STEVE DITKO TURNS 90

I'm fixing that right now.

I encourage people to post whatever Ditko stuff they want.

As for myself, I'll post his classic objectivist screed, Mr.A.

I can't help but wonder what he actually does nowadays. Besides live off of the royalty checks Marvel sends him.

I enjoy how Ditko literally cannot conceive of someone being morally gray. That guy in the striped shirt doesn't want to kill, just make money. He's a complex human-being.

But to Ditko he deserves to die. Despite what he says about judgement, there really isn't any weighing of a person's good deeds vs. their bad deeds. It's either all or nothing.

A few years ago, someone who knew Steve Ditko did a kickstarter to publish his complete Mr. A. However, even though Steve Ditko was involved in it, and gave his permission, he didn't have anything to do with the rewards. So you got weird rewards like multiple copies of the same book, or having a comic signed by the guy that started the kickstarter, not Steve Ditko.

The entire campagin had an aura of exasperation around it. It was plain that working with Ditko was very difficult.

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The idea of flipping criminals to testify against bigger criminals must infuriate Ditko to no end.

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Well, that's all I got of Ditko's Mr. A. Maybe tomorrow I'll storytime The Question.

I think Stan Lee can outlive him. Especially, once he takes his soul.

Stale, unfunny joke is stale and unfunny

Err good on the classic visuals, but why are all objectivists so long winded?
Its almost like they all talk like Mojo Jojo.

WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS

Ditko is still alive?

he is a hero and a real human being

In current year +2 (roll 1d20 for Morale Roll), one might say that Mr. A isn't so much an objectivist, more like he's a your classic stormie normie Holla Forumslack. Hell is there anything really that wrong with having an honest good vs. evil dichomity to life? Or are you one of them secretive relativists we keep seeing on Holla Forums? Are you a "Holla Forumsmmie" who fears absolutes in both T's, the Truth and Testosterone?

He pretty surely is. I mean, if hes got the A=A, hes got the WORDSWORDSWORDS.
If its written by an objectivist, talks like an objectivists, and acts like an objectivist he is an objectivist.

Not sure what any of this relates to anybody else.

Because these types of people inexorably become bad because when something doesn't fit this dichotomy, or when they become so self assured that they become assholes themselves.
Or Sucjus warrior.

I'm not a relativist, but I find myself playing devils activate allot. What bugs me more about Mr A stories, isn't so much the morally black villains but the "Untarnished clean" "Good" people.
The girl rescued can't be a brat, or her parents kinda stingy or ugly, but fundamentally good people.

No good people are good 100% of the time, and if you portrayed them as bad sometimes, then bad people maybe could be good sometimes. But if being good sometimes still doesn't make a person worthy of possible redemption, then the end result is that you have to be good with perfect judgement 100% of the time or your single act of "Badness" makes you bad forever.

Yes, is childish.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that nowadays millennials use the gray and gray morale principle to avoid punishment or guilt for their actions but where you are wrong is thinking the dichotomy of good vs. evil is universal instead of a personal struggle.
To have principles =/= to be radical, being radical is to refuge in extremism to avoid criticism, i.e. as mentioned, these example millennials are radical about their belief on a lack of white/black morality. To have principles is to acknowledge nothing is entirely good and whatever you do is going to harm someone somehow and (whether he deserves that or not is going to be a biased judgment from your perspective) to decide if you're willing to accept the negative consequences you have understood in exchange of what you think is a good earn.
Your personal dichotomy of evil vs. good, black & white and principles aren't shared with the person sitting next to you. He has his own principles that maybe oppose to yours.

A good example is a burglar that decides that stealing from others is worth the pain but not killing them. He has principles to not kill and isn't willing to do, that's where he draws his line between white and black but will steal for survival or gain.
Another one, I draw a line at thinking everything is universally gray and gray because is the breeding ground for hypocrisy meanwhile others would say is hypocritical for a human to try not being a hypocrite, but then I stand with my principles and I'm willing to fight for it because I believe is good but I acknowledge that I'm alone at it.
Everyone has their one black and white and from far away it looks like a gray mess.

