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I just got home from mailing $225 to Robin Snyder for — well, whatever Steve Ditko material Robin has so honorably published and that I supported in the past, but stupidly haven’t in the recent past. Here’s the link to give you Robin’s current list and address.

This action was prompted by the completion of my second read (amid taking of notes, for my written review and for Center for Cartoon Studies classroom use) of Blake Bell’s extraordinary Steve Ditko career overview and biography Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, which joins the ranks of top-shelf bios of my all-time favorite cartoonists.

That said, though, I have my own reservations about Blake’s considerable accomplishment, which I will articulate in detail in my review (to be posted here this coming week) and touch upon in this portion of today’s post.

Ditko’s movie comics (relevant to the next part of this post), stellar adaptations of Gorgo (1960) and Konga (1961) scripted by Joe Gill, were collected together in this one-volume masterpiece Fantastic Giants, aka Konga #24, well worth seeking out!

I wish I could say it’s heartening to say others of my former comrades-in-comics-arms appear to share some of my reservations about Blake’s book, but it isn’t. It’s kind of sad, really, that so little has changed in the comics industry, though in other ways a great deal has improved: better royalties, creator credits and some creator rights acknowledged, etc.

But nothing has changed, really, for Steve Ditko in the very industry that so revers him — or pretends to.

If anything, this kind of biographical art volume prompts one to give very serious consideration to mounting one’s own overview of one’s respective career, if only to ensure some income and royalties comes your way (as Rick Veitch is doing with King Hell Press and his collections of his creator-owned work).

Though I’d be overjoyed to be told otherwise, I’m sure Ditko doesn’t see (nor would he accept) any income from Strange and Stranger, though it’s Ditko’s art and career that informs every square inch of the book.

Now, about those peers sharing my own perceptions of Blake Bell’s book:

Dave Sim’s review of Blake’s excellent book is now online, thanks to Bob Heer (and Dave’s permission to Bob to post the same),

but I hasten to add Dave isn’t the lone man he feels (yes, Dave, feels — not thinks) himself to be; reread my August 11th post on Ditko and my initial impressions of Blake’s book, and tell me Dave and I aren’t on the same page.

Give it a read, or re-read, to provide a fuller context for the proper book review to follow.

I wrote in conclusion, “As one who likewise stepped away from the industry, Ditko’s decisions and behavior seems utterly pragmatic and justified.

What became increasingly irrational to me, personally, by the end of the 1990s, and seems absolutely barking mad to me now, is why any self-respecting professional would put up with half of the horseshit that is accepted as ‘business as usual’ in the comics industry, then and today. It’s astonishing the likes of Steve Ditko and Alan Moore stayed with it as long as they did, and that the Joe Kuberts, Will Eisners and (from my own generation) Frank Millers of the world maintain enough personal will, power and equilibrium to function in such an industry.”

Dave, too, came away from Blake’s book with the same impression I did — that, despite his best effort as an author, Blake wanders afield from the impetus to write this book and ends up chiding Ditko in the end, supporting the comicbook industry status quo. In this traditional interpretation of events, Ditko was the strange one, the odd one; he’s the one out-of-step with industry norms. What Bell ends up doing in trying to contextualize the decisions Ditko makes, is argue that it’s Ditko’s allegiance to Ayn Rand’s philosophy that accounts for Ditko’s decisions to increasingly steer clear of the comic book industry.

I simply don’t see any evidence — save conjecture — to support such a view. What I see, clearer than ever before thanks to Blake’s painstaking biography, is that Ditko ended up arriving at the only rational decision left to a man of his actions and ethics: don’t work with the comic book industry.

The comic book industry was and is an ethical cesspool (mind you, I don’t trumpet myself as a particularly ethical participant when I was in the pool, folks; I blew deadlines, I fucked up, I lost my way as much as anyone. I did my best when I could, but I’m still making amends). There are ethical people working therein, of course, but they are the exception, hardly the rule, and they often remain in the industry via compromises of their core personal ethics.

Blake Bell’s Strange and Stranger is another testimonial to the true nature of the industry — and for that, kudos to Blake. Blake wisely allows those who agreed to be interviewed enough rope to hang themselves, for those who can interpret the full context of their accounts… but I’m sad at how the book ends up reinforcing too many of the very legends it intends to illuminate and (one hopes) either confirm or debunk. In some cases, Blake does just this, but in the end, I find myself despairing: the tenor of the writing continues to posit Ditko’s decisions as being based upon an absolutist/extremist philosophy rather than a rational man’s response to an utterly irrational industry.

