Steve Ditko – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Steve Ditko — Beware The Creeper (& DC’s Publishing Strategy)

November 19, 2025 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Beware The Creeper #3, October 1968

Here’s a great Beware The Creeper page from issue #3. The Creeper (Jack Ryder) in every panel with classic Steve Ditko action and composition.

The Creeper was Ditko’s first superhero work for DC— just ahead of Hawk and Dove —and even as a kid, I recognized its offbeat genius. I had already admired Ditko’s talents from the Spider-Man reprints in Marvel Tales, and also in his Charlton work on Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and The Question.

But this quirky title definitely found a sweet spot for me.

In the late 60s, DC didn’t stick with any title that didn’t find an immediate audience — so naturally, it only lasted six issues.

Sigh.

Funny thing about this specific art page: If I recall correctly, I almost owned it about a dozen years ago in a purchase/trade that went south at the last minute.

Second time is a charm, I guess. Better late than never. (Two cliches for the price of one!)

As for DC’s publishing strategy:

I’m sure someone has compiled a comprehensive list of all the titles that DC launched in the late 1960s and early 70s and lasted less than a dozen issues.

Without thinking too hard, I came up with these:

The Spectre; Secret Six; Inferior 5; Anthro; Brother Power The Geek; Plastic Man; Hawk and Dove and Angel and The Ape. (Not to mention Jacky Kirby’s New Gods and Forever People, et al.) And, if you include licensed books, add in Captain Action and Hot Wheels.

That was a lot of work for few, if any, meaningful results.

Good thing the Superman and Batman titles were money machines.

Ashley Holt — In Good Company

April 23, 2025 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Commission, April 2024

***The art and the artist: Greg Goldstein and Ashley Holt***

I discovered Ashley Holt’s terrific portrait illustrations a few years ago — via Howard Chaykin — and became an ardent admirer from day one. He’s depicted some of our favorite people in colorful and instantly recognizable form.

Now, I’ve joined the club.

Ashley is a pleasure to deal with. He sells prints and books, takes commissions, and has a lovely website that makes it easy to admire or acquire his art.

Additionally, he has a well-written Substack column (“The Symptoms”), where he employs a lively — and occasionally biting — style that matches the spirit of his art.

Follow / subscribe to everything he offers, and you won’t be disappointed.

Trust me on this.

As for Ash’s note about this illustration of yours truly?:

“Greg Goldstein, comics art connoisseur and former CEO of IDW Publishing, posing in front of a Jack Kirby drawing of a comics character who shall not be named for reasons of trademark law but who is definitely not riding a surfboard of any kind.”

Find Ashley here —

https://www.ashleyholt.com

https://thesymptoms.substack.com

***From Top Left to Bottom Right: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, George Lucas, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Jane Fonda (In Cat Ballou), George Carlin, Cary Grant, and Orson Welles.*** *(All art © 2025 Ashley Holt)*

Steve Ditko — Master Of Machines… & Mayhem

January 30, 2025 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents #18, September 1968

Classic Steve Ditko art (pencils and inks), from a story completed just two years after the iconic (and somewhat iconoclastic) artist left Spider-Man and Marvel for… reasons.

No “superheroes” here, just a supervillain who looks like he came from Spidey central casting. The energy and whimsy on this page are terrific, and Steve clearly is enjoying himself in his storytelling. (Ralph Reese is the credited writer, but my guess is that he gave Ditko a plot/treatment and told him to run with it.)

Despite a hefty price tag (even with a trade), this outstanding artwork definitely spoke to me. Of course, if it actually was a Spidey page, It would have been marked about 10-15 times higher, so there’s some consolation for my wallet.

Gil Kane — War And Peace

December 8, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

The Hawk And The Dove #4, March 1969

Gil Kane serves up a fun action page from the original short-lived series of the unusual superhero team, Hawk and Dove. (Created by Steve Skeates and Steve Ditko.)

(Come to think of it, all of the Hawk and Dove series have been short-lived.)

I’m not typically a fan of Sal Trapani’s inks on Gil’s pencils, but credit where credit is due: Sal creates an amazing illusion of shine on that tile floor on the original. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it.

Separately, on a slightly more critical note, apparently it’s no big deal that Hawk might have destroyed an original masterpiece based on the next few panels… WTH?

Welcome to Day three of the 12 DC Days of DeCember.

When DC finally collected the series in color for the first time, the production department used (effectively) a light touch on the recoloring — it’s a very accurate representation of the original.

Cynthia Martin — Flashback To Ditko

August 16, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Web of Spider-Man Annual #4, August 1988

Cynthia Martin flashes back to the first appearance of the Vulture form Amazing Spider-Man #2 with with this great opening splash page from 1988.

This August of course is a big milestone for everyone’s favor web slinger. He turns 60 this month with the anniversary of his first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15.

We previously celebrated this anniversary with some great Spider-Man pages, and coming up are a few more to add into the mix to round out the month of August.

Marc Hempel — Spidey’s Bad Night

February 5, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Marvel Fanfare #27, July 1986

Marc Hempel showcases his witty sense of storytelling in an amusing short Spidey story from 1986. Hempel, best know for his work on Sandman, brings some welcome lightheartedness to the character without devolving into Not Brand Echh mode.

