That's actually one of my favorite periods, that the majority of these pages are from, the "pre-Marvel" monster stories done from 1958-1963, in TALES TO ASTONISH, TALES OF SUSPENSE, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, STRANGE TALES, AMAZING ADVENTURES, etc.
Ditko's career only began a few years before his career at Marvel took off. I was surprised, I recently read that his career was put on hiatus in the mid 1950's for a year or two, due to a near fatal case of tuberculosis, that was fortunately eventually treatable.
Ditko's hometown is Johnstown, PA, where my family also comes from.
By odd coincidence, I was on vacation once in Johnstown in 1975 when I picked up 3 coverless comics in a bagged set (as they used to sell them) and one of them was AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL 6 (reprinting Ditko's AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL 1, "Spiderman Joins the FF" by Kirby/Ditko, and "Spidey battles the Human Torch" by Kirby/Ditko) about the best introduction to Ditko's Spiderman you could possibly have!
