[Patrick G.P]

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

Why Is Stan Lee’s Legacy in Question? This is a fairly good assessment of Stan Lee's career and abilities. However I would quibble with the claims about how much Lee is responsible for creating an older audience for comics or that he really saved the industry. Comic strips in in newspapers and magazines have always had an adult audience as far as I know. There were various stabs at mature comics, some of which are only thought of as comics in retrospect. But EC and a few other comics of the late-40s to mid-50s spoke to a more sophisticated audience than Lee's superhero comics and a lot of the Underground Comix people had little interest in Marvel. There have been mature comics from all over the world that probably owe nothing to Marvel. I think it's close to an inevitability that comic books for adults would happen in any country with a fairly healthy industry. === On Ditko recommendations... This is not easy because I'm a huge fan of him, the quality of story and art and availability varies immensely. At the top of the pile I'd say Essential Doctor Strange vol 1 (The art looks better in black and white than the colour reproductions available today) and Creepy Presents Steve Ditko (some of his absolute best art). These should even appeal in a Weird Tales way but not as well written of course. If you'd like books about him with hundreds of images, Strange And Stranger: The World Of Steve Ditko and Ditko Unleashed are both very good. The latter is pretty expensive though, it's a museum companion. Steve Ditko Archives vol 1 has some of his best horror art but later volumes are much more variable in quality. I think all these comics are in public domain now, so you might want to get files of his work from titles like This Magazine Is Haunted and The Thing. The IDW/Yoe Books collections Art Of Steve Ditko and Creativity Of Ditko are pretty good. Writing quality varies. If you want his other superhero comics the Creeper and Shade The Changing Man omnibuses feature two of his coolest creations but the plots aren't very interesting generally. Good collections of The Question and Mr A are harder to come by and much of his best work don't have good or accessible reprints. Maybe none of it appeals, it really depends on how much you like his art and what type of writing you're happy with.

Very interesting article on Stan Lee, I agree with you on Lee's role in creating an older audience for comic books, sure Marvel tackled some more «adult» themes towards the late 60s but its pretty tame compare to what EC had done earlier. In the documentary «Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters and Marvels» he claims that he was the one who came up with basically the whole Norse mythology for the Thor comics.
At times he can be hard to take seriously as he walks a line between carnival barker conman and sweet grandpa, so I apply a grain of salt to much of his statements (a lot of salt in some cases).

Excellent list of recommendations, a lot of interesting stuff there. I'm really keen on checking out his horror work, especially Creepy presents Steve Ditko. I have a collection of early Dr. Strange stories by him I haven't read yet, maybe its time to dive into that.