Ditko Doco Definite Diamond! - Johnathan Ross In Search of Steve Ditko reviewed...

Regular readers will know that very little gets me blogging with bated breath these days, but I felt duty bound to reference this evening's screening of Johnathan Ross In Search of Steve Ditko reet sharpish like...

Without doubt the finest, and certainly the most enjoyable and intelligent documentary I've ever seen on comic books, it squeezed in an impressive wealth of detail, down to discussing Steve Ditko's most confrontational creation, Mr A, & the inspiration behind him at some length.

Johnathan faced down Smilin' Stan Lee in a pretty candid & revealing interview, alongside golden moments with legends like Alan Moore, Jerry Robinson, John Romita - even finding time for Silver age secretary Flo Steinberg!

Possibly the highest point of fanboyism came near the end as Ross attempted to get in contact with Ditko, writer Neil Gaimen tagging along as his sidekick. Gaiman manfully described himself as Etta Candy to Johnathan's Wonder Woman, and what followed was a true passion affirming popculture moment for anyone who grew up reading and loving comic books...and still does.

Fabulous, inspiring stuff - can't think of anyone else working in television today who could have done a finer job (or would even have been given the opportunity) - so hats tipped in the direction of BBC4 also...

(Eyeteeth would have been duly supplied to have worked on the show, but I did notice a clip of the notorious death-by-boat-propeller scence from Turkish Spider-man epic, 3 Dev Adam. That may have come courtesy of a pre-release Onar DVD I slipped the big man himself last year, so it certainly pasted a big grin across my mug. Although no Japanese Spider-man? For shame... ;)