Friday, February 17, 2012

Aggamon Gets on the Bus

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Strange Tales #119, April 1964


And Kesey—always Kesey! Sandy looks...and Kesey is old and haggard and his face is lopsided... and then Sandy looks and Kesey is young, serene, and his face is lineless, and round and smooth as a baby's as he sits for hours on end reading comic books, absorbed in the plunging purple Steve Ditko shadows of Dr. Strange attired in capes and chiaroscuro, saying: "How could they have known that this gem was merely a device to bridge dimensions! It was a means to enter the dread purple dimension—from our own world!" Sandy may wander...off the bus, but it remains all Kesey. Dr. Strange!

—Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, 1968