Trivia

Had a long running feud with Stan Lee because he believed Stan was claiming to be the sole creator of Spider-Man. They have since patched things up.

He was notoriously reclusive and very rarely, if ever, appeared in public. He never gave interviews and the closest to most people had ever seen his face was in an early issue of Spider-Man in which a self-portrait of him sleeping at his desk appears.

Although Ditko had returned to work for Marvel Comics several times after his mid-60s departure, he has steadfastly refused to again draw his two most famous characters, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.

In the late 1990s, Marvel Comics began looking at developing existing works of literature as graphic novels. Ditko was asked to illustrate a graphic novel of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. Ditko declined, stating that he did not want his interpretation of the appearance of the characters to overshadow the readers' imaginations.

He was the creator of such comic book characters as Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, the Question and Shade the Changing Man. In addition, he has worked as an artist on many other comics.

In the 1970s, he wrote and illustrated several independently published comic books that were heavily inspired by the theory of "Objectivism", promoted by philosopher/writer Ayn Rand. Titles include "Avenging World" and "Mr. A" (Title taken from Rand's maxim "A is A"). His heavy-handed and often preachy writing style in these books earned him the derisive nickname "Ditko the Dictator". The latter character is most famously parodied by comic book writer Alan Moore, with his most famous character in his comic book series, "Watchmen," Rorschach, which was intended as a criticism of Ditko's objectivist values. Despite that criticism, Moore and Ditko got along far better than would be expected: Ditko liked the Rorschach character, which he described as "Like Mr. A, but insane." and Moore openly stated that he respected Ditko and his talents as well as his dedication for using the medium as a means of very personal expression and complained that Marvel treated Ditko poorly.

Died only a few months before Stan Lee. However, whilst Stan Lee's death was highly publicized by the press Steve Ditko's death was much less publicized, although there were numerous articles marking his death and his artistic contributions. A similar thing happened between Batman co-creators Bob Kane (who was listed as Batman's sole creator) and Bill Finger (who until recently hadn't been credited for his contributions to Batman and died penny-less).

Despite his reputation as a recluse, he was known for entertaining guests who came by his studio and was willing to answer fan mail he got.

He was the son of Anna (Balaschak) and Stephen Ditko, a master carpenter at a steel mill. His parents were born in Pennsylvania, and his grandparents were all Slovak immigrants.