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Steve Ditko

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tommyedison

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Steve Ditko was a student of Objectivism who penned a number of Objectivist-oriented comic books during the 1960s and 70s, including "Avenging World" and "Mr A." I believe he listed himself in "Cantique Connection" as an Objectivist, during the 90s.

"Avenging World" was a graphic* portrayal of what's wrong with the world, showing the conflict between thinkers/producers and looters--as well as the role of compromise in draining the victims.

*(and for once, that word is being used correctly: "graphic" means "in pictures," not "intense," as the illiterate zombies on TV would have you believe!)

"Mr A" was a series of stories, whose hero dons a grim mask to defend the innocent and dole out vigilante justice to the guilty, without mercy.

I have copies of "Avenging World," "Mr A," and a couple of others. All in all, I consider them pretty good. While not great art, a some of his panels are quite striking and ingenious. Omnibus anthologies of his works have been published. You should be able to find some for sale if you do a Google search.

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  • 8 years later...

While I am very familiar with Mr. A, I just found about about Avenging World in The Cult of Ayn Rand book. In it, for those familiar with Avenging World, it says "a kind of illustrated Virtue of Selfishness" "for pre-teens - deliberately crass, caricatured, and didactic", is any of that accurate?

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Are you planning on going through every single garbage claim in that book, and asking us if it's accurate or not?

I'll save you the trouble and answer in advance that it's probably not.

As for Avenging World, the bad guys are drawn as caricatures, yes. But caricatures aren't for pre-teens, they're for adults. It's not crass, it's quite clever and beautiful. It is didactic, of course. It's intended to be didactic. It's not a kind of illustrated Virtue of Selfishness, whatever that means, it's very different. Contains the same ideas, but that's about all they have in common.

 

Avenging World is by leaps and bounds better than Mr. A. 

Edited by Nicky
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This shows some of the pages from it, wouldn't a kind of illustrated VOS be more like Mr. A than this one?

http://blogintomystery.com/2011/10/19/steve-lighten-up-steve-ditkos-the-avenging-world/

Nicky, I find questioning better than not looking into it at all. I really liked Mr.A, of what I could find online, never read the actual comics, just pages shown online.

Edited by intellectualammo
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Guest Math Bot

Don't forget The Question, one of his more known works outside of Spiderman, and a character used as recently as a few years ago by the characters current owners, DC Comics.  Though *their* Question is not even the same gender at the moment, and is more into Eastern Zen BS.  Gah...

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