Original Steve Ditko Art Spider-Man/Dr. Strange Pin-Up
Winning bid: US $19,101.00 Seller: gottahaveitme( 4305 )
Description:
We have for you Comic Art Collectors and Fans alike a very special piece of artwork by the legendary artist Steve Ditko! For all of you who have not lived under a rock for the past 40 years know Steve Ditko is the artist who first gave live to two of Marvel Comics most iconic heroes SPIDER-MAN and Dr. Strange! We offer here now for you to own the PIN-Up art Steve Ditko drew for an early 1960’s Comic Book Fanzine.
This Marvelous Masterpiece Pin-Up features not one but both of Steve Ditko’s most monumental heroes: Spidey and Doc Strange master of the mystic arts, both together on one page! Drawn in pencil, pen and brush with black magic ink on 8 ½ by 11 typing paper. If you look close enough you can see the pencil work around Dr. Strange’s waste, where the lines were erased for the mystical fog.
Artwork is on 8 ½ by 11 typing paper; shows some age; little nick out of lower right edge corner (Dr. Strange side) with a piece or two of tape on the back from many years ago when it hung on the wall. This is a pulse-pounding piece of art from the Marvel Age of comics that any true believer worth their no prize would proudly love to own!!
Steve Ditko – Early career. Ditko studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in New York City under Jerry Robinson and began professionally illustrating comic books in 1953. Much of his early work, beginning in the early 1950s, was for Charlton Comics (for whom he continued to work intermittently until the company's demise in 1986), producing science fiction, horror and mystery stories. Later in the decade, he would also begin drawing for Atlas Comics, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics. He is well known for designing superheroes that wear masks that show absolutely no facial features. Such examples are Spider-Man and the DC Comics character the Question.
Is notoriously reclusive and very rarely, if ever, appears in public. He never gives interviews and the closest most people have ever been to seeing his face is in an early issue of Spider-Man in which a self-portrait of him sleeping at his desk appears.
He is the creator of such comic book characters as Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, the Question, Shade and The Changing Man. In addition, he has worked as an artist on many other comics. Although Ditko had returned to work for Marvel Comics several times after his mid-60s departure, he has steadfastly refused to again draw his two most famous characters, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
CONDITION:
(Very Good; please read post above and see scans!!)
PAYMENTS AND SHIPPING:
[snipped…]Attention True Believers, here’s an update on this Marvelous Steve Ditko Masterpiece.
It originally appeared in Don Schank’s comic book fanzine “Komik Heroes Of The Future” in 1964. Recently a very similar work by the masterful Steve Ditko: “Doctor Strange and Spider-Man illustration from The Comic Reader #42 1965” went at auction for $31,500. A different piece in the very same format as ours but ours shows Spidey and Doc in dynamic full figures and the other only showed from the torso up.
Mr. Ditko did a hand full of these in the early 60’s (well these two that we know of) before he left Marvel, never to do them again. The masterwork we have here came directly from Don Schank to the client we currently represent in this auction. It is a one of a kind and has never before been offered to the public before now. So Face Front True Believers and keep on Bidding!!
By Maridon Arts January 31, 2010 - 2:38 pm
Wow! I can attest to the authenticity of this! Never thought to see it again. In my early/mid teens I published a small comic book fanzine on mimeograph and I wrote to Steve Ditko and interviewed him via snail mail (1965/66, somewhere around there). This was the drawing he sent me to publish with the interview. I was stunned when he actually sent me a drawing along with his hand-written answers to my questions.