Comments on: Salt on His Wounds

By: Bibliophile

Bibliophile — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:58:43 +0000

I wasn’t suggesting that Ditko was involved in this piece. My point about the numbering is that “Revenge Of The Scorned” was listed after the 13 items that mirror Ditko’s style but well before the final, presumably more recent offerings. This perhaps indicates a late ’60s or early ’70s date – but in any case no later than 1980, scarcely beyond the halfway mark of Stanton’s career.

“Scorned” has none of Ditko’s trademarks and looks to my eye more like unadulterated Stanton. The reference to “photo retouching” implies that Stanton was tracing over photographs in at least some of the panels.

In fact Ditko has flatly (if implausibly) denied contributing to ANY of Stanton’s erotic output, hence my qualification “apparently inked by Steve Ditko” (lest he sue). That said, in 1985 I wrote a letter to Stanton requesting information about his archive catalogue, in which I naively fawned about being an admirer of his work both as Eric Stanton and as Steve Ditko. In reply I received a pre-printed flyer with a handwritten note scrawled across the bottom:

“Steve Ditko would sometimes ink Eric’s pencil drawings in the 1940′s [sic]. Both men have gone on to do there [sic] own work. Steve & Eric are good friends & amused at the thought that Eric Stanton was a nom-de-plume for Steve.”

By: Richard in Durham, NC

Richard in Durham, NC — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:10:23 +0000

Ditko was probably at the height of his powers. That explains the finish. I’d wondered about that.

Thanks.

By: Bibliophile

Bibliophile — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:37:14 +0000

Neither late nor a swan song! Long before he died in 1999 this was advertised in the 1980 Stanton Archives Catalogue as “Revenge Of The Scorned” (the title assigned to the 1998 Taschen reprint is actually “A Woman’s Scorned”). It was no. 64 in a list of 319 items that seems to be in approximate chronological order of production as nos. 1-13 are all works apparently inked by Steve Ditko, which dates them to the early 1960s when the two men shared a studio.

The full listing reads: “64 REVENGE OF THE SCORNED $20 Artwork and photo retouching by Stanton A young man is dominated by a big girl out to hurt him. Straddles, smothering moves, and whippings; a stripping and binding with a final servicing of the dominant sexy female in the way she likes it done. Large format 11 x 14 inch pages. A sensational story.”

By: lobojack

lobojack — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:41:18 +0000

Amazingly good indeed, bearing in mind that this is a late Stanton creations. A sort of swan song !