Steve Ditko on RetroBlogs!

It's no secret we at RetroBlogs are major Steve Ditko fans as you can see from our posts at...

True Love Comics Tales, including Ditko's very first published work!

...Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, where we covered some of his work on Get Smart, Gorgo, and Mysterious Traveler!

...Seduction of the Innocent, which showed a Ditko tale that was later re-drawn!
(Who would have the chutzpah to think they could do a better job than Sturdy Steve???)

...Hero Histories, which features one of his greatest co-creations, Captain Atom, one of his greatest creations, Mr A, as well as his only story co-starring The Batman!

...a never-reprinted Civil War tale in War: Past Present and Future...

...even a Western Comics Adventures entry...

...and a Crime and Punishment post!
Was there anything Ditko couldn't do?

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Ditko Unleashed

Monday Madness FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith vs Skull Charter"

The fad of wearing "retro" 1940s clothing has spread to the mass populace...

...in the future of Space Smith!

The current unknown writer and artist of this never-reprinted story from Fox's Fantastic Comics #14 (1941) seem to think either the series is set "present day" with added super-science goodies (like Flash Gordon), or a future where we still have 1940s-style clothing and furniture!
Weird, eh?

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Science Fiction Comics
Taylor History of Comics
Vol 3

Reading Room SPACE ACTION "Silicon Monsters from Galaxy X"

If you're a cheesy sci-fi fan like me, you'll go for a story with a title like...

...'cause with a title like that, you're in for a fun (if not totally rational or even coherent) time!

While the writer is unknown, the art for this tale from Ace's Space Action #2 (1952) is attributed to "Jim McLaughlin", who had a short-lived comics career doing work primarily for Ace!

After that publisher dropped comics in 1955 to concentrate on paperbacks, he did a couple of stories for Atlas/Marvel, then a run of Dell's adaptation of the TV series Gunsmoke.

Then "Jim McLaughlin" disappeared.
Totally.
Unlike most comic book artists who went on to do commercial art or newspaper strips, there's no trace of "Jim McLaughlin" after his brief foray into four-color publishing...and no background about his pre-comics career!
Here's another interesting point...his art style altered considerably during his career.
In this story, the inking looks a lot like the work of long-time artist Jim Mooney!
In fact, a number of panels resemble Mooney's work on the DC strip Tommy Tomorrow, which Jim Mooney was both penciling and inking during the same period as "Jim McLaughlin's" work for Ace!
In McLaughlin's later work (particularly his Gunsmoke art), while the layouts look similar, the inking style is totally-different!
Was "Jim McLaughlin" a pen-name for a penciler working with at least two (if not more) different inkers?

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Science Fiction Comics
Taylor History of Comics
Vol 3

Steve Ditko Does Man-Bat and The Batman!

See the only time Steve (Spider-Man) Ditko illustrated The Batman...

...at our "brother" RetroBlog Hero Histories by clicking HERE!

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Steve Ditko Omnibus

Volume 2

(which reprints this tale as well as new villain Baron Tyme's return story-arc vs The Demon, also illustrated by Ditko)

Friday Fun REX DEXTER OF MARS "Junk Room of Doom"

It's taking a helluva long time for Rex Dexter to reach the second-closest planet to Earth...

...and going through the Junk Room of Doom is not going to speed things up!

This tale from Fox's Mystery Men Comics #12 (1940), was reprinted in Fox's The Eagle #1 (1941), presumably because the strip was being moved over there to give the new title an already-established feature, but the editors changed their minds, and new features like Spider Queen and Joe Spook took over the back pages of The Eagle, instead!

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Comics About Cartoonists

Stories About the World's Oddest Profession