designs for the character and then taking over the art chores on the book soon after. More importantly, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Captain America and the X-Men, among others, are all Kirby creations.

Furthermore, his later characters the New Gods — most notably the villain Darkseid — has played a major role in “Super Friends” and the “Justice League” cartoons over the last two decades, becoming very familiar to kids everywhere.

He’s also the guy Roy Lichtenstein co-opted for his famous pop art works.

Jack Kirby was the George Lucas of his day, creating fictional universes that would provide plenty of fuel for others to build upon — but he was tons better because he wasn’t derivative. He was even a little mad — how else would you explain someone who did a monthly comic book based on “2001: A Space Odyssey” and actually made it fun?

In Mark Evanier’s new art book and biography, “Kirby: King of Comics,” Kirby’s career is traced from his humble beginnings in the comic book sweat shops of the 1930s to his death — and point of triumphant acknowledgment for contributions to the world of comic books — in 1994. Evanier’s presentation is alternately gushing and honest — he’s not one to gloss over mistakes Kirby might have made in his work — and through one man provides a great history of the way comic books have been published.

Kirby started out in the cartoon studios, where hordes of artists were employed to churn out second tier comic strips at cut rate prices. From there, he moved through several comparable situations, including an agreeable tenure at Will Eisner’s studio, before ending up at Timely Comics, the precursor for Marvel. The situation was not ideal, but did team him up with Joe Kirby, with whom he would create the seminal character Captain America.

In the 1950s, Simon and Kirby refined the romance comic and ventured into surreal superhero satire with the Fighting American. In the 1960s, Kirby changed comic books forever at Marvel Comics, teaming with Stan Lee to create the tone and style of the modern superhero story. These were superheroes with real personalities and problems — Clark Kents who became Superman, not vice versa — and the stories often touched on themes that were traditionally too lofty for the superhero genre, most notably the idea that power brought responsibility.

Kirby went on to produce as string of insanely clever science fiction comics for DC in the 1970s — most notably “Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth” and “Omac, the One Man Army Corps” — and continued doing so for several companies until his death. His work was prolific, his ideas one of a kind.

Kirby was also the poster boy for creative rights within the comic book industry, the idea that artists deserve more compensation for creating these characters than a standard page rate. Consider this — when Jack Kirby came up with the multitudes of characters for Marvel, he was coming up with models for toys and movies and television shows and clothing and accessories and more. In return, Marvel Comics dismissed him from their employment and refused to give him his original art back. Kirby fought back and, years later, finally won.

Even with all the historical information, the real star of the show is the artwork. The book is lavish in its illustrations, from full color cover reproductions to plenty of examples of Kirby’s pencil work and character designs. It’s a beautiful and fitting presentation that serves not merely as a tribute this very important comic book creator, but an explanation of why he is important and a revelation for those who don’t know but should.