We are finally here. This is the last Steve Ditko retrospective article that I am doing. Later on Sunday, I'll put together a post collecting all of them into one place. Probably under the title "Steve Ditko: A CBR Retroespective," but maybe something else.

In any event, I am finishing this out with a piece that was suggested by my pal, Glen Cadigan, who suggested that I write about Steve Ditko's dislike for having his photograph taken and the extremes that some people have gone to to try to get his photo.

RELATED: Steve Ditko Speaks!

Now, obviously, when he was growing up, Ditko was like pretty much everyone else in the world during the same time period. That is to say that he got his photo taken for school and after that, it was a crapshoot.

And yes, is there something to be said for the fact that Steve Ditko, in high school, was a slim guy with glasses, just like Peter Parker?

Probably, but at the same time, it is also likely a bit overblown, all things considered.

In any event, there's not a whole lot of Ditko photos between school and his time as a comic book artist, but then, suddenly, during his time when he was sharing a studio with Erik Stanton, there was a whole flood of photos from the late 1950s and these are the photos that you probably have seen if you have ever seen photographs of Steve Ditko.

There are three in particular that get shown a LOT.

Him at his desk, with the "Think" sign...

Him sleeping at his desk...

Him on the phone behind his crowded desk...

Visitors to his studio over the years noted just how much STUFF there was piled up all over the place (it is funny how many famous visitors Ditko has gotten over the years. We're talking Jim Henson visiting, people!). And that, really, is likely why these photos exist in the first place.

Ditko, you see, was surprisingly quite free with putting himself into his comics or, that is, characters based on himself.

Look at this Charlton comic book panel where the character is blatantly in an office like Ditko's...

From Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, you can see Ditko using a few of his reference photos, including the sleeping one...

As Ditko was becoming more and more of a public figure, however, he was also becoming more and more interested in not letting his image be used. As we've pointed out numerous times in these columns, it is not that he was trying to be a recluse or anything like that, but just that he had a very strict idea that readers shouldn't be getting anything from him about his work other than his work itself. So he usually would not talk about his work publicly and he wouldn't let people post photographs of him.

A sort of exception was made for the creator-owned series, witzend, which was founded by one of Ditko's closest artist peers, Wallace Wood. Ditko did a self-portrait for Wood, but even there, obviously Ditko leaned heavily for symbolism over an actual portrait...

However, you know how these things go, the more that you tell people that they can't have something, the more that they want it!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='People really want a photograph of Steve Ditko']

When Jim Shooter started Valiant Comics, he early on had a lot of veteran comic book artists working for him, as those were the guys who were more easily "gettable" at a time that comic book art talent was getting very "hot." So Shooter had guys like John Dixon, Don Perlin and Stan Drake working for him, along with, naturally, Steve Ditko.

There was a Valiant Christmas party and they were all there, but, naturally, Ditko refused to be in the photos (Shooter has the story on his blog here)...

That's Dixon, Perlin and Drake, in order.

RELATED: The Artists That Influenced Steve Ditko's Comic Book Art Style

In 2007, the British TV presenter, Jonathan Ross, a huge comic book fan, did a documentary about Ditko called "Search for Steve Ditko." It ended with star comic book writer Neil Gaiman and Ross visiting Ditko's office in New York City to try to get him to appear in the film, but Ditko declined.

It was all caught on film (well, you know, their reaction to him not wishing to appear on camera)...

After Ditko's passing, Gaiman recalled the incident to the Washington Post:

“I just find myself thinking with enormous pleasure about the afternoon [British TV/radio host] Jonathan Ross and I went up to Steve Ditko’s office in New York in 2007,” Gaiman told The Post about the uncommon interaction. “We just walked up, knocked on the door, and he came out and chatted in the corridor for 25 minutes. He answered all of Jonathan’s questions and went in and got us a bunch of comics.”

“I just remember him as so very, very gracious and at the same time so very private,” continued Gaiman, who has called it “one of the best days” of his life. “Jonathan asked if he could have his photo taken with Steve. [Ditko] simply said, ‘No.’ ”

Public photographs of Ditko were many decades old. Gaiman made note of Ditko’s relatively youthful appearance: “He looked much like the drawings of Steve Ditko in his 40s — as he did [during] Spider-Man.”

While Gaiman and Ross handled the situation well (as you would expect, as Gaiman is a swell guy), other people have been less cool with Ditko's privacy. Since Ditko famously had his studio and his home listed in the phone book, fans would often make the trek to New York City and try to visit the artist. Ditko would receive them as well as he could (which, naturally, belies the whole "he's a recluse!" stuff).

Some fans were jerkier than others, though, and there's the infamous story of the guy who burst down the door to try to get a photo of Ditko. Instead, he just got a shot of Ditko's hands covering up his face.

Another fan, though, was even more industrious, and tried classic paparazzi tactics a few years before Ditko passed. He set up a telephoto lens across from Ditko's apartment building and just waited for the artist to leave his building. This is all legal, of course, as, again, this is how the paparazzi work. If you're a "newsworthy" person and you're out in the public, then it is okay to take your photograph. It's still kind of sketchy, though, right? So we won't share the photograph here, but if you want to see it, click here. Hint: It's basically just an older looking version of the photos you saw before.

Ditko certainly lived life on his own terms, which is quite admirable, all said and done.