five books that make me think of this time of year

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(Haven't sat in front of my machine since I hit POST on the last one of these. Ahem)

5.

MARVEL MASTERWORKS v 23: DR. STRANGE

Reprinting STRANGE TALES #114-141

Also available in the more-affordable, softcover, black and white ESSENTIAL DR. STRANGE VOL. 1)

(My edition 1992; there've been a few other printings)

First, how perfect is it that this is volume 23 of the MASTERWORKS series?

Second, the cover is a surreal purple and gold; whereas all the other masterworks were varying colors of marble… this one was appropriately strange. And lovely. I kind of hate hardcovers, too– I can't have nice things– but this one I really treasured. Left it out and around all the time.

Uh, until I sold it for rent money. Anyway.

In his most early of stories, Dr. Strange was something like a proto-KOLCHAK-THE NIGHT STALKER. The formula goes: somebody with a Weird Problem seeks out Dr. Strange; Dr. Strange uses a Weird Solution to solve the problem, as it is a problem arcane and occult-y in nature. The pages are in a creepy Ditko nine-panel grid and full of creepy Ditko shapes that many more, and many more talented, people than I have written about. Most of them are right, and Ditko, if you've never really experienced the guy's stuff, really stands as a singular creative entity in the world.

I kind of miss that edge to the character, the Occult Private Eye thing; the way Ditko drew strange when he was deliberately trying to draw strange is genuine and spooky. These stories, especially the early ones where this formula is in place, are short and crude in the writing, oftentimes clumsy, but there is sincere and eerie edge. There is nothing obvious here that places DR. STRANGE within the Marvel Universe– it's always been the equivalent of a pachuco cross on the thumb-webbing of the all-American kid. DR. STRANGE is like the Steely Dan of the Marvel canon. It can't really be inflicted but rather discovered… and forcing the issue will just turn your target against you.

I got it for Christmas 1993. There is something perfectly winter-cold about Ditko, and about these stories. They can put frost on windows and down the length of your spine.