Ok, so I forgot Steve Ditko's birthday yesterday. Would'ja believe I was being deliberately obtuse and mysterious, in keeping with Shadowy Steve himself? No, huh?
Well, anyway, as we know, after leaving Spidey, Dichotomous Ditko spent a lot of The Bronze Age producing work that got steadily stranger & stranger, from The Hawk & The Dove and The Creeper to Mr. A. This strip, from the 4th issue of Imagine and scripted by Paul Levitz, isn't the weirdest thing he ever did ( Mr. A holds that honour ), but it's certainly up there. For openers, it may be the closest Straightlaced Steve ever got to being a hippie. It's unbelievably pretentious in a way only '70's comics can really get away with, and in places looks like a lost episode of Dr. Strange. Wherever you are, sir, a belated happy birthday. ( Like he's actually reading this, or is even in this dimension... )
