OK, so it's only a Ditko half cover, but you've got to take what you can get when you're talking about Ditko at DC. This was during the era of the Andru/Giordano cover, and it's always bothered me how rarely you get to see the interior artists given a shot to do the cover. This was the only time Ditko got to contribute to the cover during his run on Starman in Adventure Comics. It's not the world's greatest strip - but it's pretty entertaining and it was nice to see Ditko back on a fairly mainstream superhero story. The cover pose itself is a bit stiff - and I don't think Giordano helped Ditko out at all here. Ditko is a singular artists, and his work never looks particularly great when lined up directly beside someone else's work (not sure who pencilled the Plas portion, but it looks like Giordano on inks again). Whereas Ditko looks energetic and loose on his own, it looks a bit amateurish when juxtaposed against the work of a more conventional artist. Not a great cover, but it's a nice conversation piece.Monday, July 06, 2009
Steve Ditko Cover of the Week: Adventure Comics #467
OK, so it's only a Ditko half cover, but you've got to take what you can get when you're talking about Ditko at DC. This was during the era of the Andru/Giordano cover, and it's always bothered me how rarely you get to see the interior artists given a shot to do the cover. This was the only time Ditko got to contribute to the cover during his run on Starman in Adventure Comics. It's not the world's greatest strip - but it's pretty entertaining and it was nice to see Ditko back on a fairly mainstream superhero story. The cover pose itself is a bit stiff - and I don't think Giordano helped Ditko out at all here. Ditko is a singular artists, and his work never looks particularly great when lined up directly beside someone else's work (not sure who pencilled the Plas portion, but it looks like Giordano on inks again). Whereas Ditko looks energetic and loose on his own, it looks a bit amateurish when juxtaposed against the work of a more conventional artist. Not a great cover, but it's a nice conversation piece.
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6 comments:
Boy, I hated this comic when it came out. I never liked Ditko as a kid. Bought it, read it, threw it away.
Got it again during Robinson's run on Starman to reread that strip and it has aged pretty well, and Ditko's work, which I am still not a huge fan of, is fitting for this story.
I remember being very disappointed that DC had ditched the Dollar Comic format on Adventure, but I still enjoyed this run.
Oh, those are Dave Cockrum pencils on the Plastic Man half of the cover--under Dick Giordano inks as you correctly guessed.
Thanks for the info Groove - I don't think I would have guess Cockrum, but it's hard to tell with some little to work with.
Argo - I agree that it was a good fit for Ditko. It's a odd, yet entertaining strip. Quite unlike anything else going on at Marvel or DC at the time.
I think what I like about the strip so much now is that it was so unique. I couldn't appreciate it when I was eight and bought it at 7-11 (boy, those were the days), but now I can see it as a valiant and often entertaining endeavor.
That Starman feature in Adventure is what really made me appreciate Ditko's art back when I was a pre-teen comics fan (before that, I only liked his work on Spider-man, which I'd read in those pocketbook reprints). It was such an excellent, and underrated, run - and one that I think should be collected in a trade (preferably with the addition of that issue of DC Comics Presents done by Starlin which sort of 'finishes' the story...)
I loved this incarnation of Adventure, but as a kid I hated the cover-- purely because Ditko draws Starman different than he appears on the inside (the mask is supposed to go over Starman's cheeks and nose-- here he looks more like Machine Man with a partial helmet). I've wondered if they used a concept drawing for the cover (and had Giordano ink it) as opposed to commissioning Ditko to draw a cover just to be economical
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