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Roberto Melendrez
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 377
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 11:51am | IP Logged | 1
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Hi JB,
What are your favorite works drawn by Wally Wood? Do you have a hands down favorite?
Did you ever get to meet him?
What are some of your favorite works drawn by Ditko? Do you have a hands down favorite?
What was meeting him like? Did you talk shop?
Was looking over Ditko/Wood's artwork on Canon and thought that they made an excellent team- then got to wondering what Byrne/Wood would have looked like.
Thanks!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | 2
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Wood’s whole catalog is pretty phenomenal, but I admit a special fondness for the MAD COMIC OPERA, circa 1958. (And not just because I own the art for the whole story!)Met him very, very briefly, toward the end of his life. Only a few words exchanged. As to Ditko, there’s so much I love, but feet to the fire—and based mostly on nostalgia—I’d say I have a soft spot in my heart for his adaptation of GORGO.
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Roberto Melendrez
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 377
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | 3
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Thanks again JB!
Everyone else is welcome to give their favorites!
I totally agree with you on just how good Wood's output is JB. I like the Mad Comic Opera too. I think Prince Violent is mine.
Ditko's work for Warren are my favorite works of his. Its like Ditko is flexing a different skill on each one. Also have a real soft spot for his Mysterious Traveler stories.
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | 4
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Wally Wood did three or four issues of All-Star Comics that I was inordinately fond of... not the least because they included Superman. Superman. By Wally Wood. What's NOT to love?
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Shane Matlock
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | 5
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I love the work Ditko did for Warren Comics in Creepy and Eerie.
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Brian Hague
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Joined: 14 November 2006
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | 6
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Super-Villain Team-Up #15 reprinted the Wood-illustrated Doctor Doom stories from Astonishing Tales #4 & 5. That was early favorite of mine of Wood's work, but yeah, nothing beats his Mad Comic Opera, which I first saw reprinted in Mad Super Special #36, "The Comics!"
I will say that I was a demon to collect that All-Star run that Eric mentions above. Seeing Wood's clearly Shuster/Fleischer influenced Superman fighting alongside the Shining Knight in Camelot and handing off his role in the JSA to the brand-new, shiny Power Girl was a real pleasure.
As for Ditko, while I continue to learn and enjoy more about his work with each new story of his I see from the 1950's, I'll go with early favorite Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2, in which Spidey teams up with Dr. Strange to battle Xandu and the Wand of Watoomb! The utter weirdness of that comic unnerved me when I saw it on the racks as a kid and I did not pick it up at the time. Later, I was fascinated by it and wound up digging through back issue bins to follow Xandu and his story as it played out over the years. Seeing the Wand in the DOCTOR STRANGE movie absolutely knocked me out, same as seeing that hinge-pin near Spider-Man's shoulder did when he was buried under the wreckage in SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING.
I generally enjoy call-outs and references in films, but those two in particular, being direct Ditko references, made me downright happy.
Edited by Brian Hague on 01 May 2019 at 3:25pm
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7984
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | 7
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I discovered Ditko when JB inked his Avengers annual
back in the day (I was a new collector then). Later,
of course, I realized that I had seen his work before
:-)
My favorite Ditko work is probably Blue Beetle. I
love it, though I would probably yield to his earlier
Marvel work being "better."
I am also lucky enough to have a Ditko letter, like a
few of our members. It means a lot to me, and I wish
I had an opportunity to meet him.
Never met Kirby either :-(
But I had a dog named Kirby in his honor :-)
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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | 8
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I enjoyed the Charlton Jungle Jim comics penciled by Ditko and inked by Wood, that was a magic combo! I think there was some of the same at Tower on Thunder Agents in the '60s. Ditko finished by John Byrne is also something there couldn't have been enough of. Ditko inking himself is usually wonderful to see... early Konga and Gorgo, again at Charlton, as well as the Captain Atom and Blue Beetle work (and Killjoy in the back of E-Man). I also really liked some of his later independent publisher comics like Missing Man and Static, and his short run on Machine Man at Marvel in the early '80s.
Wally Wood was probably second only to Frank Frazetta as most skilled artist to ever work in comic books in the 'golden age', plus very prolific, and there were some amazing artists in comics. In a just world he'd have been as household a name as Hal Foster or Al Capp once were. He (Wood) used to do illustrations for the Galaxy sf magazine in the '50s and I always wondered why he didn't get more work in that area (outside a few sf book covers and other more fleeting sci-fi-ish magazines), but that field's loss was comic book fans' gain I suppose.
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Eric Jansen
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Joined: 27 October 2013
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Posts: 2322
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| Posted: 01 May 2019 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | 9
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I too loved Wally Wood's work on ALL-STAR COMICS, whether it was inking/embellishing or doing the full artwork. Ditko was just great on everything, but I have a special fondness in my heart for those little pocket books that reprinted the first issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN or DR. STRANGE (and INCREDIBLE HULK, which had one Ditko issue)--somehow Ditko looked great tiny, regular comic size, or giant tabloid size.
Wood also inked Ditko on DC's 1975 4-issue series STALKER (which could use a mini collection). Wood had an amazing way of inking somebody to bring out the best in the story without obscuring the penciler's work. Don Heck never looked better than the one IRON MAN story I saw inked by Wood--but it STILL looked like Heck!
Side note: JB and Ditko always made the most readable comics for me. I have a lot of other favorites too, but their (JB & Ditko) comics could just wash over me and I could read ten in one sitting (in a totally different way than today's decompressed chapter comics) or just one and savor it. |
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Vinny Valenti
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| Posted: 02 May 2019 at 7:07am | IP Logged | 10
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"I admit a special fondness for the MAD COMIC OPERA, circa 1958. (And not just because I own the art for the whole story!)"
--
Just looked that up for the first time. You lucky dog! I'm impressed by the way he gave depth to Dick Tracy and Dagwood. Tracy looks like he would have fit right in SIN CITY. Do you know what technique(s) he used on this?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 02 May 2019 at 7:10am | IP Logged | 11
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It’s ink (brush and pen) on Craftint paper, a cousin of DuoShade.
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Colin Ian Campbell
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| Posted: 05 May 2019 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | 12
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Super-Villain Team-Up #15 reprinted the Wood-illustrated Doctor Doom stories from Astonishing Tales #4 & 5.
***
George Tuska and Mike Esposito drew the Doom story in AT #5, which was slightly less impressive.
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