Steve Ditko is one of the best artists ever to draw comics.
Spider-Man and
Doctor Strange are but two of his many visual creations. It makes sense that such a great artist would have a fan following, of course.
Back in the 1980s, a fanzine entitled
Ditkomania was produced by and for fans of the work of
Mr. Ditko. I was drawing regularly for the
Comics Buyer's Guide in those heady days, and
CBG would forward to me letters that had been sent to me in care of them. A gentleman named
Bill Hall was the founding editor and publisher of
DM, and he wrote to tell me of the existence of
Ditkomania and to invite me to submit
Ditko-related drawings for publication in then-future issues.
I count myself among the many fans of
Mr. Ditko's stylings, and so I agreed. Over a period of (I think) a couple of years, I did have some of my drawings published in
DM. You can see some of them for yourself if you look
here and
here and especially
here (my personal favorite). But then I got busy or something, and
Ditkomania continued into the 1990s without me. Somewhere in there, it ceased publication.
Fast-forward to the present day, and imagine my pleasure to find out that
Ditkomania has been revived for the new millennium!
Rob Imes, another fine gentleman, has been given the go-ahead by
Bill Hall himself to produce new issues of
DM (and
Mr. Hall is a regular contributor to the new incarnation).
I'm guessing
Mr. Imes has used the internet to seek out many of the erstwhile contributors to
DM, and he found me over on
ebay (where, of course, I operate the
Hayfamzone Dynasty).
Mr. Imes sent me an
ebay message to tell me of the revival of
Ditkomania, and that's all I needed to hear. Of course I wanted to
see what was up!
And now that I have seen a couple of the new issues, I couldn't be more impressed. The professionalism of
Mr. Imes' fanzine has energized me to step up to the plate. Although I haven't lifted a pencil to draw anything for publication in quite a few years, I definitely want to be part of the New Age of
Ditkomania.
Click
here if you'd like to order an issue of the new
Ditkomania for yourself, and maybe be on the lookout for something drawn by
me in a future issue!