Review: Two Steve Ditko Comics

I've known for some time that Steve Ditko and Robin Snyder have been publishing new Ditko comics over the past few years, but it became harder for me to buy these comics once they stopped being listed in the Diamond catalog. It seems the only way to get them now is through mail order or at one of the few comic-book stores that carry them.

So during a visit to New York a few months ago, one of the first things I did was to head over to Jim Hanley's Universe where I knew these comics would be stocked. I ended up buying four of them:

• Steve Ditko's 32-Page Package ("Tsk! Tsk") (2000), a collection of illustrated essays.
• The Avenging Mind (April 2008), a collection of (mostly) text pieces dealing with topics such as current Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, Martin Goodman, and examinations of what it means to "create" something (with special attention given to Stan Lee's various and contradictory accounts of his and Ditko's role in the creation of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange).
• ...Ditko Continued... (January 2009)
• Oh, No! Not Again, Ditko! (March 2009)

It's the last two I'm interested in reviewing here; both are 32-page black-and-white comics featuring mostly stories told in a traditional comics format, along with some illustrated editorials or examinations of the ideas that Ditko's traditionally been concerned with.

It makes sense to review these two together, Ditko has this odd habit of splitting stories between books, publishing for example the first four pages of a story in ...Ditko Continued... and then publishing the conclusion (pages 5 to 8) in Oh, No! Not Again, Ditko! (I don't find serialization by itself to be odd, it's the brevity of each installment that makes me wonder why couldn't each story be published complete in a single comic.) Also, some stories in ...Ditko Continued... are conclusions to stories apparently originally began in Ditko, etc..., a comic I didn't find at Jim Hanley's store.

Reading the comics, one thing that immediately stands out is the minimalistic approach to storytelling that Ditko uses. Each panel contains the minimal information needed to carry the story and explain the motivation for each character. One gets the impression that complete sentences are barely used here, the dialog frequently consists of only fragments of sentences or simple descriptions of actions (some examples of all the dialog featured in three single panels from different stories: "...try a long shot...", "...a drink, relax... count my earnings...", "that's it... hear voices..."). The artwork is also quite clear, some pages are elegantly designed, but there's little unnecessary detail in them.

It's as if Ditko at this point didn't feel the need to bother with all the trappings of a standard "good vs. evil" story (or in many cases, "evil hoist by its own petard" story); there are no captions, no unnecessary supporting characters, very few backgrounds, no effort (as in traditional superhero comics) at creating an unbelievable situation and then trying to convince us of its believability through repetition and the gradual accumulation of details. All that stuff would interfere with the message, with the point of the story.

In a similar fashion, characters either have no name, or just the briefest of names needed to identify them. Ditko's new hero is simply called "The Hero", another one is just called "The Cape" (and he consists of just that, a floating cape; no face, no body). Villains are called "The Fist" (he has a gigantic fist) or "Force" and "Violence". Heroic characters have only one facial expression, looking with serene detachment; "evil" or "corrupt" characters' faces on the other hand go through several contortions throughout the story: from happiness to worry to fear to incomprehension in some cases ("Why? I'm an honest man... doesn't make sense.. white ... grey ... black !?") or frustrated acceptance of their fate in others.

There are also a few one-pagers scattered throughout these comics, these can be similar to old-fashioned editorial cartoons (heavy on labels and simple symbolism), or diagrammatic examinations of ideas (one example shown below).

I admit I particularly enjoyed the sequences Ditko devotes to comic-book fans. Fans as shown here are arrogant, whiny, selfish, and parasitic; complaining when Ditko doesn't meet their expectations (which seems to be always). The thing is, Ditko's right. These fans exist and I've seen them in various message boards and mailing lists. One thing is to disagree with Ditko's philosophy, dismiss some of his ideas, or criticize his work, but there are many fans who go beyond that and seem to be offended by the very idea of someone not living in the way they'd like him to live: Why doesn't he give interviews? Why doesn't he try to claim the rights to Spider-Man? Why didn't he negotiate a better deal? Why is he challenging Stan Lee's version of history now and not fifteen years earlier?

