Coming up on 50 years. Fifty! Everybody sing Na-Na-Na-Nah!
Author: DOuG pRATt
An Avenging World Without Ditko
Credit for getting the word out about Steve Ditko’s passing apparently goes to Graig Weich.
The Washington Post has comments about Ditko from Neil Gaiman.
My buddy Denro says that Craig Yoe has a unique story and personal remembrance of Ditko meeting Jim Henson.
A is A
Steve Ditko, one of the true giants of comic book creators, has died. Ditko was Ditko, and he was a one-of-a-kind original who was born to draw comic books.
It’s reported that Ditko was found dead in his New York apartment on June 29, and that he had probably been dead for a couple of days.
I have been pledging to Ditko’s Kickstarter campaigns from the beginning, and the last one ended on the 4th of July. I have to wonder when his publisher, Robin Snyder, learned of Ditko’s death. He lived alone, and perhaps it was Robin who called the NYPD to request that a well-being check be made.
Other than the available sketchy facts, and my speculation, there are my feelings about the loss of Steve Ditko. Something I have said before is that if you aren’t a Silver Age comic book fan, there is no way I can convey to you how deeply I feel about Ditko’s compelling artwork. To use a bit of Stan Lee hyperbole, it got under my skin and went all the way to the marrow of my bones.
From what I know, saying that Ditko was co-creator of Dr. Strange is incorrect. In a Marvel Comics blurb from Stan Lee upon the character’s first appearance in 1963, Lee said the character was Steve’s idea. And now he’s being played by Benedict Cumberbatch! Something else I’ve said before is that it’s utterly amazing to me that the comic book characters I loved as a kid, starting over 50 years ago, are now generating billions of dollars in movie ticket sales. It’s un-f-in’ believable. And yet, here we are.
I’m rambling a bit here, but I’m stunned by this inevitable, sad news. Ditko’s greatest character is probably Mr. A, who was an inspiration for the Watchmen character Rorschach, along with Ditko’s The Question. Mr. A is anything but mainstream, but he is the embodiment of Ayn Rand’s “A is A” philosophy of Objectivism. Although I do not agree with Ditko’s closely held personal views, I sincerely respected his right to believe in them, and I am truly grateful for having had the opportunity to provide direct support to him through Kickstarter.
Live From Tanglewood
This Sunday’s Boston Symphony Orchestra concert in the Music Shed at Tanglewood in Lenox, MA is one that I sorely wish I could attend, for both of the musical selections. But being here in Sun City West, AZ, I will have to settle for listening to the live stream from WCRB, with my little Oontz Angle speaker. Given the time difference, that means tuning it at 11:30 AM MST.
Giant Dust Storm On Mars… And In Phoenix!
Here I am once again in Sun City West, Arizona, and the wind is blowing up a dust storm. It’s not like the big sandstorms I saw in Saudi Arabia, but it’s not like being at home, either.
Riding the shuttle bus this morning to Logan Airport in Boston I was appalled, but not surprised, to look down and see people texting while driving on the Mass Pike. This is why we need self-driving cars.
A Turner Original
As I prepare yet again to return once more to Phoenix to do Trustee work, I have TCM’s streaming video app running on an Amazon Fire TV stick. After an extended rough start, with annoyingly choppy playback, TCM has the technology figured out, and its streaming service works great. It’s now in HD, so it doesn’t matter that the station is in SD on my Verizon FiOS TV service. What matters is I have the channel in my cable package, and that gives me access to the streaming service.
Almost two years ago this was my plan for TV watching in retirement on the porch, when I returned one of my two cable boxes and replaced it with an over-the-air TiVo DVR. It’s finally all working as it should, and as of this month the TiVo DVR has paid for itself.
This weekend I watched two MGM favorites from the 50’s — “Forbidden Planet” and “North by Northwest” — and they played perfectly. Not having a Blu-ray copy of either movie, I was knocked out by the picture quality on Watch TCM. “High Society” is playing right now, but I’d better turner it off, as Grace Kelly has always been very distracting to me, and I have a lot to do on this 4th of July!