pulp-magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
hero of the 1930s and 1940s. The character was created by editor
Harry Steeger
Henry Steeger III (May 26, 1903, New York City – December 25, 1990) was an American magazine editor and publisher. He co-founded Popular Publications in 1930, one of the major publishers of pulp magazines, with former classmate Harold S. Goldsmi ...
and written by a variety of authors for 118 monthly issues of ''
The Spider
The Spider is an American pulp-magazine hero of the 1930s and 1940s. The character was created by editor Harry Steeger and written by a variety of authors for 118 monthly issues of '' The Spider'' from 1933 to 1943. A 119th Spider novel manuscr ...
'' from 1933 to 1943. A 119th Spider novel manuscript, ''Slaughter Incorporated'', had been completed but was not published until decades later. A complete list of all 119 Spider pulps in the original series is available online at fan sites.
''The Spider'' sold well during the 1930s, and copies are valued by modern pulp magazine collectors. Hulse has stated "Today, hero-pulp fans value ''The Spider'' more than any single-character magazine except for ''
The Shadow
The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...
'' and ''
Doc Savage
Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, who first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Real name Clark Savage Jr., he is a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who "rights w ...
Harry Steeger
Henry Steeger III (May 26, 1903, New York City – December 25, 1990) was an American magazine editor and publisher. He co-founded Popular Publications in 1930, one of the major publishers of pulp magazines, with former classmate Harold S. Goldsmi ...
at
Popular Publications
Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective fiction, detective, adventure novel, adventure, Romance nove ...
as direct competition to
Street and Smith Publications
Street & Smith or Street & Smith Publications, Inc. was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines referred to as dime novels and pulp magazine, pulp fiction. They also published comic books and sporting year ...
' vigilante hero,
the Shadow
The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...
. Steeger said he got the idea for the character's name when he was playing
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
and saw a large spider walking along the edge of the court.
Recognizing that imitating the Shadow created the potential for lawsuits as well as the potential for strong sales, Streeger consulted his lawyer, who advised him to hire a writer with an established character and have him transform that character into the Spider. Thus, R.T.M. Scott's detective character Aurelius Smith and Hindu assistant Langa Doone became, respectively, Richard Wentworth and Ram Singh. The first two novels were written by 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", which referenced
Maxwell Grant
Maxwell Grant was a pen name used by the authors of ''The Shadow'' pulp magazine stories from the 1930s to 1960s.
Street & Smith, the publishers of ''The Shadow'', hired author Walter B. Gibson to create and write the series based on popular inte ...
, the house pen name which the Shadow novels were attributed to. Most of the Spider novels were written by Norvell Page. Other authors of the series included Donald C. Cormack, Wayne Rogers, Emile C. Tepperman, and Prentice Winchell.
Th cover artists for ''The Spider'' magazine were
Walter M. Baumhofer
Walter Martin Baumhofer (November 1, 1904September 23, 1987) was an American illustrator notable for his cover paintings seen on the pulp magazines of Street & Smith and other publishers.
Baumhofer's parents immigrated from Germany. His father ...
for the debut issue, followed by John Newton Howitt and Rafael De Soto. ''The Spider'' was published monthly and ran for 118 issues from 1933 to 1943. Sales declined in the late 1930s due to surging competition from
superhero comics
Superhero comics are one of the most common genres of American comic books. The genre rose to prominence in the 1930s and became extremely popular in the 1940s and has remained the dominant form of comic book in North America since the 1960s. Su ...
and (despite Spider novels making concessions to the popularity of superheroes such as an increasing number of costumed villains) never fully recovered. A 119th Spider novel manuscript (''Slaughter Incorporated'') had been completed but was not published until decades later (as ''Blue Steel''), a heavily rewritten mass-market paperback with renamed characters. In 2012, Moonstone Books finally published it as ''Slaughter, Inc.'', in its original unedited form. The novel was again reprinted in 2018 by Altus Press as a facsimile edition, this time designed to look like a 1940s pulp.
''The Spider'' sold well during the 1930s, and copies are still valued by modern pulp magazine collectors. Pulp magazine historian Ed Hulse has stated "Today, hero-pulp fans value ''The Spider'' more than any single-character magazine save ''The Shadow'' and ''
Doc Savage
Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, who first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Real name Clark Savage Jr., he is a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who "rights w ...
''." Notable fans of ''The Spider'' include
Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (; November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip ''Peanuts'', featuring what are probably his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is wi ...
, who confessed that "I could hardly stand to live from one month to another when the new Spider novel would come out."
