Editing Steve Ditko (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Steve Ditko HS Yearbook.jpeg|thumb|Ditko as a senior in high school, 1945]]
Stephen John Ditko<ref name=moskal-reidfh>{{cite web|url=https://www.moskal-reidfh.com/obituary/Stephen-Ditko|title=Obituary for Stephen John Ditko|date=April 25, 2014|publisher=Moskal-Reid Funeral Home|access-date=September 13, 2022|archive-date=May 26, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240526032342/https://hindmanfuneralhomes.com/recent-obituaries/|url-status=live}}</ref> was born on November 2, 1927, in [[Johnstown, Pennsylvania]].<ref>Bell, pp. 14–15.</ref><ref>''[[Comics Buyer's Guide]]'' #1636 (December 2007) p. 135</ref> His parents were second-generation Americans: children of [[Rusyn people|Rusyn]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-beautiful-witness-of-the-eastern-catholic-churches/ |title=The beautiful witness of the Eastern Catholic Churches |last=Anderson |first=Jon |work=Catholic Herald |date=March 7, 2019 |access-date=January 3, 2022 |archive-date=May 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240526032342/https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-beautiful-witness-of-the-eastern-catholic-churches/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church|Byzantine Catholic]] immigrants from the former [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian Empire]] (now [[Slovakia]]).<ref name=bbend1>For information on the Ditkos's origins and Steve's siblings, see Bell, ''Strange and Stranger'', Endnotes, p.1, citing 1920 and [[1930 United States Census]] data. "Ditko's grandparents were of Austrian descent (the paternal grandfather having landed in 1900, and paternal grandmother in 1901), even though Ditko's parents, on the 1930 Census, list their parents as 'Czechoslovakian'. Czechoslovakia coming into creation in 1918, owing to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after WWI (and the parents' mother tongue being Slovak)."</ref>{{efn|* For parents' and grandparents' place of birth, see {{cite United States census | url = https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RC9-39?cc=1810731&wc=QZFQ-FVT%3A649490601%2C652065301%2C649064901%2C1589282410 | title = United States Census, 1930 | year = 1930 | location = Johnstown, Cambria, Pennsylvania | roll = 2012 | page = 7A | line = 39–40 | enumdist = 70 | filmnum = 2,41746 | nafilm = T626 | accessdate = 2021-10-29
}}
* For Rusyn history of St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church see {{cite magazine |last=Custer |first=Richard D. |date=Summer 2016 |title=Old Countrymen, New Neighbors: Early Carpatho-Rusyn and Slovak Immigrant Relations in the United States |page=3 |url=https://ncsml.org/about-ncsml/publications/ |url-status=live |magazine=Slovo |publisher=National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423184433/https://ncsml.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Old-Countrymen-New-Neighbors.pdf |archive-date=2021-04-23 |access-date=2021-10-29}}}} His father, Stefan ("Stephen"), was an artistically talented [[carpenter|master carpenter]] at a [[steel mill]] and his mother, Anna ([[née]] Balaschak),<ref name=moskal-reidfh/> a homemaker. The second-oldest child in a working-class family, he was preceded by sister Anna Marie,<ref name=bbend1 /> and followed by sister Elizabeth and brother Patrick.<ref name=bb14 /> Inspired by his father's love of newspaper [[comic strips]], particularly [[Hal Foster]]'s ''[[Prince Valiant]]'', Ditko found his interest in comics accelerated by the introduction of the superhero [[Batman]] in 1939, and by [[Will Eisner]]'s ''[[Spirit (comics)|The Spirit]]'', which appeared in a [[Tabloid (newspaper format)|tabloid]]-sized comic-book insert in Sunday newspapers.{{sfn|Bell|2008|p=15}}<ref name=psu>{{Cite web|url=https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/bios/Ditko__Steve|title=Pennsylvania Center for the Book|access-date=August 31, 2021|archive-date=May 26, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240526032347/https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/bios/Ditko__Steve|url-status=live}}</ref>

Ditko in junior high school was part of a group of students who crafted wooden models of German airplanes to aid civilian [[World War II]] aircraft-spotters.{{sfn|Bell|2008|p=15}} Upon graduating from [[Greater Johnstown High School]] in 1945,{{sfn|Bell|2008|p=15}} he enlisted in the U.S. Army on October 26, 1945,<ref name=bbend1 /> and did military service in [[Allied-occupied Germany]], where he drew comics for an Army newspaper.{{sfn|Bell|2008|p=15}}