Steve Ditko's Monsters, Vol. 1: Gorgo!

by Joe Gill, Steve Ditko (Artist), Craig Yoe (Editor)

The genius artist Steve Ditko is a towering monster of awesomeness, and so is the character he chronicled... GORGO! If you love Godzilla - and who doesn't - you'll love Gorgo, who ravages London, New York City, and HOLLYWOOD! Gorgo goes head to head with the British Navy, atomic bombs, Communists, and aliens from the planet Corpus III! This is the complete Ditko Gorgo, 200-pages of comics, including six pulse-pounding covers all drawn during the height of Ditko's prowess concurrent with his Spider-man and Dr. Strange creative explosions. Scripts are by the fan-favorite writer Joe Gill. Introduction by Eisner award winner Craig Yoe with fascinating insight into the comics and the monster movie that inspired them. Every page is lovingly restored and the book is a large format hardcover to showcase the monstrous Ditko art.

Genres: Comics, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Manga, Graphic Novels

240 pages, Hardcover

First published March 19, 2013

About the author

Joseph P. Gill was an American magazine writer and highly prolific comic book scripter. Most of his work was for Charlton Comics, where he co-created the superheroes Captain Atom, Peacemaker, and Judomaster, among others. Comics historians consider Gill a top contender as the comic-book field's most prolific writer. Per historian and columnist Mark Evanier, Gill "wrote a staggering number of comics. There are a half-dozen guys in his category. If someone came back and said he was the most prolific ever, no one would be surprised."

Reviews

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

A giant Godzilla-derived monster with Steve Ditko art in a title that most folks were unaware ever existed. It's like finding a lost Beatles B-side or something! Gorgo was a MGM film made to capitalize on the runaway success of Godzilla, the greatest monster of all time. One of the interesting things about this is that Gorgo is the baby, and many times his rampant destruction is no different than a toddler being playful or throwing a tantrum. His Mom will come along to retrieve her baby, and she seems to be more destructive. Instead of being the greatest book ever, as I had hyped myself up to believe, it was merely a decent, entertaining monster book that just happened to have artwork by Steve Ditko.

This is solid Silver Age Ditko but it is not as brilliant as his work on Amazing Spider-Man or on Doctor Strange over in Strange Tales. This is still something worth owning for Ditko and giant monster fans. Between this book, Blake Bell's wonderful Steve Ditko Archives over at Fantagrpahics, DC's The Steve Ditko Omnibus hardcovers and both Action Heroes Archives (his '60s Charlton superhero work), Dark Horse's Indiana Jones Omnibus books, and of course the various Marvel Masterworks, it has never been easier or more affordable to acquire most of Ditko's output. Aside from his work on ROM from the '80s, pretty much all of his major comic book work has been collected in the past few years.

There is a bizarre Jack The Ripper reference in The Hidden Witness from Gorgo #3. In this issue, the U.S.S. Ripper is trapped under a mountain of rocks from an undersea avalanche. The control tower for one of the fighter planes involved in the search and rescue mission is called Whitechapel. I just thought that this was a macabre reference by Joe Gill. Who knows, maybe Gill was watching a television show on Jack The Ripper while hammering out this script.

The obvious comparison for Ditko is Kirby, since they were peers and were largely responsible for the Marvel Age of Comics. Ditko is better at drawing weird, eerie things, but Kirby buries Ditko when it comes to monsters. Ditko is better at drawing people. There is a companion Ditko Monsters book, Konga!, this one about a King Kong derivative. I have that and will read that someday. I am never in a rush to read books of decades old material. What's another year or three when it comes to 50 plus year old comic books?

These comics are steeply rooted in their time, with all of the Cold War paranoia and fear of alien invasions common in comics of the early 1960s. Ditko loves his aliens, and this time we get a 15 foot tall frog being. The further along we go, the more outlandish and enjoyable the stories became. His artwork is tighter in the earlier issues, but his creativity is greater later on. I did a search at the Grand Comics Database, one of the greatest sites on the entire Internet, and looked up the issues not collected here. There are some name talents in every issue, and now I want to see the entire series collected! Damn you, completist OCD! Hopefully PS Artbooks or Fantagraphics or Dark Horse will pick up the mantle and reprint these in hardcover.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This nostalgic collection of early 1960s Charlton Comics issues is delightful in its charm and sometimes ontarget lampooning on Cold War politics. Gorgo was a 1960 MGM British knockoff film of Godzilla.

Steve Ditko drew the issues here, himself a reclusive libertarian artist known for cocreating Spider-Man and Dr. Strange for Marvel. his art shines in the first 6 issues but drops off in quality because of less detailed inking and a decline in coloring.

Writer-Editor Joe Gill drafted fairly good plots but with often puerile dialogue. The funniest story involves a washed Hollywood director tricking his actors into going after Gorgo to film him in hopes of a making a blockbuster.

