Number 2236: Ditko: Merlin’s black magic

“I Dared to Defy Merlin’s Black Magic,” a 5-page story, is one I remember well from the days when I picked up anything by Steve Ditko. It is richly textured artwork, and a story well told. Okay, so the story isn’t very surprising. The early Marvels didn’t stray too far from some basic plots, all of which I was familiar with even at my tender age in 1959. But at least Ditko tells it well.

In those days I went for artists I liked who signed their names to their work. With these post-Atlas-early-Marvel titles I collected for Kirby and Ditko because they signed their work. Other artists I especially liked were the Mad artists I first saw in the paperback reprints, The Mad Reader, Inside Mad, et al: Wood, Elder, Davis. Wallace Wood was then doing illustrations for Galaxy magazine and Mad; Will Elder and Jack Davis could be seen in some of the Mad imitations crowding the magazine racks. Davis did the cover for this issue:

The fun of collecting for me was in the artwork of comic books, and that is only right, because it is a visual medium. When I got more interested in stories it was because of The Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man, with two of my favorite artists, Kirby and Ditko. When I found out years late they had responsibility for the stories as well, it made me appreciate Kirby and Ditko all the more.

From Strange Tales #71 (1959):

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