Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man Club 9 9

[ganni]

Suicide Squad 2016...

[FoggyNelson]

Nice Ross was recognized, Unfortunately only one in every couple thousand actually read the complete credits , if that many even do😔

[ganni]

Ghost-cat 

[FoggyNelson]

I loved all the Stan cameos in his movies , miss those😔

[ganni]

From Gold to Bronze....

Let them say I lived in the time of Ditko, wizard of comics. Let them say I lived in the time of Andru

.

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/27/2022 at 6:34 PM, ganni said:

From Gold to Bronze....

Let them say I lived in the time of Ditko, wizard of comics. Let them say I lived in the time of Andru

.

Good finds Ganni!

[ganni]

Whap! Thonk! Pow! Bop! Sap! SV !

[Spider-Variant]

One year ago today I was lying in bed searching on my phone for photographic evidence of the house Ross Andru used to model the Mindworm’s home after in Amazing Spider-Man 138 (cover date 11/74, drawn 7/74).   After going through over 12,000 photos, I finally found it in a 1940 photo.  After a 2.5 year search, I had found it.  Mission Accomplished.  But over the next six months, I learned a lot more about the area that Ross lived in at the time and specifically about the run down conditions of those surroundings.

Here is the complete history of the Mindworm’s real home.

It all started around July 1974, with Ross Andru deciding to use an actual house to model the Mindworm’s residence in Amazing Spider-Man 138.  How did we know Ross used a real home?  Because Marvel told us he did.  In fact, they apologized for it.  The apology note in the letters page of Amazing Spider-Man 149 read “We regret the fashion in which we depicted the Mindworm’s house in the November 1974 issue, as it is an actual residence located in the Rockaway section of Queens.”

 

Why did Marvel feel the need to issue an apology?  Because Gerry Conway says the owner of the home threatened to sue Marvel.  Gerry says Spider-Man fans were showing up at this house trying to get a look at the Mindworm, causing the owner all kind of headaches. (Around 14:30 in the video below)

 

 

 

About 3 years ago, I read an article about the house, having forgotten all about the apology in ASM 149.  I began searching on Google maps and the web for this house to go along with the other comparisons I was doing on Ross’s real life references depicted in his run on Amazing Spider-Man, thinking surely this would be the Moby of all references.  I gave up a couple of times, vowing it was all a hoax, before finally finding it.  The house sat exactly one mile from where Ross lived at the time, and he would have passed it on his way to the beach.  I do wonder if this was the impetus for the story, a walk to the beach, a weird house, and away we go....

https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-mindworm-rockaway-house/

After finding the house a year ago though, I was not satisfied with the photo of the home from 1940.  No, I wanted a picture from 1974, July preferably. 

And amazingly, I did find the house (barely discernable) from a July 1968 aerial photo of the Rockaway area.    Sure enough, like my 1940 photo, there was the house next door as well.  But also, in the photo were houses and houses around it.  Recalling Gerry Conway had said in an interview (see linked video above) that Ross found a house in his neighborhood, and it was the only house around, surrounded by vacant lots and kind of eerie and weird, I found this odd.  Gerry also said it was in Howard’s Beach (I actually found out later that Ross lived in Howard’s Beach before he lived in Far Rockaway), which it was not, so I took Gerry’s statement with a grain of salt, astounded simply at the detail he could recall after 45 years.

I then found a photo from Sept. 1975 though that changed my entire perspective on Ross’s art from Amazing Spider-Man 138.  I always thought Ross borrowed the image of a real house from a neighborhood and placed it in a rundown, vacant area for dramatic story effect.  I never dreamed in a million years that what Ross drew was his reality in 1974.  As seen in the 1975 photo, the houses in my 1968 photo were all gone.  So, what the heck happened?

Designated a Title I Urban Renewal Area by the City of New York in 1968, the land bounded by Beach 32nd Street, Beach 84th Street, Rockaway Freeway, and the Rockaway Boardwalk was bulldozed to accommodate new low-income housing projects that never materialized.  Gone by 1969.    Still gone until the early 2000s, that’s over thirty years.

By 1974 when Ross put pencil to paper, the houses around the Mindworm’s real life home were all gone.  That explains why this house stood out and why the kids could easily recognize it.  I wrongly assumed that Ross’s house was recognized perhaps by one kid and he spread the word;  but the house was so distinct and isolated, that every spider-man fan must have known where it was.

And in one last attempt to find another picture of the house, I found it in a movie.  Although no one in their right mind would try to discern it from watching the few seconds it's on screen, the house actually appeared in a movie released in 1968.  The Detective starring Frank Sinatra had a few scenes shot in Far Rockaway, specifically the street the Mindworm’s house was on.