And yet if you actually read what happens in the second story in Mr. A, Graine did in fact forgive a man who legitimately turned his back away from evil and wraith because he paid for his intentional crimes. An accident that does not involve purpseful intent is not an indicator of evil. Why in fact your entire argument is only based on deceitful consequential argumentation that misses the point. But alas good user, I think I know why you fear the truth behind the shit post.

*Cue the 30'S Dramatic Music*

A good example is a burglar that decides that stealing from others is worth the pain but not killing them. He has principles to not kill and isn't willing to do, that's where he draws his line between white and black but will steal for survival or gain.

Relativism is the weakness of modern men such as yourself dear user, and yet you proclaim to say you merely fight for principles because you are good at it, but alone? It's sounds as if your love of the gray is merely due to events and dirty evil secrets in your soul cage bound by the bony hands of death itself that merely claw out for your mind and heart every night after night? Is that the real reason you fear for enacting real justice upon the world? Do you fear that all forms of the Heavens both Christian and Pagan will damn you for your past and forbidden crimes? Do you think Mr. A was the first to fight for justice and win and save those who were willing to truly pay?
Here's the deal son, when this Steve Ditko thread hits the dubs, on the stroke of midnight on that very day, it will be I The Shadow whose laughter will haunt the hallways of your very abode, shall arrive and in one hour you will have to prepare and admit to your crimes and what you redeemed from your punishment. Your failure to not be prepared upon my arrival will provide you a punishment that not even the most powerful streams of shitposting can save you from. For my user agents are everywhere and in Holla Forums and will watch your every move in the Arpanets.

TO ALL ANONS READING THIS VERY DITKO THREAD, HEED MY WARNINGS! CONFESS ALL OF YOUR WICKED CRIMES LEST I HAUNT YOUR WAKING NIGHTMARES AS YOU AWAIT JUSTICE! FOR YOU TOO COULD BE STRUCK BY MY VENGEANCE ON THE DUBS OF DITKO! FOR I AM THE ORIGINAL OBJECTIVIST HERO BEFORE THERE WAS EVEN A NAME FOR THIS PHILOSOPHY!

Afterall what secrets in the hearts of men and anons? The Shadow knows……………………..AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

Again its made that way because its laid out in such a black and white binary manner makes decisionmaking EASIER.
I mean Mr A is breaking the law in the form of vigilantism and has not "Paid the Price" so, therefore, he is a criminal, therefore evil. He should turn himself In as a criminal and pay the price.
You make yourself easy strawmen to take on, then feel satisfied when you defeated them.

I like the Shadow more then Mr.A though. The Shadow is more fun, with better atmosphere and layout, but MR A is just a binary morality play with WAY too many words, for no other reason but to just exposit his own philosophy.
It's not a story guided by philosophy, as much as an Objectivist textbook with some pictures.
I like lots of 70s-90s morality play Vigilante kills killers stories, but Mr.A has such a preachy attitude too it, a lack of writing subtlety.

Also, I find it strange that Ditko justifies his stories with collective good stuff, but as an objectivist, he would hate that sort of shit. What if collective good was a confiscation of his property?

Man, I like the cut of your jib. Atmosphere can be greater than preachiness and put out a good morality play when needed.

Exactly. Good stuff. Or the stuff with Charles Bronson.

Like Ironically enough I'm pretty AGAINST moral grey bullshit myself. Like the guy in the first comic was a shitbag. Thinking how you don't want to do something doesn't make you any less guilty.
So for kickass shoot em ups or good quality writing, these kinds of stories are cathartic and guard against the sort of "Boo hoo I didn't mean it" mentality.
But virtue that cannot stand up to complicated scenarios, or analysis is a hollow virtue, and not how one betters himself. I'm a great believer in TRUTH myself, but I believe truth is something you STRIDE towards, not something you declare you are one day.

It's as Manichaean as a Chick tract, you notice the good guys are blandly handsome and all the bad guys, with the exception of Angel, look like monkeys or degenerate hippies? Rorschach was based on an unsympathetic reading of Mr. A, I've always thought of it as a Rorschach comic if written by Rorschach himself. I think this is pretty much what is running through his head 24/7.