By the book’s own account and chronology, I ask you: Where was Ditko to go by 1980? He’d been handily shafted by every single publisher (including fanzine publishers) standing, save Charlton.

As I noted back in August when Blake’s book first arrived, it seems to me Alan Moore’s current decision to only work with ‘the last honorable publisher,’ Chris Staros of Top Shelf, is precisely comparable to Ditko’s decision to ally himself primarily with Robin Snyder. As noted then, too, the primary difference here is the respective means Staros and Snyder wield — Top Shelf affords top shelf production in diverse formats, including color, while Robin makes due with newsletters and what he can afford to subsidize via modest black-and-white paperback packaging.

That said, it’s also worth noting that (a) Alan Moore is still producing work much of his audience wants to read and finds rewarding, and (b) Moore is still at the peak of his powers, with artistic collaborators who only enhance his work. In other regards, though, I think it fair to compare Ditko and Moore’s current status in the comics industry and in fandom — including their perceived ‘peculiarities,’ stemming from their respective personal paths and philosophies (i.e., Ditko’s Randian affiliations, Moore’s shamanistic path and practices). Both have turned their backs on Hollywood whenever it’s come ringing, refuting the brass ring that drives much of the industry (as did Robert Crumb). That stance only feeds the need to contain their views as contrary, eccentric, nothing to be emulated.

This becomes part and parcel of the rhetoric to excuse the abuses of the industry, and ostracise the integrity of a Ditko or a Moore: in short, “Ditko and Moore haven’t turned their back on comics because they’re fed up with industry abuses, they’re turning their back because of their eccentricities, their bizarre belief systems” becomes the reigning mythos. Ditko is a Randian; thus, no job fits his Randian philosophy, nothing is accepted. There are no mainstream comics sufficiently Randian to engage Ditko. Hence, Ditko is too eccentric to continue working in comics. Moore is a shaman, steeped in magickal thinking; thus, no job fits Moore’s shamanistic path, nothing is accepted. There are no mainstream publishers willing to indulge an increasingly difficult and eccentric Moore. Hence, Moore is too eccentric to continue working in comics.

The comics industry circles its wagons against the Ditkos and Moores of the world, happily keeping their work in print and profitable, sharing what they must with these visionaries (when they will accept payment), but shunning their example. They occasionally concoct ways of tempting or bringing them back into the fold (i.e., DC buys Jim Lee’s Wildstorm, thus “reacquiring” Moore; Ditko agrees to try working with younger Marvel editors), only to once again alienate them with their behavior (e.g., the DC/Vertigo/Wildstorm debacles with Moore, Marvel’s treatment of Ditko), and then reassert the mythos as the excuse: “See, they just don’t fit in”.

There’s clearly no need to change the industry practices/abuses that drove Ditko and Moore away, since it’s their fault they’re no longer employable, no longer feeding the media machine as the publishers prefer it to be fed (there are other issues, too, particularly with Moore, but we’re talking primarily about Blake’s Ditko book here). There is, of course, the delicious irony in Blake’s reporting Ditko refuses any jobs involving the very supernatural elements so central to his key 1950s-’70s comics creations, while Moore has publicly embraced and promoted with his work the most magickal of creative paths since underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger, but I won’t get into that here.

I also think it fair to cite Snyder and Staros as comparable figures: Snyder maintained honorable relations with veteran artists who had either been discarded by, or long since turned their back on, the industry they once worked in. This stellar lineup includes not only Ditko but Alex Toth, Ric Estrada, Bob Kanigher and others. Similarly, Staros has established himself as a viable and honorable publisher providing an essential alternative to corrupt industry mainstays (including, via Moore’s ongoing affiliation with Top Shelf, the corruptive likes of DC/Vertigo, Image, Dark Horse, etc.).

So, why isn’t there more about Robin Snyder in Strange and Stranger? This, I think, is a serious shortcoming of Blake’s book; but I will also note that Snyder is as much an ‘outsider’ as Ditko is (even to a publisher like Fantagraphics), and paying little attention to the realities of the Ditko/Snyder relationship is another handy way of reasserting the industry mythos by attrition. Snyder has by this point has been successfully maintaining honorable relations with Ditko — as his last comics publisher standing — for almost three full decades. Who is Robin Snyder? What is it that makes Snyder, independent publisher, the only venue to sustain solid relations with Ditko after the implosion of Charlton? Isn’t that worthy of far closer scrutiny, and considered in the context of Ditko’s other longest-lasting association with Charlton?

