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A review by sfian
Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Steve Ditko, Blake Bell
3.0
Two things "wrong" with this book. The first that Ditko is represented as both bitter and hard to work with - that may be true, but you know what they say about meeting your heroes. The second is the amount of time spent telling us how much and how often Ditko pushed his Rand-ian beliefs into his work (or turned down work because of them) - again, almost certainly factual but, even though I've heard of Ayn Rand, I'm no scholar of philosophy and, therefore, didn't really follow the "argument".
Having said that, as a collection - or, perhaps more accurately, a sample - of his artwork and as a biography, it's both interesting and informative, while not necessarily being fawning, which some biographies can be. Ditko may not have been your average comic writer/illustrator and this book goes a long way to show that. I wonder what some of his more ardent fans thought of it. For me, always more of a DC fan, but interested in comics in general, it is a worthy addition to my shelves, despite the faults I, personally, found with it.
Having said that, as a collection - or, perhaps more accurately, a sample - of his artwork and as a biography, it's both interesting and informative, while not necessarily being fawning, which some biographies can be. Ditko may not have been your average comic writer/illustrator and this book goes a long way to show that. I wonder what some of his more ardent fans thought of it. For me, always more of a DC fan, but interested in comics in general, it is a worthy addition to my shelves, despite the faults I, personally, found with it.