Artist Spotlight - Steve Ditko - Part 1

[@amedeomodigliani4389]

I need to search this out. It's so good

[@hypernovie]

Its a Gray Wash . Done with a brush... Not always would the same artist do the penciling and Ink work. Love the Great Classic Warren Magazines!!

[@JaredOsborn]

That's an ink wash technique that the B&W magazines of the 1970s used. Basically you water down ink and paint in grey on the original art like it was a watercolor. The extra step and cost it that the printer has to use a screen to capture all the greys and turn them into the printer dots for the black printing plate. Regular four color comics have no grey in their black plate.

[@etanick1]

aha...I figured you would have the answer :) thanks!

[@AlextheComicHoarder]

Thanks for highlighting these books Nick.

[@etanick1]

you are welcome!

[@Reapertate728]

Wow. I never knew he worked on Eerie before, Nick. The shading you highlighted is really fantastic. Very good art. I think when it comes to Ditko, obviously people remember his work on Spiderman, and maybe to a lesser degree some of his DC work, but this stuff is new to me.

[@etanick1]

great! I am glad I showed something "new" :)

[@forgerelli1]

Good stuff Nick. For anyone interested Dark Horse did a hardcover collection of all the Ditko stories from Eerie.

[@etanick1]

indeed....the reprints are nice...I have seen them...they are sharp!

[@beyondcomicstv]

I Met Steve Ditko - Co-Creator of SPIDER-MAN: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKrJc2l8mLGKeMU

[@johnnnoise]

Pretty nice. These are a larger and more detailed version of what you'd expect to see in late 60's/ early 70's Charlton Horror Ditko. Charlton's printing was so mismatched on the color (mostly, not always) that this looks much better, especially the larger pages.

[@etanick1]

indeed...Charlton has the worse printing out of all the publishers during that time....the cuts of the books, the centering, the coloring, etc...and even the lack of gloss on the covers....everything screamed about how "poor" the company was right?

[@Martin_TheCollector]

I love his Spiderman art!!!! Too bad nobody knows what he is up to now.

[@etanick1]

he is putting out a few things here and there.....in fact a friend sent me his latest Mr. A book just a few months ago.

[@geozipper]

Ink wash or gray wash is the so-called technique :-) It probably cut down Ditko's work time too because, in a black & white magazine, without the color to give some definition & clarity between things/people, the artist would replace that with more gradations of pen lines, scratch lines. You see that in the first example. All those thin pen lines shading faces, etc... but it takes a lot of time to add in all those individual lines to shade things & make them look more 3-dimensional. With the ink wish, by contrast, since it is done with a brush like in a watercolor method, the artist can shade things much quicker. If he was paid by page, which he most likely was, Ditko would of necessity have to figure in work time to complete each paid (translating that into so much cash per hour work). Cutting down on page time would boost his hourly wage. FInally, I'd like to add that this style would not work very well in a color comic book. The printing at that time, on the paper they used, was nothing like today. If the artist handed in finished drawings that were shaded in an ink wash & then color was applied over that, it most likely would run the risk of muddying up the artwork, making it hard to decipher. A mess. What makes the gray wash work so well is the fact that it remains in black & white, the white areas being very important for highlights & for contrast.

[@etanick1]

awesome! thanks for the detailed explanations.

[@comicKkrakK]

Great looking stuff Nick. Do you think it's just an ink wash of sorts to get that grey tone? Zip a tone is something totally different, right? Whatever the case, it's great Ditko! Added a few of these to my list to hunt down.

[@etanick1]

you will love them :)

[@marseclipsed5451]

Nick, why do you have to create a run on these magazines before I've had a chance to buy them all, man?

[@etanick1]

LOL...I don't think I have much influences to be honest...after 2 days and barely 100 views, I doubt the market for these books will change, especially in the low to mid grade ranges :)

[@wertsdb71]

Hopefully you're familiar with the Ditkomania zine. ;-D

[@etanick1]

Blake! I have seen them but I don't have any....thanks for reminding me :)

[@wertsdb71]

No problem. You can get new issues from Rob Imes directly here: unitedfanzineorganization.weebly.com/ditkomania.html I just got the latest issue a couple of weeks ago, in fact.