This inevitably leads to the reading wondering, “If Snyder can do it, why can’t Fantagraphics?”; perhaps the publisher thought it best not to go there, since scrutiny of Snyder invites closer scrutiny of Fantagraphics (though, to be fair, Blake does cover the Fantagraphics chapter of Ditko’s career; Groth comes off no better than others in this phase of Ditko’s career). It’s one thing to lionize Gil Kane, as Fantagraphics and Gary Groth (rightfully) have, but Ditko — whose career arc often resembles Kane’s, down to bucking the system in the ’60s at the perceived height of their mainstream success — is clearly far more problematic to Fantagraphics. Unlike Kane, Ditko has spurned Fantagraphics as a viable venue; I won’t pursue this, as there’s no point in villifying the publisher of the book, save to note as Blake does that Ditko came away from his brief relationship with Fantagraphics feeling as ill-used as he had been by others.

Typical of such tomes, the book ends up falling back in line with the very industry it seeks to expose: It seems to say, “Look, here is Ditko, Strange and Stranger, the strange man of ethics, of standards, of integrity. The strange man who seemed such a comfortable fit with the maze, then lost his way and wandered out. How the mighty have evaporated…” That is the sensation one comes away with — instead of “How the visionary were betrayed.”

Still, it’s a terrific and essential book.

Buy it.

Read it.

Study it.

Absorb it.

Then, send Robin Snyder whatever you can for whatever you can, and see what Ditko has been up to since 1978. No, it isn’t Spider-Man, Dr. Strange or even Captain Atom, but it is pure Ditko, sans media filters.

I say, what a strange industry, to simultaneously elevate and revile such an artist, such a man, in this manner.

In its way, Strange and Stranger — like all books about cartoonists that honor their work via pages and pages of marvelous reprints that earn absolutely zip for the artist or his heirs — does the same.

I write this in all candor, not to fault or shame Blake — I’m glad he wrote this book, and that it is what it is instead of the screed it might have been — but it’s still emblematic of the conundrum of such books.

Robin Snyder publishes the living work of the living artist, pays Ditko his share of the income, and they eke out what income they can from their enterprise via modest, affordable formats — while Fantagraphics earns greater kudos, reviews, sales and mainstream media attention for the lavish color hardcover volume about the living artist.

It’s the lavish, color, hardcover volume it is because Fantagraphics has the empire essential to such an enterprise — an empire living artist Ditko can only participate in via such a volume as its absent heart, sans real participation or reward.

Think about that.

Strange and stranger, indeed.

__________________

Dell Comics used to crank these out monthly, at the very least — this one sported terrific Jesse Marsh art; © 1960 Dell Comics and respective copyright owners.

On another matter altogether, it seems appropriate to publicly discuss a matter that crops up at least once-a-month, almost once-a-week, of late.

That is, the idea among screenwriters that creating a graphic novel is a viable alternative to making a movie. Some of them ring me up, or write, or email, or ask me in person how to go about turning their script into a graphic novel. Can I help them? They’ve got the notion that it is somehow easier, quicker, and not nearly as problematic.

Let me begin by saying for cartoonists, this is true. For those who write and draw their own work, the era of waiting for “permission” to begin work on your magnum opus is no longer the norm. Why wait for a publisher to agree that your dream project is worth ‘investing’ in? If you decide it’s worth investing in, just do it. Find some way to afford/make/buy the time (with a day job, if necessary), and get to work. The Center for Cartoon Studies is full of students doing just that. By attending, they are “buying” the time by paying for their time at CCS to plug into the bubble environment 100% focused on each artist focusing totally on their work, with a phenomenal support system in place (that supports them physically, academically, communally and emotionally).

That’s one way to do it; there are plenty of other ways to skin this cat.

But they’re at CCS to do their comics and graphic novels — not yours.

For writers, it’s a different equation. Relevant to this post, it’s screenwriters — aspiring and professional, amateur and seasoned vets — I am habitually approached by these days who are curious as to whether adapting their as-yet-unsold or as-yet-unproduced script into graphic novel form might be viable.

In more than one case, I’ve been asked this by experienced screenwriters with two decades+ of screen credits, whose industry connections suggested the graphic novel option on a script he’s been unsuccessfully shopping around for a couple of years.

