Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man Club 9 9

[Spider-Variant]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:11 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

That's a thing of beauty. I love the mistyping of advdertising 

Where did you find that, Reggie?

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. 

[Get Marwood & I]

Afternoon

While Reggie is out of town taking pictures of old Spidey haunts, I thought I'd fill the void with some old guff about two of my favourite Spidey Andru issues - Amazing Spider-Man #136 and 137. Here's my old copies in case you'd forgotten what they look like:

 

I found my two UK weekly reprints the other day while sorting through some stuff, which I bought at the London Fair the other year (having previously owned as a kid) because ASM #137 has a special connection for me (which regular readers of this thread will understand).

Here they are:

How cool are they, eh? 

Whoever came up with the 'longways' format as we used to call it (landscape hadn't been invented then) was undoubtedly a genius and these comics give me a warm glow of nostalgia every time I see them.

As we have seen before in the thread, the longways format would mean you would often get redrawn, exapnded splash pages:

Mega cool, even in black and white.

 

Not a bad effort, but lacking the Andru facial flair I think.

But at least we get a number plate in this one:

 

Here's why #137 is a favourite.....

Having two pages per page was surprisingly enjoyable, even in their compressed, harder to read states.

And look at that for a back cover:

And in colour too (with a u) 

We have a Spider-critical letter here from a bloke in Dagenham. That's amazing really, as Dagenham was the next town along from Barking, where I grew up reading these comics:

Ian Grey-Starling? That's got to be a made up name, surely?  

Dave Grey-Starling, I reckon (Dagenham Dave, Dagenham Dave....)

Another amazing discovery within is the advert for what we knew as 'Little Big-Man' but what, for some reason, this ad calls 'Norvic Man':

You can just about make him out here on the left, with my old friends The Baz Gang:

Here he is getting his head kicked in in the first issue of 'Zaus' Chronicles', which I drew as a kid:

Those were the days...

To close, the longways weeklies used to have centre spread posters in them. Me and my brother would get really excited to see if there was one in each new issue by a character we liked. When you got one like this, you literally shit yourself with glee:

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that Andru-flavoured interlude. Reggie'll be back soon, I'm sure.

See ya 

 

[ganni]

An Andru classic trademark of beautiful paneling...

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/23/2023 at 1:45 AM, ganni said:

An Andru classic trademark of beautiful paneling...

Poor Steggy. A BROK and a THRAK! all in the same afternoon....

[Spider-Variant]

On 1/18/2023 at 2:33 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Afternoon

While Reggie is out of town taking pictures of old Spidey haunts, I thought I'd fill the void with some old guff about two of my favourite Spidey Andru issues -

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

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/23/2023 at 6:51 PM, Spider-Variant said:

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

 

No rush Reggie. Spidey's still giving Steggers (and Liz) a right good going over 

We've got a WOK! on this one 

 

[FoggyNelson]

On 12/29/2022 at 5:17 PM, Spider-Variant said:

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.

This is so cool to see an compare✔️‼️

[ganni]

This never happen to the other fellow...or to everyone ..,a Ross exclusive moment

[mr_highgrade]

On 1/25/2023 at 9:02 PM, ganni said:

This never happen to the other fellow...or to everyone ..,a Ross exclusive moment

Ross forgot to add the graffiti to the train. 

[FoggyNelson]

On 1/26/2023 at 8:44 AM, mr_highgrade said:

Ross forgot to add the graffiti to the train. 

That could be the next new villain ! The graffitiest 

[Phicks]

What title did Ross Andru move to after ASM?

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/10/2023 at 8:36 PM, Phicks said:

What title did Ross Andru move to after ASM?

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.

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Spider-Variant

[LowGradeBronze]

On 2/11/2023 at 8:26 PM, Spider-Variant said:

Welcome to the Ross Andru thread, we're a small group of posters, but were dedicated.

 

How do you view the Doc Savage series he did for Marvel? As much as I like Tom Palmer, I feel you don't see as much Ross Andru through his inks. I prefer Giacoia or even in one issue, Ernie Chua's inks.

Edited February 12, 2023 by LowGradeBronze

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/12/2023 at 4:17 AM, LowGradeBronze said:

How do you view the Doc Savage series he did for Marvel? As much as I like Tom Palmer, I feel you don't see as much Ross Andru through his inks. I prefer Giacoia or even in one issue, Ernie Chua's inks.

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.

[LowGradeBronze]

Romita was used to overpowering others work in his capacity as art editor, so I can well believe that. (Various awful cover art edits of his.)

I have Marvel Feature 3 with Bill Everett's inks on Ross Andru and it's great but look at Marvel Feature 1 (or Treasury Edition 16 Defenders for its reprint,) and it's clear the marriage of the two didn't start well. I started trying to find out why and came across a Roy Thomas quote that said Bill was in a cantankerous mood and inked every line on Ross Andru's rather less than tight pencils. Stan was furious but it was too late and it went to press.

Article below sheds light on Ross's penciling and how regular inkers chose which of Ross's many lines to ink and erased the others. Scroll down to MF1 splash page for the relevant part of the article, but its all good. (Sorry to drag the thread off topic, but Ross Andru is too interesting to restrict it to Spidey alone.) 

https://50yearoldcomics.com/2021/07/28/marvel-feature-1-december-1971/

Edited February 12, 2023 by LowGradeBronze

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/12/2023 at 11:05 AM, LowGradeBronze said:

Romita was used to overpowering others work in his capacity as art editor, so I can well believe that. (Various awful cover art edits of his.)

I have Marvel Feature 3 with Bill Everett's inks on Ross Andru and it's great but look at Marvel Feature 1 (or Treasury Edition 16 Defenders for its reprint,) and it's clear the marriage of the two didn't start well. I started trying to find out why and came across a Roy Thomas quote that said Bill was in a cantankerous mood and inked every line on Ross Andru's rather less than tight pencils. Stan was furious but it was too late and it went to press.

Article below sheds light on Ross's penciling and how regular inkers chose which of Ross's many lines to ink and erased the others. Scroll down to MF1 splash page for the relevant part of the article, but its all good. (Sorry to drag the thread off topic, but Ross Andru is too interesting to restrict it to Spidey alone.) 

https://50yearoldcomics.com/2021/07/28/marvel-feature-1-december-1971/

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.

 

 

[Spider-Variant]

On 1/12/2023 at 1:11 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

That's a thing of beauty. I love the mistyping of advdertising 

Where did you find that, Reggie?

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

This guy!

Edited February 13, 2023 by Spider-Variant

[Get Marwood & I]

On 2/13/2023 at 8:42 PM, Spider-Variant said:

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

Has she got a sister? 

[Spider-Variant]

On 2/13/2023 at 4:13 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Has she got a sister? 

She's got a couple of brothers. 

[Spider-Variant]

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.