 

 

So, this is the complete history of the Mindworm’s real home, complete with links.  Perhaps someone who didn’t read my original posts can find some enjoyment in this summary. 

[ganni]

Evidence when the Mindworm controlled their will.....

 

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/27/2022 at 8:50 PM, ganni said:

Evidence when the Mindworm controlled their will.....

 

Whose name is that?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 2/28/2022 at 12:27 AM, Spider-Variant said:

Perhaps someone who didn’t read my original posts can find some enjoyment in this summary.

What a terrific post that is, Reggie, tucked away out of sight on this forum. Recap or not, I love it 

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/28/2022 at 9:02 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

What a terrific post that is, Reggie, tucked away out of sight on this forum. Recap or not, I love it 

Thanks Steve. And thanks to all for the support I have received on my research over the years on Mr. Andru's work. We're a small team on the Andru Thread, but we're a supportive group!

[Get Marwood & I]

On 2/28/2022 at 3:31 PM, Spider-Variant said:

Thanks Steve. And thanks to all for the support I have received on my research over the years on Mr. Andru's work. We're a small team on the Andru Thread, but we're a supportive group!

That we are 

[FoggyNelson]

On 2/27/2022 at 8:50 PM, ganni said:

Evidence when the Mindworm controlled their will.....

 

Sweet SS series book 👍‼️

[ganni]

On 2/28/2022 at 9:58 PM, Spider-Variant said:

Whose name is that?

I'm afraid i really have no clue at all... 

this need more data mining in the Mindworm's home....

[Spider-Variant]

Here is a comparison between Ross's Amazing Spider-Man depictions and the place that inspired it that had left me a little confused.  In Amazing Spider-Man 167, Ross sets the splash page as looking down on Madison Square Garden as Spidey swings over.  The tall building behind the MSG is One Penn Plaza.  The vertical partition that Ross drew on One Penn Plaza confused me, because it's not there today, nor was it there on some much earlier photos of the building that I had looked at.  But I found a picture from 1972, right as the building was being completed, that had it.  The picture was featured on a 1975 postcard.  My educated guess is that Ross used this 1975 postcard for his drawing that he did in Nov/Dec 1976 (ASM167 Apr 1977).

I think this vertical partition was scaffolding which allowed the remaining elements of the building to be brought up to the top of the building as it was being completed in 1972.

The small details Ross puts in this Splash is amazing.  Ross copies the water towers and stacks in the lower right of my photo, the background buildings, and the AC units on the roof of another building.  I highlight all the matches.  That's a lot of detail.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Spider-Variant

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/2/2022 at 2:20 PM, Spider-Variant said:

The small details Ross puts in this Splash is amazing.  Ross copies the water towers and stacks in the lower right of my photo, the background buildings, and the AC units on the roof of another building.  I highlight all the matches.  That's a lot of detail.

Guy was a genius. 

[Spider-Variant]

On 3/2/2022 at 12:14 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Guy was a genius. 

I just want to understand what drove him to go to such lengths to get all these details in.  It wasn't the money.  It just astounds me that he would have this much desire to get it perfect, knowing he was on a schedule.  To hear those in the industry speak, those schedules were always tight, so it's not like Ross had a lot of extra time.  

He was something else.  He was an under-appreciated Genius, that is what he was.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/2/2022 at 5:23 PM, Spider-Variant said:

I just want to understand what drove him to go to such lengths to get all these details in.  It wasn't the money.  It just astounds me that he would have this much desire to get it perfect, knowing he was on a schedule.  To hear those in the industry speak, those schedules were always tight, so it's not like Ross had a lot of extra time.  

He was something else.  He was an under-appreciated Genius, that is what he was.

Most of them usually are, Reggie. Geniuses, I mean. The cream doesn't always rise to the top in life, alas. But a few of us spotted it, and it made its mark. 

[Spider-Variant]

On 3/2/2022 at 12:33 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Most of them usually are, Reggie. Geniuses, I mean. The cream doesn't always rise to the top in life, alas. But a few of us spotted it, and it made its mark. 

The ASM 167 Splash with that vertical partition on the One Penn Plaza building has been on the back of my mind for years.  Like why would Ross add this to his drawing when all the other details matched so perfectly.  It wasn't on the real building, so why ad lib.  Well, now I know he didn't, it just wasn't a permanent part of the building.  He got it perfect.

I do think he used this postcard as reference.  We know Ross used a postcard of JFK for ASM 143-144 and he also used a car brochure for his Pan Am World Port in the same issue.