Spider-Variant

Back in 2016, Heritage Auctions sold the cover to Marvel Team-Up 61. They accredited the pencils to Ross Andru and the inker as unknown. I see Comic Connect is now offering this cover, but they put Al Milgrom as the penciler and Joe Sinnott as the inker. Other sources I reviewed also have this duo as the art team for this cover. It doesn't look like Ross's work to me either. Especially if I flip the image. But here is the million dollar question? Why did Ross sign it in pencil at the top of the artboard? That looks like Ross's signature to me and not someone assigning the cover to Ross. Any thoughts?

Yes, I put those books in the Copper Age as well.

Grade of C for me and D - from Mrs. Spider-Variant. She's a tough grader.

Here is another correspondence between Joel Thingvall (the actor and comic art collector) and our man Ross Andru. From Feb. 1973, this would have been pre-ASM by about a few months. The first past is interesting and alas sad. Ross states that Marvel would sell the art back to the penciler/inker for $5 a page, but only if the same person did both. Marvel must have changed their policy shortly afterward, as in the letter I own, Ross states he got the original art for the entire book for every other issue as penciler for the Amazing Spider-Man. The second part talks about the value of the art being in the published page and not in the original art. Joel must have asked about buying Ross's original art for aid in drawing.

To me the Bronze age ended with Amazing Spider-Man 185, Ross Andru's last issue. Everything just seemed different to me. I'm probably the only one who will say that, but that's what my eleven year old self thought.

She's got a couple of brothers.

Hey Steve, guess who's Amazing wife just bought him this letter for Valentine's Day. This guy!

No worries about tangent topics, IMHO. That Marvel Feature 1 art is not good. Very scratchy characters. I could see why Stan would not be happy. Look at these pencils of Ross from ASM 162. Very tight. I think Ross really hit his stride with ASM and I think ASM 161 and 162 were his and Mike's best work. His work on MTU (before ASM) still is lacking to me and it seems closer to the work he did in Marvel Feature #1.

I like Palmer's inks over Andru's pencils, but agree they do tend to overpower them. But I feel the same is true for the two issues John Romita inked Ross.

He went to DC comics after ASM. He did various projects, cover, etc. Wonder Woman, Superman, Vigilante come to mind off the top of my head. From Wiki "In 1978, Andru returned to DC to work as an editor, a position he held until 1986.[33] During this period his art appeared mostly on the covers of such titles as Action Comics and Superman. Working with writer Marv Wolfman and collaborator Mike Esposito, he co-created the syndicated comic strip The Unexplained in 1979. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, Andru and inker MR. Giordano were DC's primary cover artists, providing cover artwork for the Superman titles as well as covers for many of the other comics in the DC line at that time." Welcome to the Ross Andru thread, we're a small group of posters, but were dedicated.

Great books. Although I"ve always known Ross Andru penciled this book, it literally took me 45 years to figure out this book was the reason he didn't pencil Amazing Spider-Man 154 &155. DOH!

Great books. ASM 107 was one of the earliest bronze age comics my older brother bought off the stands. I didn't officially get into the game until ASM 153, the only comic I still own.

I'm going to bump this thread occasionally with the hope of finding a few more of the missing pages.

Great stuff. I'll give this a proper read when I get the chance.

Great stuff Steve. I'm in the Caribbean, slowly making out back home

It's on ebay right now. $40 will grab it. I would probably get it, but I'm heading out of town for two weeks.

I've never seen an art page offered from ASM 149. I wonder if he still has it all. Probably a nice value now.

Hey @Lee B., check out this letter (dated August 22, 1975) from Ross Andru to Jerry Thingval (the actor and comic art collector, as we had discussed earlier in this thread somewhere.) I find it very interesting because of the way Ross shared the original art during his run on Amazing Spider-Man, with him taking 100% of every other issue and Gerry Conway (who Ross misspelled Jerry) and Frank Giacoia (and later Mike Esposito) alternating on the issues Ross didn't receive back from Marvel. As Ross explains, Gerry Conway got 100% of the art from Amazing Spider-Man 149. Interesting..... Wonder if he still has it? The other interesting thing is that Ross talks about not knowing where his art will be available. But I think we now know, in the December 19, 1975 issue of The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom, which Lee shared with us earlier. I like when things come full circle.

Nice copy. Loved this issue.

Got my copy at the local Piggly Wiggly back in the day. I hadn't really ordered many back issues of MTU at that point, so these stories were new to me.

After identifying over 125 real life references that Ross Andru drew into his run on the Amazing Spider-Man, Giant-Size Spider-Man, and Superman vs the Amazing Spider-Man, I ran out of new material. Every now and again though, I like to take another look at locations I had unearthed in the past to see if I can discover something new. I have posted about the splash page to Amazing Spider-Man 156 before and highlighted Ross’s attention to detail. I wanted to dig more into the power plant he drew. This issue would have been on the stands in Feb. 1976 and Ross would have drawn it toward the end of 1975. The power plant Ross used for his splash was the Waterside Generating Plant (later Con Edison), constructed between 1896 and 1900. It was the first generating facility in New York City to produce alternating current. Ross first depicts this power plant (the story called it the 41st Street Power Plant) in Amazing Spider-Man 152, as Spidey searches for the Shocker. I was lucky enough to find photos of the plant from 1975. I love the detail Ross puts into his drawing, from the slope of the roof to the large window on the far left side. The plant was divided into two separate buildings, which Ross also drew. Ross was a man dedicated to his craft, going the extra mile to depict NYC and his effort was greatly underappreciated, IMHO.

Thanks Steve and all, appreciate the kind words.

@Get Marwood & I, check this out. My amazing daughter tracked down all my Ross Andru real-life reference posts, copied all the pictures, painstakingly organized them by issue number, and published a single copy of a book. Simply spectacular. And my equally as awesome wife got me this t-shirt and a spider-man sweat shirt as well. Loved them both.

Open up some Andru ASM issues and dig in. Best way to chase it away, lol.