'Unique event': Ditko Con brings Spider-Man fans to city

Oct. 1—A comic convention designed to tell the story of Steve Ditko, the Johnstown native who created the wall-crawling pop-culture phenomenon Spider-Man, left nothing about the comic artist's life hanging.

The Ditko Con event on Saturday at Bottle Works, 411 Third Ave., Johnstown, drew about 75 people.

Zach Wyland, of Hollidaysburg, was among them.

"This is a unique event to have," he said. "Spider-Man is one of the biggest pop-culture names out there. The artist who designed him lived locally. This comic con celebration of Ditko is so cool to get to experience."

Ditko grew up in Johnstown, graduated from Greater Johnstown High School in 1945 and, after U.S. military service, moved to New York to study under Jerry Robinson, American comic book artist known for his work on DC Comics' Batman.

Ditko's Spider-Man would mark an inflection point in the superhero genre's art and heart, said University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor Zack Kruse, who wrote a book about the philosophic relevance of Ditko's comics in a book titled "Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity."

"Everything after Spider-Man was fundamentally different," Kruse said during a panel discussion at Bottle Works.

While the comics of the 1950s and 60s could be summed up in Kruse's words as "punching out the bad guys," Ditko's comics were infused with more sophisticated questions. Ditko also introduced an element of inspiration.

Kruse referenced a famous sequence of Amazing Spiderman No. 33 — a trapped Spider-Man lifting tons of steel above his head to escape and save his Aunt May. That sequence has been reinvented and incorporated in all superhero comics through the Marvel movies of the present time, he said.

"The underdog, the stories of courage, the inspirational aspect of comics — none of that was in the Batman or Superman comics that came before Spider-Man," he said.

Ditko was "more than a company man" who created characters for Marvel, said the publisher's writer Will Murray, who worked with Ditko on multiple projects. The character of Mr. A, for example, remained the property of Ditko until he died in 2018.

Ditko has been painted as a recluse during his life in New York — and nothing could be farther from the truth, said Mort Todd, writer and artist who worked with Ditko.

"He was funny as heck," Todd said, talking about the background gags he'd draw into his comics.

Ditko didn't like to talk about Spider-Man or Doctor Strange, but he would talk about other topics for hours, said Janet Ford, whose husband, Darren Ford, has been been a distributor of Ditko's comics for years.

"He treated you with respect and he dressed like a gentleman," Janet Ford said. "He was in good shape. He would stand and talk to us for hours. My feet would start hurting. He was very talkative."

On Saturday, the Fords brought many of Ditko's Spider-Man comics to sell and display at Bottle Works, including the 1963 introductory Amazing Spiderman comic book. Part of the art on the cover includes the original price, which was 12 cents, but now the comic book is worth $30,000, they said.

"When I first met him, I was floored by his humility," Darren Ford said.

The inaugural Ditko Con was held in 2021, and the next one in scheduled for September 2025, Bottle Works creative director Matt Lamb said.