Characters
The Spider is millionaire playboy Richard Wentworth, who served as a major in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and was living in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
unaffected by the financial deprivations of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. The ninth pulp represents him as the last surviving member of a rich family.
Wentworth is easily identified as the Spider by his enemies in a number of earlier novels and is arrested by the police but escapes. He adopts a disguise, Tito Caliepi, and associated aliases. The Spider's earliest costume consisted of a simple black domino mask, black hat, and cape. Later in the series, vampire-like makeup appears, which is replaced with a face mask featuring grizzled hair and finally a
hunchback
Kyphosis is an abnormally excessive convex curvature of the spine as it occurs in the thoracic and sacral regions. Abnormal inward concave ''lordotic'' curving of the cervical and lumbar regions of the spine is called lordosis. It can result fr ...
. These are added to terrorize the criminal underworld, while the Spider dispenses his brand of violent
vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a pers ...
justice. (Actor and comedian
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.Obituary ''Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55.
One of the most influential film co ...
previously used a similar mask, lank hair wig, and hunchback in the comedy film ''
Dr. Jack
''Dr. Jack'' is a 1922 American silent comedy film starring Harold Lloyd. It was produced by Hal Roach and directed by Fred Newmeyer. The story was by Jean Havez, Hal Roach, and Sam Taylor (director), Sam Taylor. The film was released on Novemb ...
'' (1922)). Utilizing his talent with a violin, Wentworth, posing as Caliepi, sometimes uses begging as part of his disguise.
Wentworth also ventures into the underworld disguised as small-time hood Blinky McQuade in order to gain needed information. To
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...
, Wentworth is known as Rupert Barton, who holds a badge of Inspector for services rendered; by the fifth novel, he also holds the rank of lieutenant in the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
.
Wentworth, according to the fifth story, is 5'11" tall, and has grey eyes and an old battle scar on his head that flares up at times of great stress. He is an accomplished pianist and violinist, and drives a
Lancia
Lancia () is an Italian car manufacturer and a subsidiary of FCA Italy S.p.A., which is currently a Stellantis division. The present legal entity of Lancia was formed in January 2007 when its corporate parent reorganised its businesses, but it ...
. He speaks fluent Hindustani and so talks with Ram Singh in his own language, with little fear anyone else would understand what is being said. Page's Wentworth is also psychologically vulnerable and suffers frequent bouts of fear, self-doubt, despair and paranoia.
The Spider stories often involve a bizarre menace to the country and a criminal conspiracy, and are often extremely violent, with the villains engaging in wanton slaughter of thousands as part of sometimes nationwide crime sprees. Pulp magazine historian Ed Hulse noted that "''Spider'' novel death tolls routinely ran into the thousands". The master criminal of the stories is usually unmasked only in the last few pages. The stories often end with Wentworth killing the villains and stamping their corpses' foreheads with his "Spider" mark.
Supporting characters
Nita Van Sloan is Wentworth's longtime
fiancée
An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''fi ...
, who often aids him. Though they are as close as man and wife, they know they could never marry and have a family, as Wentworth believes he will eventually be unmasked or killed as The Spider, and his wife and family would then pay the price. In the issue #100 story, "Death and The Spider", Wentworth expects to die. Nita disguises herself as The Spider a few times, covering for Wentworth when he has been seriously injured.
Ram Singh, a
Sikh
Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
(originally
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
), is Wenthworth's fanatically loyal manservant; he is a deadly knife thrower and usually carries several knives with him, including the deadly
kukri
The kukri () or khukuri ( ne, खुकुरी, ) is a type of machete with a distinct recurve in its blade. It serves multiple purposes as a melee weapon and also as a regular cutting tool throughout most of South Asia. The ''kukri'', ''khuk ...
. Ram Singh never views his position as a servant as demeaning or negatively impacting his self-respect, feeling that he serves a man totally above other men. At times, he and Wentworth talk in Hindustani, which only they understand.
Sergeant Ronald Jackson, Wentworth's chauffeur, served under Wentworth in World War I and often refers to him as "the Major". He is killed by "The Avenger" in "The Pain Emperor" (Feb 1935). However he is revived in "The Reign of the Death Fiddler" (May 1, 1935) when it is revealed that Ram Singh saved him and brought him back to full health, ignoring the fact that Jackson had been given a military burial.
Harold Jenkyns is Wentworth's butler, an elderly man who has been in the Wentworth family's service for a long time.
Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick or simply "Kirk", is Wentworth's closest friend, who is sure Wentworth is The Spider but can never prove it. He has promised to arrest him, try him, and send him to the electric chair if he ever has proof.