Ditko is certainly an intriguing figure in comics, and it's very tempting to try to guess what his motivations are, what makes him tick, what makes him behave in the way he does. But many fans go beyond this, trying to convince themselves and others that "Ditko must be an unhappy man", "Ditko's moving through different publishers in the 1960's and 1970's must mean he's an unstable person", "Alan Moore says Ditko lives at the YMCA so it must be true", "Ditko must be penniless", etc (none of these examples are made up). Ditko seems to be aware of these fans and their deeply-held convictions (one page is simply titled "The Internet Nuts"), and there's a one-pager titled "I Don't Understand!?! I'm an Inquiring Guy" which is so eerily accurate that it makes me suspect Ditko must be reading a few mailing lists I'm aware of. (The phrase "Ditko won't perform for us" is also a great summation of fan thinking, see illustration below.)

I love the idea of this 81 year-old man thumbing his nose at his detractors and not doing the slightest effort to accomodate them or justify his actions to them.

But of course, after criticizing and mocking other fans for their attempts at mind-reading Ditko, I can't help falling in the same trap myself, if only a little. (Though according to these comics, you can't be "a little" wrong or be guilty of a "minor" transgression, you're either behaving correctly and rationally or you aren't.) One can draw parallels between some elements of these stories and Ditko's own life, such as in page 3 of "The Partner" in which someone fixes a report only to have someone else take the credit for it ("...great report, yes, good work. Very good!")

And one story in particular, "Habitual Means to Ends" (sample page shown above), with its depiction of a backstabber who constantly excuses himself by saying he's sorry and that he will not do it again, reminds me of Ditko's account in Steve Ditko's 32-Page Package of how Stan Lee gladly takes complete credit in interviews for the creation of Spider-Man, then corrects his version and credits Ditko ("I write this to ensure that Steve Ditko receives the credit to which he is so justly entitled"), only to once again take complete credit for the character, and so on.

It's not much of a stretch to assume that this "I'll stab you / I'm sorry!" behavior could also be how Ditko sees his past relationships with certain publishers, fans, or associates; take for instance Blake Bell's account of his relationship with Ditko and the reasons why Ditko decided to stop his association with him. (And I'm aware of the irony that with this paragraph I've become one of the fans Ditko shows in "The Internet Nuts", saying things like "One might assume he figured / It also may have been.../ They look like they could have been...".)

All in all, I wasn't disappointed with these comics. They can be simplistic and repetitive at times, but they do contain some surprises, some good old-fashioned Ditko fighting scenes (pages 6, or 13-14 of Ditko's "Hero" story are fine examples), and they even show Ditko has a sense of humor (something that's almost always omitted in the usual accounts of Ditko as a recluse which doesn't give interviews). I'm glad he's still doing his eccentric comics for the very love of it, and I look forward to reading more of them as they become available.

The difficulties Kirby's heirs face

Yesterday's announcement that Jack Kirby's heirs are trying to claim the copyrights to characters created by Kirby for Marvel probably caught many by surprise, including me. It's true that when news of Disney buying Marvel broke out, many fans speculated that the Kirby family might try to do something like this, following the footsteps of Jerry Siegel's heirs. But my thought at the time (and now) was that actually regaining to copyrights to the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Hulk, Sgt. Fury and other characters would be extremely difficult for the Kirby family to do.

Like most of the people commenting about this and the Superman rights case, I'm not an expert on copyright law. I've followed the development of the Siegel case closely though, trying to understand the reasoning behind each decision, and based on that I think the Kirbys have some significant hurdles to cross.

Many online commenters have correctly pointed out that Kirby didn't sign work for hire contracts while he worked for Marvel, and that the current definition of "work made for hire" applies from 1978 onwards (when the new law took effect). In fact, Kirby refused to sign the work made for hire contract that Marvel started using that year. As noted in The Comics Journal #44, February '79 ("Ploog & Kirby Quit Marvel Over Contract Dispute", page 11):

Former Marvel star artist Jack Kirby also objected to Marvel's contract and Marvel has indicated that he won't be allowed to work for the company unless he signs it. Kirby had apparently been scheduled to resume drawing for Marvel at the end of the animation season. He had been working for Filmation Associates on their Fantastic Four Saturday morning cartoon series for the NBC television network.

