OK, I know, I'm slow with these covers, but I'm trying to get these out every week or two. Until recently (that you Amazing Fantasy Omnibus!), I was completely unaware of 'Curse of the Weird'; an odd little series of Atlas era reprints published in the mi90s. Of course, now I'm obsessed with tracking down the other 3 issues. It's all reprint, except for this new Ditko cover. I'm not sure if it was actually done for the book, or just something from inventory. It's far less detailed than anything Ditko would have done back in the Atlas days, and has much more of a post-Charlton vibe to it. In fact, it is so spare and 'independent' looking that I'm a bit surprised that Marvel chose this cover - as I'll bet most readers didn't even notice it on the racks. While certainly not Ditko's strongest work, it's fun to have as an example of his later work for Marvel. I do think that a cover made up from the splash page to the lead story "Do Not Panic" would have looked great!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Steve Ditko Cover of the Week: Curse of the Weird #1
OK, I know, I'm slow with these covers, but I'm trying to get these out every week or two. Until recently (that you Amazing Fantasy Omnibus!), I was completely unaware of 'Curse of the Weird'; an odd little series of Atlas era reprints published in the mi90s. Of course, now I'm obsessed with tracking down the other 3 issues. It's all reprint, except for this new Ditko cover. I'm not sure if it was actually done for the book, or just something from inventory. It's far less detailed than anything Ditko would have done back in the Atlas days, and has much more of a post-Charlton vibe to it. In fact, it is so spare and 'independent' looking that I'm a bit surprised that Marvel chose this cover - as I'll bet most readers didn't even notice it on the racks. While certainly not Ditko's strongest work, it's fun to have as an example of his later work for Marvel. I do think that a cover made up from the splash page to the lead story "Do Not Panic" would have looked great!
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3 comments:
Wow! I never heard of that series either Scott. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Have you or will you be picking up Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko. I picked up my copy at my LCS last week and am enjoying the feast of Ditko art. It's got me both rushing to my long boxes to see the actual comics referenced, or, more likely adding heavily to my Ditko wishlist! Thanks again.
Craig.
I didn't know about these until I picked then up in a quarter bin a few years after they appeared. There's also a companion series called Monster Madness, also w/ Atlas reprints (Ditko covers on two issues.
Ditko also did a couple 1-page pinups for the books.
I bought this series when it came out. I had stopped buying main stream comics at this point but the old reprints were too compelling for me to pass by.
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