I looked through a book tonight that provided a complete illustrated history of Spider-Man.  And I got upset.  Steve Ditko, the artist whose illustrations defined Spider-Man for years, was mentioned exactly twice in that book: once when the authors noted that Stan Lee didn’t like Ditko’s original cover for the first Spider-Man story, and once when they mentioned that Ditko and Lee collaborated on the first 11-page Spidey story.  No mention that almost half the illustrations in the book are Ditko’s. 

I don’t know what happened between Ditko and Stan Lee to cause Lee to write Ditko out of Spider-Man’s history.  Might just be simple greed–more for Ditko, even more recognition, means less for Lee?  Or it might be anger–maybe they fought, and afterwards Lee wanted nothing to do with Ditko.  Whatever it is, it stinks that the artist who made Spider-Man something new and different in the world of comics gets practically no acknowledgment in a book that’s supposed to be a complete history.