That's it! That's what it feels like.
"I'm going to THINK my thoughts in this very specific MANNER and stress certain WORDS"
"You should just KNOW there is no ESCAPE except for letting OBJECTIJESUS into your HEART"

I think you guys can deal. Anyway, this issue of Blue Beetle, #4 and the last Blue Beetle comic Ditko did for Charlton, is one of my favorite comics. Ditko decides to lecture on what makes "good art", and since it deals with art, it appeals to me because I'm a drawfag.

Ditko's view on art is basically that all art should be heroic realism, a style of art that focuses on realism and the ideal. It's a style that's popular with totalitarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and North Korea.

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It's at this point I should tell you that Ditko utterly despised hippies and anti-war protesters.

I should also mention that Ditko never saw any armed combat. He enlisted in 1945 and did his military service in post-war Germany. I often contrast this point against his colleague, Jack Kirby, who was drafted in 43', nearly lost his feet serving in the 11th Infantry Regiment, and had reoccurring war related nightmares for the rest of his life afterward.

The reason for this is that he's much younger than Kirby or Lee. 1945 was the earliest he could have legally entered the military.

"Our Man" isn't defeated through any cleverness or even brute strength, but simply because he was wrong and Blue Beetle was right. I don't think Ditko even gets into why he's wrong.

That is true. He could've signed up for the Korean War though, but he didn't. It makes his later works advocacy for war questionable.

I think the point was mostly the hypocrisy of it. Ditko sure has a style and isn't a horrible person or something, but its very self-righteous.

Like Its so…strange because I agree with so much of what he says, but this way he says it makes me want to become a commie or something.

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Of course, the art critic has to be a bad-guy too.

But it's not hypocritical. Firstly, he didn't have to be drafted like 2/3rds of the American population, he volunteered and secondly, most soldiers never see actual combat. The fact that he didn't fight doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to hate anti-war protesters.

Again I hate hippies as well. It's just…well. The self-righteousness of an objectivist that makes it obnoxious.

Well, that's the end of that and Ditko's lecture on art. Also, that was the end of Ditko's career at Charlton. It was also around this time he created Mr. A, because The Question was too soft.

This is just my opinion, but I think a lot of Ditko's stuff comes off as blind faith. His characters never question their beliefs, and thus never really bother to convince us of the validity of those beliefs. The result feels cruel and overly simplistic.

But that's just my opinion.

I also drew "Our Man" four hundred years ago, so there's that.

It's weird reading that Blue Beetle story when not too long ago, people in real life were unironically pushing for certain memorials to be taken down because they're considered hateful and racist.

But then…

You know, this could potentially bring an interesting question of "being a hero" and heroics, but then reverting to just "laying down and not fight back" just kinda kills it
But I suppose that was the point
Hippies were scum from day 1, we all know this


His motivations for putting the suit was meh ? That he's being defeatist despite actually putting a fight chance ?
He's not aware that he's an underdog and they were rooting for him

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Appreciate the storytime.

Happy birthday, Steve!
I know you come here

I am Steve Ditko

The long-windedness stems from a desire to be very precise about what they believe in, I find. You also see it in ancaps (in order to differentiate between stateless ancaps and ancaps that believe in there being a state, which in turn are differentiated from the minarchist capitalists, for example.

Honestly? The good and evil dichotomy stuff is something that works well in fiction (like the comic books here, or in a tabletop rpg) but it doesn't translate well to real life because of the knock-on effects people's actions have on the world around them and the fact that (save for a few extreme cases) most people in the world are one shade or another of grey.

I've wondered: does this style of art find itself in totalitarian goverents because the art's emphasis on the ideal correlate with its legitimacy being built upon the utopian?
As to the art discussion, I find Our Man to be more an expression of anonymity and mob mentality more than as a Lovecraftian view of man.
The Unconquered I saw more of as a celebration of willpower as an universal good.

Your comparison would be more on point if you said they took them down because of how they made them feel, and how there's no value to the past.


Also bumping this because.

I get that but it feels like they apply that long wordiness to literally everything. It really does sound like Mojo Jojo; "I can't express myself unless I hyper specify what I mean".

He does ?

Who?

What?

The ones that get mad because people are immigrating and want people to not enter their country, as opposed to globalist ancaps who see the whole world as a single country, i.e. no boundaries save personal ones.