Kirby enjoyed working in animation again [...] and remarked, "I sort of adapted to it and I like it very much." He did not want to discuss the specific details of his complaints with the contract, saying only, "I don't want to get tied to a commitment."

Marvel still hopes Kirby will consider signing the contract and returning to work, however. [Editor-in-chief Jim] Shooter says Marvel's talks with Kirby were on friendly terms and Kirby himself called them "very amicable." Nonetheless, Kirby remained unwilling to sign. "I want to try my talents in other directions," he told The Comics Journal. "Maybe this is the right time of life to try other things."

And so he did, doing more animation-related work, trying his hand at screenplays, and doing creator-owned comics like Destroyer Duck, Captain Victory, and Silver Star. (He also returned to The New Gods, but that's because DC offered him a very good deal to do so, which included royalties. The reason appearances of those characters to this day have a "Created by Jack Kirby" credit is due to that deal.)

Still, as seen in the opinion issued by Judge Stephen Larson on August 12 of this year regarding the Superman copyright, the lack of a written agreement between Kirby and Marvel may not be enough. As commented in this blog's previous entry, the Siegels were able to claim the copyrights to some important elements of the Superman franchise, but the Judge's opinion is worth reading in full for knowing which elements and stories they were not able to regain.

Beginning in page 40 of the document, the Judge deals with the Superman work produced by Siegel and Shuter after March 1, 1938 and before the employment agreement they signed in September of that year. Despite the lack of a contract, the Judge decides that the material produced during that time is work for hire, and therefore belongs to DC.

The Judge writes (pages 43-44):

In essence, the September, 1938 employment agreement formalized what had informally been ongoing beforehand. That Detective Comics' requests were made on an informal basis before the written agreements were executed does not detract from the fundamental fact that Siegel and Shuster's creation of the derivative Superman material was done at the request and instance of Detective Comics. That Detective Comics waited six months before more formally "employing" the pair to "continue" to do just that does not detract from the core point that such production by Siegel and Shuster was again done at the instance of Detective Comics; it simply shows that by that point Superman had so proven itself a commercial success that the publisher desired a more formalized arrangement to be placed down in writing to ensure that the pair would continue to produce such material for it (rather than going on to create other comic book characters for other publishers).

When these facts are considered in toto, it is easy to conclude that creation of the works in question lie further along the spectrum from that found in a more traditional employment relationship, as is the case for the comic books created by in-house employees of the publisher. The lack of any long-term guarantee or commitment by the publisher to the business enterprise itself, however, is not something which is atypical in an independent contractor situation. That the pair functioned in such a looser employment relationship with the hiring party is not critical. What is important is the existence of an engagement to create the works, and the level of control and direction the commissioning party thereafter had over creation of the works in question. And in that regard, the fact that Siegel and Shuster were commissioned by the publisher to create specific material to which the publisher had the statutory right to exert control over its creation, and for which they were paid upon the material's publication, is dispositive as to the instance prong.

In short, Detective Comics, as the copyright holder of the pre-existing work, approached the artists and asked that they create works derived from that preexisting material on a regular basis, and then paid the artists for that derivative work. As such, the material would fall within the category as a work made for hire. [emphasis mine]

It's easy to see the parallels with Kirby's situation at Marvel. He was a freelancer, but he was working under the editorial direction of Stan Lee, and he was "commisioned by the publisher to create specific material" on a regular basis for Marvel's monthly books.

Basically, until now the Siegels have been only able to regain the rights to material that Jerry Siegel developed before selling it to DC. Is the Kirby family in a position to come up with evidence that shows that Jack Kirby had written scripts or drawn stories featuring the Fantastic Four or the X-Men before he sold them to Marvel? This is doubtful, and this is the main reason why I can't see them being able to succesfully claim the copyrights to these characters.

Despite all of the above, Tom Spurgeon makes an important point: "The fact that aggressive litigator Toberoff & Associates is the attorney of record makes this a bigger deal because of their past successes" (including the recent Siegel victories). I would very much like to see the Kirby family regain these copyrights, or at least some fair compensation for the use of the characters. I believe they're in a difficult position for the reasons stated above, but at least they have chosen a powerful ally, and this may end up making an important difference.