The Subway Rambler (Online)

This isn't from some guy who just spends his time rambling around the tunnels of the MTA. The name is a shortened form of the blog's original title, "That Rambling Guy on the Subway, Online." Hope that clears things up for you.

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Name: Dave Kopperman
Location: Tappan, NY, United States

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Harangueonaide

Sorry for the lack of Weekend Listening this weekend - I've been trying to focus my spare energies on cleaning up the large pile of comics, laundry and unfiled paperwork we call a house, with some limited success. The feature will return next weekend, hopefully with something both tuneful and with an interesting story attached. On the other hand, a total fiasco with a dull backstory could also fit the bill. One never knows!

Spent the bulk of the day at a party for friend Jim's 38th birthday - Yesenia and I were only able to present him with a rain check for his gift, a book which was supposed to have been released in early June (and I've had on order from Amazon for about two months, now), but was just postponed to early August. Not sure what's up with that, as there's no note on the publisher's site, nor the author's.

The book in question is a retrospective of the work of foundational comic artist Steve Ditko, most famous for Spider-Man, but that may be the most atypical of his moody, intense work. I've also ordered a copy for myself, so I'll no doubt be reporting on it - either here or over at Vomit Comix - some time in the next few weeks. Since Ditko has had little or no contact with the press in almost fifty years, and only two photographs of the man are known to exist, it should be interesting to see just what kind of biographical info the author can come up with.

Frankly, it will probably be more than enough if it were as Ditko himself would prefer: let the work speak for itself.

D.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Ansley said...

Ditko is the JD Salinger of comic artists..

July 13, 2008 1:27 AM  
Blogger Dave Kopperman said...

Beside both of them being legendary (media) recluses, I'm not sure the analogy holds.

Ditko and Pynchon, on the other hand...

D.

July 13, 2008 9:38 AM  
Anonymous Ansley said...

Pynchon is unreadable.. so I don't know if that analogy holds either..

July 13, 2008 6:48 PM  
Blogger Dave Kopperman said...

So, too, was Ditko, when he wrote for himself. Try reading Mr. A sometime. Only working with a populist like Lee made his work palatable for a wider audience. Ditto Kirby, although that's a more debatable point.

The collaborative nature of comics has definitely made for some strange artifacts when artists felt that they, too, would like to write. All of Image is based on this sometime lunacy.

There's no denying that Ditko had something to say, though.

D.

July 13, 2008 10:42 PM  
Anonymous Ansley said...

Always wanted to read that Mr. A..

July 14, 2008 9:14 AM  
Blogger Dave Kopperman said...

Oh, it's everything you could hope for in Genius/Crazy, and more:

http://tinyurl.com/5onjfs

July 14, 2008 4:57 PM  

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