In fielding these kinds of questions, I’m not alone in being asked; I’ve heard variations on this overture from fellow cartoonists, some of whom I work with today at CCS. Graphic novels are the hot new medium of choice, and everyone’s interested.

So it’s now considered a viable, perhaps preferable, option in the film industry. I would like to address the core issues and presumptions.

As most of you know, I retired from comics completely in 1999, and severed all my industry connections. In short, I was sick at heart at what the industry had become and at the state of affairs after the direct market implosion of 1996-97, and after 25+ years of putting up with reprehensible bullshit, I decided enough was enough. I now teach at the Center for Cartoon Studies, but I have refused to engage with the comics industry per se beyond that — I’ll never again willingly work with an American comics publisher (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, etc.).

All of which is a long way of saying — if you’re thinking of asking me about the above:

1. Sorry, I’ve no contacts here to help with a graphic novel adaptation of your script, folks. There may indeed be inroads to pursue such a project, and a publisher eager for such a project — but I’m not the one to ask. I’ve no contacts to share after almost a decade (quite happily) out of the game.

2. I field requests almost identical to yours from writers almost weekly, so please, don’t feel bad asking. But please don’t feel rejected when I say, “no, I can’t help you.”

3. If you, or some agent or producer, assumes it’s somehow “easier” to realize your script(s) as graphic novels rather than films, consider the following: it ISN’T.

(a) You have to find and pay an artist willing to commit to a one-to-ten year workload — yes, these projects can and do take years!;

(b) You still have to find a publisher, which isn’t much easier than selling a film; and

(c) You have to follow through with the necessary legal contracts, which usually entails co-ownership (with the artist), unless you’re paying handsomely for said artist to work on something they’re not going to co-own.

(d) You’re then in work-for-hire land and the attendant legal language, and I won’t help you there, either.

Artists aren’t simply pairs of able hands, seeking divine guidance to shape their work. Artists usually have their own ideas they’re struggling to realize. Don’t treat ‘em as hired hands, to be acquired, tapped, bartered, bought or sold.

Now, there are clear precedents for all this; there’s a reason, beyond the ‘hot’ market perception of graphic novels is the ‘in’ thing, this kind of query keeps coming up in 2007-2008. Since the 1890s and the Happy Hooligan short film J. Stuart Blackton shot on a Brooklyn rooftop, comics have been adapted to film. It’s literally as old as the industry. But those are adaptations of pre-existing, popular published works; this is something else.

After years laboring in the anime industry throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Hayao Miyazaki’s attempted to launch Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ, Kaze no Tani no Naushika as a feature film. When no one would bankroll the project, his producing partner convinced Miyazaki to instead realize the script as a manga — and that indeed worked. With a now published manga to adapt, Miyazaki and his partners were able to launch Miyazaki’s dream project.

But note: Miyazaki is a cartoonist — one hell of a cartoonist, among the world’s greatest living cartoonists — so he didn’t have to find someone else to draw his dream project. He adapted his script outline to manga form himself, and executed it as a manga. (Another example, geographically closer to home: Jeff Smith once told me while he worked in the US animation industry, he hoped to have Bone realized as a feature film; when it became clear that was highly unlikely, he redirected his creative and professional life completely to self-publishing Bone as a comic/graphic novel; the rest is history.)

This is organically worlds apart from being a writer seeking a creative partner in a project of yours without complicating the process. In stark contrast to the issues raised when writers engage creative partners to draw their scripts into comics form, by writing and drawing his own manga version of Nausicaä, Miyazaki in fact simplified the ownership issues: he was solo-creating a work that could now be adapted, streamlining the proprietorship legal issues in the process.

Note, too, the reality: it took years beyond Miyazaki’s 1984 release of Nausicaä, the movie, to complete Nausicaä, the epic manga. It took longer to complete the manga than to make the film. Ditto Katsuhiro Otomo and Akira (アキラ, 1988), among others.

This is a fact overlooked by many who eye the graphic novel longingly, as if such things manifest themselves like the old Dell monthly movie comics. Maus took over a decade, four publishing venues, and a Guggenheim grant to complete; From Hell was likewise almost a full decade of work, surviving no less than three publishers before arriving at its fourth (Top Shelf). And so it goes; the speedy ones, like Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby or Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, likewise took years and much subsidizing effort (plus their advances, which were gone long before the work was completed) to reach fruition. There are exceptions, but how many graphic novels of merit were completed in mere weeks or months?

