(RNN) – Steve Ditko, a co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee, died late last month.
The death was only revealed on Friday by a number of entertainment news outlets who confirmed it with the New York City Police Department.
Ditko was 90.
He was the original artist for “The Amazing Spider-Man” when it began publication in 1963 and, with Lee, launched another iconic comic that year in “Doctor Strange.”
He also illustrated the final issue of the original six-issue run of “The Incredible Hulk.”
The Hollywood Reporter said he was found in his apartment on June 29. Authorities believed he had been dead for a few days.
Ditko was born on Nov. 2, 1927 in Johnstown, PA. He studied under Batman artist Jerry Robinson following a period of military service, and joined the precursor to Marvel, Atlas Comics, in 1955.
After leaving Marvel in 1966, he had a long career with stints at DC Comics, Charlton Comics (where he began his career before joining Atlas) and various other independent publishers.
He remained a quiet figure, even as Spiderman exploded into a major-money movie franchise and as Lee came to be seen as something like the father of modern comics.
“When I do a job, it’s not my personality that I’m offering the readers, but my art work,” he once said. “It’s not what I’m like that counts what I did and how well it was done. I produce a product, a comic art story.”
He was inducted to comics’ Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990.
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