
Today marks the 81st birthday for Spider-Man’s other daddy. Along with Stan Lee, he co-created Spider-Man back in 1962. Over the years the artist has turned down interviews and requests to have his picture taken. He often says he wants his work to speak for itself, and it does.
There has been much written about the man since the 1960’s. Here are a few links. Mark Evanier talks about his thoughts on why Ditko left Spidey. John Romita Sr also has some thoughts about taking over from the big shoes of Ditko. Unfortunately all these theories on why he left Marvel are just second hand thoughts. I fear we may never know the true story since Ditko doesn’t look to be talking anytime soon. None-the-less, his contribution to Spider-Man’s look is legendary! Thanks to coolmvm for the birthday reminder.
Brad Douglas
View articlesBrad created the Crawlspace back in 1998 while attending college at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He’s the webmaster and writes front page news items, and also produces, hosts and edits the podcast. He’s been collecting Spider-Man comics since the age of three and is a life-long fan of the webhead. His website has been featured in USA Today, Entertainment Weekly and on Marvel.com and inside the comics themselves. The Crawlspace is one of the first Spider-Man fan sites to ever hit the internet. Millions of people visit the site every year.
Brad has interviewed several “Spider-Celebrities” over the years including co-creator Stan Lee. He’s also interviewed actors who have portrayed Spider-Man like Paul Soles (Voice Actor from the 67 Spider-Man Cartoon), Dan Gilvezan (Spidey Voice Actor from Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends) ,Yuri Lownthal (Voice Actor from the Spider-Man PlayStation game) and Nicholas Hammond (Spider-Man 1977 Actor).
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It´s sad that he don´t like to be in the spotlight or give interviews, because he deserves to be remembered for his Spider-man work alone.
Happy Birthday Steve!
Funny how I never knew what Ditko looked like…thanx for opening up my eyes!
Yeah, I need to listen to that episode. I don’t own the book, but my Ditko interest is strictly limited to Spider-Man. With the exception of his Dr. Strange stuff, I didn’t quite dig his other stuff. I’m more of a Romita guy. With his work I like everything he does.
Hey Brad, you should get that author of the new book on Ditko on the podcast at some point.
Heard him on Chris’ podcast, and that was quite a good listen.