Sunday, July 08, 2018

Steve Ditko Letter

This is my sole letter from Steve Ditko. I was working on what turned out to be a two-volume set on the history of Cracked Mazagine about 10 years ago. I was trying to contact and interview as many Cracked creators as I could and ultimately interviewed about 60 people for the books. Ditko worked for Cracked in the late 80s thanks to Mort Todd. I knew that Ditko was reclusive and thought that he wouldn't talk about Spider-Man, but perhaps he would talk about his Cracked work. I figured that I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I didn't at least ask. So, I wrote him a letter asking him a few questions about his work at Cracked. This card is what I received back. I found it so amusing that inspiration hit me. I decided to print his letter as a Foreword for my book, just as a joke. Some people asked me if I thought I would get in trouble for doing this without getting Ditko's permission. I said I didn't care. If Ditko would have raised a fuss, I might have taken it into consideration to altering the book, but nothing ever happened, and so the Foreword by Steve Ditko remains in Volume Won of If You're Cracked, You're Happy.