As this topic has evolved to include a lot more than just Ditko I'm renaming it.
-Yoc
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I have just read, after all these years, some of the reasons why Steve Ditko left Marvel in the late 60's.
The book "Strange and Strange, the World of Steve Ditko", tells us all.
A short excerpt from Page 95 of the book follows:
But Robert Beerbohm, a comics store owner in the late 1960s and early fanzine producer, got an earful. "A high school buddy, Steve Johnson, and I spoke with Steve Ditko by phone of couple of times back in 1969. Ditko told us point blank that he left Marvel over promised percentage royalties based on sales and merchandise, if the books took off. Steve started making noise about the extra dough. So did Jack(Kirby). They were told that the company was still not making enough money, and to wait. Promised contracts never seemed to be completed, to be signed, or were carefully verbal in nature.
If Goodman had lived up to his promises, Ditko and Kirby would have received hundreds of times more than what they were paid to simply produce the work - still only a fraction of the millions their creations have generated for Marvel. And denying a "producer" what he had "earned" is the equivalent to waving a red cape in front of an Objectivist.
Near the end, Ditko wrote Kirby a letter trying to recruit him into leaving Marvel together. Kirby's family responsibilities gave him pause , but he too would follow three years later under the same cloud.
End of excerpt.
Very interesting reading. On a similar note I remember reading a story about Jack Kirby told by Mike Evanier. The story was they stopped at a store on an outing. Either Mark or Jacks wife had to go into what was a store that had toys in it. Jack could not go in because of all the items in the store based on his comics. Items that he as a creator was denied in any royalties from. He would get extremely upset if he went in.
Why is it people treat other people so bad?
Greed?
Thoughts please....
B.