Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man Club 9 9

[Spider-Variant]

On 11/10/2021 at 7:50 PM, Winterboy said:

Peter Parker aka Nova by Andru.

Now that I really test my memory, I do believe I did have this issue back in the day.  

[ganni]

Bronze age Marvel teen titles like Nova was never planned well as the Ditko ASM high school life... 25 issues ...

[ganni]

Before Spider-man....

[Unca Ben]

On 10/23/2021 at 9:34 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Cehhh-lebrate, we're back on track! (duh-nuh-nuh-nah, nah, nah, nah-naah!) 

Cracking Andrus back to back! (duh-nuh-nuh-nah, nah, nah, nah-naah!) 

What's the diff between the white circle and regular printing?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/11/2021 at 9:51 AM, Unca Ben said:

What's the diff between the white circle and regular printing?

A circle of missing yellow ink at the top - not so pronounced in my example here, but I had a lower cut copy where it was very visual:

Barrel scraping to some, but I used to enjoy collecting printing anomalies, however subtle. 

[FoggyNelson]

On 11/9/2021 at 11:04 PM, Spider-Variant said:

Nice inking👍‼️😷🎶

[Spider-Variant]

On 11/13/2021 at 9:24 AM, FoggyNelson said:

Nice inking👍‼️😷🎶

One of my favorite panels from the entire Ross Andru ASM run.  Inks by Mike Esposito and Dave Hunt.  I like the Tarantula figure a lot more than the Spider-Man figure in this panel.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Spider-Variant
Extra info.

[FoggyNelson]

On 11/13/2021 at 9:53 AM, Spider-Variant said:

One of my favorite panels from the entire Ross Andru ASM run.  Inks by Mike Esposito and Dave Hunt.  I like the Tarantula figure a lot more than the Spider-Man figure in this panel.

It grows on me the more I look at it🥰

[MattTheDuck]

I appreciate that no one wants to get poisoned, but those spikes look like they could kill you outright.  Shot to the head?  Shot to the heart?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/14/2021 at 5:56 AM, MattTheDuck said:

I appreciate that no one wants to get poisoned, but those spikes look like they could kill you outright.  Shot to the head?  Shot to the heart?

Indeed. You'd never pick him for the football team would you. 

[BigLeagueCHEW]

Just picked up this beautiful copy 

 

[FoggyNelson]

On 11/14/2021 at 12:56 AM, MattTheDuck said:

I appreciate that no one wants to get poisoned, but those spikes look like they could kill you outright.  Shot to the head?  Shot to the heart?

As dangerous as a stingrays tail

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 10/27/2021 at 9:17 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

The pencil?

 

On 10/27/2021 at 9:20 AM, Spider-Variant said:

Yes, HB is the penciller, but I'm not sure of the name of the person.

 

On 10/27/2021 at 9:21 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

 

On 10/27/2021 at 9:53 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

We call them #2 as in number 2 pencils here.

Good to know about HB ☺️ though!

 

[ganni]

Hey  true believers ! Are you a "Ringo" ?

[Spider-Variant]

How about some more Ross Andru pencils, with backgrounds inked by Dave Hunt from Amazing Spider-Man 134? This page is a Xerox from Dave's archives. Dave was the background inker on the Amazing Spider-Man from Issue 127 to 170, adding greater detail to the page and allowing the main inkers (Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, etc.) to focus on the primary characters.

This page is neat because it has a little note from Dave to Frank Giacoia that I translate as best I can as "Frank: I guess we'll just have to keep inking this shot until we get it right! 3 months. Dave"

I love stuff like that.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Spider-Variant

[FoggyNelson]

Nice penciling 👍‼️😷

[Spider-Variant]

I found something interesting on a scan of the backside of an original art page.  The page was from Giant-Size Spider-Man #4 by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.  It's signed by Ross (looks authentic to me, anyway) and has Mike's name on it as well.  Also on the back is a blue line picture of a rough form of Spider-Man, which I recognized as a take on the splash page for that issue.

But the thing that actually drew me into this page were the scribbled calculations on the backside.  After straining my eyes, here is what the numbers were (the board only had numbers, not the other info I add below such as the arrows and the words).  

Here is my wild theory.  I give it a 2% chance of being correct.

Ross was trying to calculate his annual income for his work on Amazing Spider-Man and one other project.

In my speculation, Ross was paid $30 per page for an 18 page ASM comic.  Over a full year, he made $6480.  This seems low to me.   (In one of John Romita art books, John said he was making $44 a page in 1956, so that's why $30 seems low to me.)

But what other project would Ross work on during that time?  He was exclusively drawing for Marvel and has few credits that aren't Spider-Man related during that time span. This was early 1975.  

Well, it looks like it was a weekly project that would cause him to draw 5 pages per week, for 52 weeks at either $50 per page or $65 per page.

Could Ross have been initially slated to draw the Spider-Man comic strip?  It didn't start until January 1977 (by Stan Lee and John Romita) but supposedly the concept and some early John Romita panels showed up in the program for the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention.

I love little mysteries like this, but I love solving them better.

What's the rest of the gang think?  Am I blowing smoke?  Hey @Get Marwood & I got any insights?

 

 

 

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

That's cooler than a cool thing from Cool Town, East Cooldonia Reggie 

Whenever you see 12's and 52's in calculations it normally signifies weeks and months. So it's highly likely that the calculations here are to inform the weekly and annual cost - or income - of something. Beyond that though, who knows?

There are elements that don't make sense to me, e.g., in the column below, what is the significance of the 1080 and 5400 numbers in the middle?

  

18 x 30 = 540 and 540 x 12 = 6480 so why the numbers in the middle? Why split 6480 and show it as 1080 and 5400?

[Spider-Variant]

On 11/23/2021 at 11:41 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

That's cooler than a cool thing from Cool Town, East Cooldonia Reggie 

Whenever you see 12's and 52's in calculations it normally signifies weeks and months. So it's highly likely that the calculations here are to inform the weekly and annual cost - or income - of something. Beyond that though, who knows?

There are elements that don't make sense to me, e.g., in the column below, what is the significance of the 1080 and 5400 numbers in the middle?

  

18 x 30 = 540 and 540 x 12 = 6480 so why the numbers in the middle? Why split 6480 and show it as 1080 and 5400?

He's doing the math my friend.  540 x 2=1080, next line 540×10, then add.  I pictured Ross as old school, no calculators for that guy. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/23/2021 at 8:25 PM, Spider-Variant said:

He's doing the math my friend.  540 x 2=1080, next line 540×10, then add.  I pictured Ross as old school, no calculators for that guy. 

I knew that