Stylistically, think Steve Ditko meets Los Hernandez Brothers.

I didn’t acquire a Ditko Spider-man original art page back when they were simply “very expensive,” and now that prices have soared into the stratosphere, it feels even more unlikely. Homages and tributes will have to do.

And that’s perfectly ok.

(Complete story presented below. As far as I can tell, It’s never been reprinted.)

Tony Daniel — Spider-Man’s Amazing Feat

February 1, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Commission (Based On Steve Ditko, Amazing Spider-Man #33, November 1965), 2013

Amazing. Spectacular. Sensational.

It doesn’t matter what adjective you put in front of Spider-Man’s name, his actual popularity dwarfs them all.

And he celebrates his 60th anniversary later this year.

So why not celebrate the world’s most famous web-slinger with a whole month of Spider-Man art.

Why not indeed?

First up — Tony Daniel’s terrific tribute to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s most iconic issue of the original series, Amazing Spider-Man #33.

It’s not that Spider-Man wouldn’t be saved (Heck, even a little kid knows that.) But in that classic story, Ditko masterfully conveyed Spidey’s struggle and necessary force of will to find the strength to lift tons of machinery and save himself.

No Iron Man or Thor to the rescue. This is all about Spider-Man’s personal will to survive — so that he himself can rescue Aunt May.

It’s likely the most powerful three-page comic book sequence of the era.

Harris is not the first creator to pay tribute to the scene, but he does it masterfully, creating an image that exists somewhere seconds before page three of Ditko’s original sequence.

Additionally, Harris uses a muted color palate, perfect for the art. I don’t typically pursue color art, but this piece grabbed me the moment I saw it.

Amazing indeed.

Ray Lago’s tribute from a “Marvel Portraits Comic”

Steve Ditko — The Drowned Girl

March 11, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Scary Tales #12, March 1975

Legendary artist Steve Ditko delivers a great page in this mid-70s “EC-style” story of murder and comeuppance. (And puzzled fish. Don’t forget the puzzled fish.)

Ditko’s work during this period at Charlton tends to be a bit all over the map in terms of draftsmanship and level detail, but this story is a fine example of his more polished work from the era.

(For the record, even lesser Ditko stories are still better than 80-90 percent of the rest of industry’s output in that timeframe, especially at secondary companies.)

From a rights and commercial standpoint, it’s likely that this Ditko material will never officially be collected into trades. Some of it can be found on the Internet, and fortunately, the Charlton horror comics themselves are typically very inexpensive in lesser condition.

*In addition to the original publication, “The Drowned Girl” was also reprinted in an “all-water” horror-themed comic a few years later.*

Steve Ditko — Happiness Or Madness?

November 2, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Tales of Suspense #41, May 1963

Happy Birthday to the great Steve Ditko, who would have turned 93 today.

Ditko drew — and possibly wrote (Stan Lee on credits, but that sometimes is overstated) — this neat little science fiction back-up story in the third issue of Iron Man.

These SF and horror stories would soon become rarities as publisher Martin Goodman and Editor Lee replaced them with a new line-up of superheroes, including a certain web-crawler that would bring Ditko more notoriety than anything else he would create.

The Amazing Spiderman #1 had just hit the newsstands. The rest as they say…

*Marvel did a nice job reprinting all of Stan Lee’s and Steve Ditko’s horror and SF stories in this two-volume series.*

Eduardo Barreto — Caught

September 30, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Pin-up, Rocket’s Blast and Comic Collector (RBCC) #4, 2003

Kraven the Hunter, a classic Spider-Man nemesis, is getting his own film?

Er… ok.

I like the character, especially since I’ve been a fan of the legendary Richard Connell short story “The Most Dangerous Game” since, well, forever.

But… Kraven without Spider-Man is useless to me. Actually all of the Spider-man villains are pointless without the main protagonist.

What, exactly, was the point of the Venom film. A bad guy we root for? Especially one who looks like a monstrous version of… Spider-Man. Huh? What? Tom Hardy was fine as Eddie Brock as the title character, and the film looks great, but it is ultimately pointless. No Spider-Man, no Venom, as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, none of this apparently bothered mass audiences whatsoever. Venom grossed more than $800 million worldwide.

And so, back to Kraven. I would love to see him, even as cameo in Spider-Man 3, before we get to a feature length Kraven film.

In the meantime, the late Eduardo Barreto delivers a terrific splash of Spider-Man capturing Kraven with terrific tonal quality throughout. It appeared in Rockets Blast and Comic Collector #4, the final issue of the short-lived revival of the famous comics zine.

The one question I have is…. Why does Spider-Man look surprised? Did another wall-crawler grab Kraven first? Is this an early and prescient look at the Spider-verse?

But I digress.

Barreto, a Uruguayan artist who passed away at the too young age of 57, was better known for some excellent work at DC (New Teen Titans, Batman, Superman, et al), but his first actual US assignment was in fact Spider-Man, inking Marvel Team-Up #88, featuring Spidey and The Invisible Girl.

As for the actual Spider-Man 3 villains? Start with Scorpion, who is in the Easter egg at the end of Spidey 1, along with possibly the Vulture (ditto), and head down the rabbit hole from there…

And you never know… maybe Kraven after all.