I'm just toyin' wth my buddy, JAVIER HERNANDEZ, creator of EL MUERTO, AZTEC ZOMBIE, who just posted a nice essay on his affection and affinity for (and near spiritual experience with) the art of STEVE DITKO.
Yes, as Jav posts right here, Rob Imes has released DITKOMANIA #77, in which my column, DITKOTOMY, appears, once again with an illustration courtesy of Mr. H.
The issue's theme is Ditko's independent work, and Jav did a nice illustration of the Mocker for my essay on THE MOCKER and STATIC, my personal favorites of Ditko's post-Silver Age output. The ordering info is all right here in Jav's post.
DITKOMANIA#77 is also significant because Javier has also contributed a second illustration as well as his first essay to the 'zine. Which is a savage shocker, as somehow I'm not sure how I wound up contributing to DM before he did. As much as I love and appreciate the work of Steve Ditko, Javier's twice as devoted and twice as fast at picking up on anything Ditko. But whatever, it's only comic book 'zines, folks!
Today, to my chagrin, I missed the Art Clokey funeral service, which is going on in Los Osos, CA, right about now. But Javier's lively interpretations of Ditko's indy characters put the smile back on my face. Thanks, Jav! Today, you're MY Hero!
3 comments:
Tsk Tsk, Mikey!! ;)
Seriously, this is great! Your blog post actually came up in my daily Google Alert feed (yep, I have one for STEVE DITKO!!!). I was like "Wha' the hell?"!
Maybe I should do exclusive artwork for the renowned CF blog? Give Heidi and Spurge a run for their money!
Course, we wouldn't compete with the sterling, innovative, inspiring artwork Newsarama gets force fed daily by DC and Marvel!! (insert 'wink' right about here...)
Now that you and I are riding shotgun in DITKOMANIA and making waves, what say we launch our Frank Robbins zine: "Frankly, Robbins" or "Robbins Hood"?
It's funny you mention Frank Robbins. Last night, I read a DETECTIVE COMICS written and drawn by Frank Robbins in which Batman is penning his own suicide note (!!!!) in a storyline centered around a mystery in which people turn up dead from "suicide" but it turns out to be forced games of Russian Roulette. How they let Robbins get away with that one, I don't know! Wertham and the Code were asleep at the wheel!
OK, I took the scenic route to answering your question: a Frank Robbins fanzine....HELL, YEAH!
Holy Emo, Batman!!!
A Robbins written/illustrated story with Bat-suicides and forced Russian Roulettes???
Between that and the Steve Gerber/Mike Ploog MAN-THING comic with the clown who committed suicide and started haunting people (which by the way was made into one of those kid's Power Records comics/record deals?!?!?!?!) the real hard-core stories were in the mainstream books, not the underground press!!!
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