Ben Towle
@benzilla.bsky.social
3.1K followers 1.9K following 2K posts
Cartoonist, five-time-time Eisner nominee, programming co-chair Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), adjunct comics prof @ CCAD, intergalactic trader & general nuisance. Four-Fisted Tales, Oyster War, etc. Columbus, OH (Comics City, USA!)/Palm Springs, CA
![A 300-Page Interview with
Steve Ditko in the next issue of…
THE
COMICS JOURNAL
(Nah, not really!)
In fact, Steve Ditko declines to be interviewed anywhere, at any time, in any place, so we’ve done the next best thing: we at the Comics Journal initiated a policy in which all interview subjects are required to talk about Ditko — regardless of relevance or even interest or knowledge on the part of the interview subject! A few salacious excerpts from previous interviews:
SETH (from Comics Journal #193):
You think of someone like Ditko, even within the
structure of something like Spider-Man, you can feel
his efforts to get that Randian stuff out; but, I suppose
being hampered by the company, it’s still like a game
they’re playing; they have to squeeze in what they can
within the parameters of what’s allowed.
point of view, and there was absolutely no qualifying.
or compromising or in any way getting him to step
back or accommodate anything that would qualify his
point of view.
GROTH: Had Ditko been brainwashed by Rand by
that time?
GROTH: Of course, Ditko is an interesting example…
I probably prefer his Spider-Man or Dr. Strange to his[The
didactically repetitious Randian tracts. [laughs]
SETH: Yeah, I’ll agree! They’re certainly more fun to read. You’ve got to wonder, though, if that has to do with a growing ideology in him or a growing sledge‑hammer approach. If he’d been allowed to do what he wanted, would he have been doing that from Day One? I’m not sure if he had been doing Mr. A at the same age that he was doing Spider‑Man, if it might not have been a bit more readable. It's obvious that he
really had his own approach to comics. Both the
drawing and the writing.
KANE: I would assume. This was during the '60s
and she had come out during the '40s. Even the movie
Fountainhead] came out during the late '40s.
He was always a loner. I think his ideas could have
been almost anything, simply because he self-coun-
seled himself. As far as I know, I’ve seen him at a coupl…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:otlhvherlegf5ewb6di6b7yb/bafkreieyct5s4p57raillampelz64fyj5bhevasmlqpjuiijhjmxlozboe)
