Like Mr. A, But Crazy

Staunch Objectivist that he is, I doubt Steve Ditko believes in divine intervention, but there must be some mystical power looking out for him in the aether. The material in Cat Yronwode's nascent Ditko biography was lost along with much of Eclipse Comics' back-issue stock during a mid-80s flood, as if disturbing one cartoonist's privacy invites supernatural wrath. Blake Bell's managed to get an excellent new Ditko monograph on store shelves without being turned to salt or contracting the plague; still, even his Toronto book launch featured some spooky glitches.

Presented by The Beguiling in Lillian H. Smith Library, Wednesday's event was split between a survey of the master's career (unfortunately, I arrived just in time to hear the last sentence of this) and the first-ever Canadian showing of Johnathan Ross' BBC documentary "In Search of Steve Ditko" (that is, unless you're some kind of piratical, non-producing looter). We were about 15 minutes into the latter, following an effusive Ross into New York as his quest began, when...the DVD froze up. Both of them. "Blame Joe Quesada," Chris quipped.

Happily, Blake Bell leapt to the rescue, fielding a brace of further questions from the audience even as he lamented the sorry state of British workmanship. Bell has a relaxed, quick-witted presence, and in person he actually abandoned one of my few quibbles with Strange & Stranger - a reverence for the subject that occasionally leads him to, say, inflate minor slights into injustices on the scale of Marvel withholding page after page of Ditko's own art. On Wednesday, however, he described much of the 70s Charlton work (Ditko's non-ideological bills-paying) as "near-worthless" and told funny, self-deprecating stories about his own tangled history with the wary old legend; introducing himself at that studio-sanctum after publishing a particular offending piece, Bell watched the gears turn and said "I don't think that's a good memory you're dredging up, Steve." He still came off as the insightful expert, but one whose passion is tempered by a healthy and long-suffering awareness of Ditko's prickly peculiarities.

The best story, though, involved someone asking the cartoonist what he thought of Watchmen. Supposedly Ditko had no idea what the guy was talking about until Rorschach was mentioned, prompting the reply: "Oh yeah! He's like Mr. A, but he's insane!" One man's freedom fighter...

p.s. I have a review of Strange & Stranger coming up next week (I think). Preview: it's great, and gorgeously produced. Buy it!

p.p.s. I might just be saying this because the DVD self-destructed right after she appeared (or, uh, because she reminds me of my most recent ex) but Flo Steinberg was kinda cute back in the day...