I bought a piece of original art from Fred Hembeck the other day, a drawing he had done for fun and put up for auction on ebay. For those not in the know, Fred was one of the pre-eminent fan cartoonists in the late 70s, who parleyed a regular strip in the Comic Buyer's Guide into a series of collections, a gig doing a strip for DC's Daily Planet promo page, and assorted work for Marvel, including a long-running strip in MARVEL AGE.
I've been a big fan of Fred's work for years now--those HEMBECK collections, published primarily by FantaCo, exposed me to all sorts of characters and comics from the dim past of the 1960s that I'd never encountered before, albeit all filtered through Fred's particular vision. And beyond that, there was something about his viewpoint that I liked. I could certainly relate to his background, also being a comic book reader growing up on Long Island in New York. One of Fred's favorite runs is the early AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as drawn by Steve Ditko, and this piece seems to be almost something of a take on a pin-up Ditko had done showcasing pretty much his entire cast up till that time. (I've included the Hembeck recreation of that pin-up to the left as well.)
Which lead fairly painlessly to a question I've been asked a couple of times in the past week: did I see the documentary on Steve Ditko that British television presenter Jonathan Ross produced for the BBC, which aired a week ago, and, if so, what did I think of it? Well, yes, I did see it--a little bit early, thanks to the advance copy Jonathan sent to Flo Steinberg, who was filmed for the show. And I liked it. I thought it did a good job of boiling down the whos and whats of Steve Ditko's career so as to make them accessible to a mainstream audience that doesn't have a working knowledge of comic books. Ross's love for the material shone through throughout. And as I feel similarly about Ditko's work, it made for a very enjoyable sixty minutes.
The one ill-considered aspect of the production, I thought, wasn't the fact that Jonathan and Neil Gaiman went up to visit Steve after he specifically told them not to (which is understandable in the larger context of the show), but the fact that they chose to shoot the building in such a way as to make its address blindingly apparent to one and all. And yes, it's not as though you couldn't find Ditko's place by simply looking in a phone book, but showing the address in a documentary dedicated to Ditko (and thus most likely to be viewed by his most devoted admirers) right before the host chooses to crash Ditko's offices himself feels just a little too much like a road map to disaster for me. Hopefully, Steve won't be too taken aback by any imitators who may follow suit.
More later.
Tom B
Yeah That is a little awkward...it sounds like they slightly overstepped their bounds. Blurring an address is not much to ask.
On a friendlier note, the cartoon versions are quite amusing!
Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-09-25 09:01:43
Question Tom, do you think Steve realizes how many people love and appreciate his work? And if not, do you think there's any way to get that across to him?
Posted by CylverSaber on 2007-09-25 15:19:27
More... ...Steve Ditko
More Fred Hembeck
and more Paul Grist
!
Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-09-26 05:53:01
Well thank you for answering the question Tom and I'm pleased you enjoyed the show.
The thing is, I personally have no idea whether the documentary is aired in America or not (being a Brit, I have little knowledge of these things). If it is, forget all about what I'm going to say next. The thing is, to the average viewer, perhaps to anybody who doesn't live in New York, it might be a bit of an obscure location, one that I personally doubt anybody who isn't a regular in New York will recognise.
Posted by Carzy on 2007-09-26 18:47:15
I seem to recall the address of the building was clearly shown so it didn't matter if you live in New York or not, the address is now known.
Posted by bomaya on 2007-09-28 09:49:18
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About this blog: Ramblings and musings from the mind of Tom Brevoort. "It won’t be clean. It won’t be fun. It mostly won’t be coherent."
About the author: Tom Brevoort is Executive Editor for Marvel Comics, and oversees such titles as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four.
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