Communism and China especially are targeted with a parody of Castro and Castro himself appearing.

The final issue involves a trained porpoise helping scientists along with adolescent Gorgo, a 100 ft dinosaur, rescue a trapped submarine. Gorgo has a mother who is about 1000 ft tall and far more dangerous to humans. they both live on the bottom of the Pacific ocean and occasionally venture out to disturb civilization.

Another story homages Day of the Triffids while a second involves an invading alien in a ufo who wants to use Gorgo to conquer Earth, a common Godzilla trope.

Recommended for comic readers and horror film fans especially kaiju.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's merely okay. In my opinion, the original Gorgo movie is an enjoyable example of the 60's giant monster genre. This tie-in comic series tends to re-hash the movie's plot over and over, in different locales. In the second issue, the US Air Force nukes New York City in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the monsters. Weirdly, no one seems to be terribly bothered by that! We're also subjected to several Cold War "Red Menace" scenarios, and some racist "primitive savage natives" stories. If you're a fan of Steve Ditko's early work, you may enjoy it. I'm not much of a fan, so it generally fell flat for me, other than historical interest.

[Anthony Wendel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The collection of Steve Ditko's Gorgo offers a look into the creator's time bringing the infamous monster to comics. The artwork is indeed worth checking out for any interested in the works of comic greats. Yet, occasionally, the collection reveals it is a product of its time and shows with the way certain groups are described (ex: "Red China"). Still, for fans of the monster and Ditko's artwork, this book is worth a read.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of comic book stories from the early 1960s Gorgo! series (a spin-off of the movie), scripted by Joe Gill and illustrated by Steve Ditko. It's a nice trip back to the good old days when comics didn't take themselves too seriously and were not afraid to be fun.

[Roy DeRousse · Rating 3 out of 5]

In general, Ditko's art isn't as good as normal, the reproduction is sketchy, and the stories are average. There are a few fun stories, but overall this is for Ditko completist only.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The comics themselves can be a bit of a mixed bag but the package and the information within it are top notch.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ditko's stories from the run of comics based on the movie monster, beginning with the adaptation of the film. The same problem that besets all giant monster as protagonist stories is evident here: there is only so much you can do with a basically mindless monster as protagonist. The adaptation of the film has some decent visuals, though the narrative is pedestrian (apart from the innovative maternal aspect of it). The second story is basically a do-over of the first. Then we move into a series of stories focused more on a changing cast of cardboard human protagonists (the unlikely couple coming together as a result of monstrous encounter gimmick is particularly overused) than on Gorgo and his mother. Ditko's art is all that makes these stories memorable, and it's not generally his best work. It's workmanlike, to be sure, but most of it lacks the flair of Ditko's best efforts. He doe manage to make Gorgo look amusingly silly several times, which I have to think was deliberate and perhaps a subtle comment on the silliness of the enterprise (nutty movie maker decides to shoot a film using the real monster; nutty dictator decides to enslave the monster to consolidate his power; nutty alien frog creature tries to use the monster to destroy humanity, etc). I do like that, unlike many Yoe books, this one presents the work in a sensible order. And I also like Yoe's aesthetic of aiming to preserve the original look of the comics, warts and all, rather than trying to "improve" them via restoration. Probably a good investment for Ditko fans, not so much for anyone else.

[MB Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this a little less than I liked Steve Ditko's Monsters Volume 2: Konga, but I liked the art a little more. Gorgo and his Mom weren't near as expressive as Konga, but it felt like there were more of Ditko's characters populating the stories. The stories themselves weren't quite as engaging.

The 10 stories presented are between 17 and 30 pages long and all are from the early 60s, but I think most are a bit later than most of the Konga stories.

I don't remember any Nazis, but there are Commies, aliens, and petty dictators. And a few stories have some humor and romance (but more in spite of Gorgo than because of him; he's not the softie Konga was).

An OK read.

[Bmj2k · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because Steve Ditko + monsters = no brainer, but I did not expect the wonderful behind the scenes section detailing not only the creation of the comics but the movie as well. When I picked the book off the shelf and flipped through it I expected the price to be a lot higher. I only own 2 Yoe books (this and Sagendorf's Popeye vol 1) but they are very reasonably priced. I'm looking forward to the Konga volume.

[Norman Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Godzilla ripoff is fun for a while, but soon runs out of interesting stories. How many times can you smash the world, after all? In some of the later stories, Gorgo is more of a supporting character for a variety of science fiction, romance, and adventure stories. Still, the art by Ditko is worth seeing, although I wish the publisher had recolored it a little better; it retains the somewhat sloppy separations from the originals.

[Ty Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boffo 1960's Monster fun done only the way Steve Ditko can do it. Simple monster stories that really stretch your suspension of disbelief.