So, back to writers, producers and the option of graphic novels as a substitute or catalytic agent for a feature film pitch:

In at least two cases I know of, the proposed “screenplay-adaptation-graphic-novel” wasn’t being created for publication and distribution to bookstores or the comics market, but just to have a published graphic novel to pitch the film! If that isn’t an ultimate 21st Century vanity press graphic novel permutation, I don’t know what is.

In that case, though, the script owners had mucho $$ to pay the artist; in that case, writers/producers, go to it. Prepare the necessary legal agreements, sign off, pay the artist well, and good luck to all.

Few writers are so well-heeled.

And few artists can afford to commit to an open-ended, all-consuming workload on a project not of their own creation.

Such collaborations are also fraught with potential peril, even under the best of circumstances. Reread my Comics Journal #185 interview, particularly my discussion of writer/artist relations in the creator-owned comics arena, and give the matter some serious thought. Remember the example of Big Numbers, which claimed one self-publishing imprint, damaged one (soon to be terminated) publishing firm, burned up and out two excellent cartoonists, and left its author dazed, rather impoverished and understandably somewhat embittered. (Remember, too, the example of Melting Pot becoming F.A.K.K.2 becoming Heavy Metal 2000, too. ‘Nuff said.)

Who owns what? If it’s all to be owned by the writer, as primary creator, what’s the incentive for the artist collaborator to stay aboard? What do you do if the artist starts work, and then leaves to work on something better-paying, or of their own creation — or just gives up?

Movie comic commissioned by filmmaker as promotional tie-in with indie film: Kim Deitch’s comic adaptation (with the help of many assistants) of Paul Bartel’s gem Eating Raoul (1982); I got my copy at the Manhattan debut of the film. © 1982, 2008 Kim Deitch and the Estate of Paul Bartel.

The fact is, the young cartoonists I work with day-in, day-out at CCS are often hungry, but they’re also working day-in, day-out getting their own projects down on paper. You’re up against that, too — why work on your script when they’ve got their own to draw? And in the case of drawing their own creations, they own those projects, lock, stock and barrel. What can you possibly offer to offset that? If you offer nothing but promises, please, don’t waste their time. Please.

As in the case with the ‘graphic novel for a pitch’ I mentioned above, a cartoonist might take on such a venture if someone were dropping $15,000-$50,000 in their lap, with no co-ownership rights and a very tight deadline — in which case, they might consider it a quick job worth biting the bullet and doing, in part to finance their personal ventures.

But to many artists, money isn’t enough motivation, either (a foreign concept to mercantile thinkers, I know, but bear with me). I know cartoonists who said ‘no’ to the $15,000 (or whatever) offer, too: having read the script, there wasn’t anything there of genuine interest to them, or not enough to dedicate one or more years of their life to.

Finding an artist willing to commit to work on spec on a project that would take months or even years to complete, sans co-ownership (which few screenwriters want to grant, as that then further complicates the legal rights) and sans payment up front or upon completion is a mean feat. As I’ve already said, even if they do commit, they may drop it in a heartbeat to embrace paying work that surfaces in the meantime, or to do their own project, or to do nothing. Why worry, since it’s not their project they’re working on?

Still, sometimes, this works out.

It’s a curious new permutation on a couple of venerable comics traditions — remember, Winsor McCay sharpened his pencil on what Gertie the Dinosaur would ultimately look like via a series of dinosaurs appearing in Little Nemo in Slumberland strips — and hence of interest to me in that greater historical context, too. But Gertie was McCay’s movie, and back we go to ‘what’s the incentive for an artist to work with you on your project?’

Anyhoot, there you go.

Just don’t ask me, please, to share contacts I don’t have, or invest time in a process I’ve no interest in.

Hope sharing my thoughts has been of interest and/or use.

__________________________

At 5 AM this morning, my Dad boarded a plane to join fellow WWII veterans for a weekend ceremony at

the Tomb of the Unknowns (aka Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Since my father is the senior member of this weekend’s group, and served in four branches of the US military during his years of service, he has been asked to play a special role in this weekend’s ceremony. I spoke to Dad last night, and look forward to talking to him on Monday; we’re told we’ll be receiving photos and a DVD of the event, but I wish I could be there.

Love you, Dad, and here’s to you and all our veterans…