Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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[Jayman]

On 1/13/2021 at 6:39 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

Some of these are great! Kinda has that Rockwell appeal. Is there a connection?

Edit: Nevermind, I saw the Saturday Evening Post covers later on in the thread! 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Jayman

[Flex Mentallo]

Rockwell's influence , as everyone knows, was ubiquitous - and while sentimental, offers us the clearest contrast with the shadowy world of the pulps. At its height, the Saturday Evening Post had a circulation of some 3 million, and Rockwell became one of the staff’s favorite cover illustrators; over the course of his 47 years working for magazine, from 1916 until 1963, Rockwell illustrated 322 covers. Saying Grace, perhaps his most famous work—voted by Post readers as their all-time favorite cover.

[Flex Mentallo]

“Rockwell considered himself to be a visual storyteller. He was an extraordinary draftsman and an exceptional compositionalist, but maybe his greatest strength was his ability to enter the American psyche. People responded to his art because they saw the best of themselves in it.”

Stephanie Plunkett, chief curator at the Norman Rockwell Museum

 

His later paintings from the 1960s and ’70s advocated for freedom of speech and the Civil Rights Movement.

[Flex Mentallo]

I suppose it's a matter of where you find the horror - in fantastical stories or in real life..

[Flex Mentallo]

The Spider, Master of Men

The Spider was created in 1933 by Harry Steeger at Popular Publications as direct competition to Street and Smith Publications' vigilante hero, the Shadow. Though similar, The Spider was millionaire playboy Richard Wentworth, who had served as a major in World War I, and was living in New York City unaffected by the financial deprivations of the Great Depression.

The Spider was published monthly and ran for 118 issues from 1933 to 1943.

The Spider's earliest costume consisted of a simple black domino mask, black hat, and cape. Later in the series, vampire-like makeup appeared, which was replaced with a face mask featuring grizzled hair and finally a hunchback. These were added to terrorize the criminal underworld, while The Spider dispensed his brand of violent vigilante justice.

The Spider stories often involved a bizarre menace to the country and a criminal conspiracy, and were often extremely violent, with the villains engaging in wanton slaughter of thousands as part of sometimes nationwide crime sprees: pulp magazine historian Ed Hulse notes that "Spider novel death tolls routinely ran into the thousands".

The master criminal of the stories was usually unmasked only in the last few pages. The stories often ended with Wentworth killing the villains and stamping their corpses' foreheads with his "Spider" mark.

The first two novels were written by Reginald Thomas Maitland Scott (aka R.T.M. Scott), but they were deemed too slow-paced, so another author was brought in. Later stories were published under the house pen name of "Grant Stockbridge". Most of the Spider novels were actually written by Norvell Page. Other authors of the series included Donald C. Cormack, Wayne Rogers, Emile C. Tepperman, and Prentice Winchell.

The cover artists for The Spider magazine were Walter M. Baumhofer for the debut issue, followed by John Newton Howitt and Rafael De Soto.

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