The amazing Ditko.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Briefly Noted - Steve Ditko biography, Strange and Stranger - Brief article - Book review

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"With great power comes great responsibility" was the message writer Stan Lee saw in Spider-Man. The superhero's co-creator, artist Steve Ditko, adored Ayn Rand and didn't believe his artistic power created any obligations. Thus, one of comics' greatest artists languishes in self-made obscurity, living out a Roark-at-the-quarry scenario, refusing to grasp most of the work opportunities that awed acolytes offer him.

In Blake Bell's gorgeous coffee-table art book and biography, Strange and Stranger (Fantagraphics Books), we see Ditko's vividly grotesque gift, and we contemplate how being robbed of the...