In Search of Steve Ditko documentary

[Kirk G]

After hearing about this amazingly accurate and faithful documentary for years, I have finally found a working link to it on youtube.... or at least until it is taken down once again.

I would strongly recommend taking a look to watch it while you still can. It is obviously a professional labor of love from a knowledgable and sincere fan.
Highly recommended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfxVO0fLHvA

[The Confessor]

Yeah, I remember watching this when it was broadcast on British TV as part of BBC Four's "Comics Britannia" season some years back. Yep, that's right...a season of programs all about comics, mostly British comics of course. The Searching for Steve Ditko documentary is well worth a watch if anybody in this forum hasn't seen it before. However, without giving too much away, I always found the ending of the documentary frustratingly crap.

[Kirk G]

Well, considering the limitations of who they could interview and how much access they did and did not have, I thought it was a very good documentary to give some much needed credit and recognition.

Does anyone know if Steve Ditko has seen a copy of this documentary? I wonder what his reaction was?

[The Confessor]

Well, considering the limitations of who they could interview and how much access they did and did not have, I thought it was a very good documentary to give some much needed credit and recognition.

Oh, for sure. But Jonathan Ross' nauseating smugness at the end when he...

spoilers:

...finally gets to meet Ditko, but you the viewer are not allowed to see the great man, was a real let down served to end the program with a whimper, rather than a bang.

end of spoilers


Other than that, it is a fantastic documentary.

[Kirk G]

Yes, I agree. That was a bit cocky, especially the way that he says he was told to "F*** Off in the nicest terms possible". I wonder what the speaker thought when the same british accent shows up at his doorway and is still asking to be admitted?

Frankly, I think maybe the point was to score the first on-camera interview with Ditko... and there had to be some thought before-hand of what to do if it doesn't happen... or doesn't work out. The senior programmers of the series/network/BBC Four MUST have had some indication of what might have happened before greenlighting the program.

Still, I'm very impressed that they got MAJOR comic figures to speak on camera, they flew across the Atlantic to go get these comments or so it appears, and they populated the documentary with not just British comic icons, but American AND British icons who all appropriately pay homage to Ditko.

I still think it was worth seeing that pay-off given the great build up. (Plus, I must admit, I had already heard several of the major points made, including the ending, from others before hand. I have a clerk at my LCS who just loves boasting he knows everything about everything, and is recently on a ditko kick. So, he let a lot of the nice surprises out of the bag before I got to see it.)

[benday-dot]

Does anyone know if Steve Ditko has seen a copy of this documentary? I wonder what his reaction was?

Ditko has made it amply clear he has zero interest in any sort of critical/biographical treatment of him.

[Ramage]

Ditko has made it amply clear he has zero interest in any sort of critical/biographical treatment of him.

And that makes him the coolest MF'er ever in the comic book industry.


Still hoping to see a modern day Mr A.