The hero behind Spider-Man
The comic-book artist Steve Ditko has died at the age of 90. Ditko was born in 1927 and joined the US army after leaving school, which is where he got his first job in the comic-book world, creating comic strips for an armed-services newspaper. In the
1960s, Ditko, alongside Stan Lee (a famous writer-illustrator who worked at Marvel Comics), co-created Spider-Man. It was Ditko who came up with the character’s appearance, including the web-shooters on his wrists, and invented SpiderMan’s background story.
TV presenter and comic-book fan Jonathan Ross once described Ditko as “the single greatest comic-book artist and creator who ever lived”.