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Orville -

Bob Greenberger wrote a history of Creeper here in which he discussed how Ditko left DC.

http://westfieldcomics.com/blog/interviews-and-columns/for-your-consideration-creeper-by-steve-ditko/

In it... lemme quote:

No sooner did Showcase arrive than a few months later came Beware the Creeper #1, which lasted just six issues. Ditko, used to plotting his own material, conceived of the Creeper and planned his origin and plotted the first solo issue. As a result, the stories are rich with intrigue and a face-changing foe called Proteus. By now, though, Ditko had been enamored of Ayn Rand’s works and his personal beliefs about the nature of good and evil permeated his work. Oddly, Giordano paired him here with liberal writer Denny O’Neil who provided the dialogue to those early issues and then became sole writer with Creeper #2.

While O’Neil attempted to stay true to Ditko’s tenants, the artist was also busily producing Hawk & Dove (which probably explains why Mike Peppe inked Creeper stories). There, he and writer Steve Skeates, also a liberal, clashed which made for interesting stories until Giordano, another liberal, shoved H&D to the left, causing an angry Ditko to abruptly quit DC. As a result, Jack Sparling stepped in to complete the pencils to the final issue of The Creeper.

I'll assume Bob meant 'tenets'.

It is, however, clearly contradictory to Giordano's recollections, as detailed here:

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/441/

The Dove's future character development was thrown into doubt when Ditko abruptly left the title after only two issues. Surprisingly, neither office politics nor national politics had anything to do with his departure from the title. Plain and simple, he left due to health issues. Dick Giordano says that at the time, Ditko was "suffering from a lung ailment... I think, tuberculosis.” According to “The Comic Book Heroes” by Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, “Steve Ditko's abrupt departure from Hawk and Dove and Creeper was necessitated by a bout of tuberculosis.”

Exactly what is tuberculosis? It's is a bacterial infection most often found in the lungs. Symptoms include coughing up bloody mucus from the lungs, as well as fatigue, weight loss, night sweats, fever, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath and chest pain. Treatment is often successful, though the process is long, taking between 6 and 9 months. This description makes is painfully clear why Ditko had to quit comics entirely for a period of time.

So which do you think? I'm more inclined to go with Giordano's recollection, as it would better explain -why- Ditko came back later.