Professor Ezra Brownlee, an inventor and Wentworth's old war colleague, features heavily in the early Spider novels; he is killed in ''Dragon Lord of the Underworld'' (July 1935). Brownlee's son makes some appearances afterward, taking over from his late father. Brownlee's unjust arrest is what motivated Wentworth to take the law into his own hands for the first time.
Enemies
Despite The Spider's tendency to kill his enemies, he encounters several foes more than once, such as The Fly and MUNRO, a master of disguise, both of whom were killed at the conclusion of their first encounter with the Spider. Some storylines featuring a struggle against a single villain run for several consecutive issues, such as The Spider's four-part battle against Tang-Akhmut, the Living Pharaoh (issues #36, 37, 38 and 39), and The Spider's three-part battle against The Master and his Black Police (#60, 61 and 62), which was reprinted decades later in a single volume as ''The Spider vs The Empire State''. Some enemies he encountered had names like the costumed super-villains of comic books, such as Judge Torture, Red Feather, The Bloody Serpent, The Brain, The Emperor of Vermin, The Red Mandarin, The Silencer, and The Wreck.
The Spider's seal and weapons
The Spider's calling card is a red-ink spider image (like a drop of blood) left on the foreheads of the criminals he kills, so others will not be blamed. In the sixth novel (1934), the Spider imprints his red sign on a gold ring so that any who need his help can use it by taking it to Kirkpatrick (where Wentworth will find out about it). During the same time period, in the same benign fashion, and perhaps inspired by The Spider's calling card,
Lee Falk
Lee Falk (), born Leon Harrison Gross (; April 28, 1911 – March 13, 1999), was an American cartoonist, writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the comic strips ''Mandrake the Magician'' and ''The Phantom''. At the ...
's long-running 1936 syndicated comic strip hero,
The Phantom
''The Phantom'' is an American adventure comic strip, first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The charact ...
, left a distinct skull mark in the faces of those enemies he fought, made by the ring he wore. The Spider's seal, however, was concealed in the base of his platinum cigarette lighter and was invented by Professor Brownlee. The Spider also carried a thin silken line (his "web") which had a
tensile strength
Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...
of several hundred pounds.
Brownlee also invented the lethal and almost silent air pistol the Spider used for "quiet" kills. He acted as a sort of on-call weaponsmith for Wentworth, whom he looked upon as being close to a son. Wentworth also had a gun in one of his shoes, which he used twice in the 5th novel.
Wentworth was also a master of disguise. In the small steel case of burglar tools he carried under his arm, he also had his make-up kit and (in the early novels) his Spider's eye mask.
In Timothy Truman's 1990s comic book adaptation, Brownlee created the "Web-Lee", a non-lethal stun pistol that fired projectiles which erupted into a spider web-like mass, inundated with microscopic barbs of frozen
curare
Curare ( /kʊˈrɑːri/ or /kjʊˈrɑːri/; ''koo-rah-ree'' or ''kyoo-rah-ree'') is a common name for various alkaloid arrow poisons originating from plant extracts. Used as a paralyzing agent by indigenous peoples in Central and South ...
.
Like
The Shadow
The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...
, The Spider's usual weapons of choice are a pair of Browning .45 caliber
M1911
The M1911 (Colt 1911 or Colt Government) is a single-action, recoil-operated, semi-automatic pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. The pistol's formal U.S. military designation as of 1940 was ''Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911'' for th ...
automatic pistols. He is a crack shot and normally shoots to kill. However, he would not shoot anyone in law enforcement, although they frequently are under orders to shoot to kill him on sight.
Master of Men
The Spider's by-name is "Master of Men", indicating that he has a voice commanding enough to get many people to do his bidding. Wentworth can also imitate other people's voices. When he imitates Kirkpatrick's voice, he can give orders to lesser policemen during a stakeout, even during one intended to capture The Spider, so he can himself escape. Wentworth was not above disguising himself as a cop to escape when surrounded by policemen.
Movie serials
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
produced two Spider movie serials, both 15-chapter
cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode or a film of serialized fiction. A cliffhang ...
s starring
Warren Hull
John Warren Hull (January 17, 1903 – September 14, 1974), known professionally as Warren Hull, was an American actor, singer and television personality active from the 1930s through the 1960s. He was one of the most popular serial actors in t ...
as Richard Wentworth. The first, '' The Spider's Web'' (1938), was also the first film serial to be made from a popular pulp magazine series character. In this serial The Spider battles The Octopus and his
henchmen
A henchman (''vernacular:'' "hencher"), is a loyal employee, supporter, or aide to some powerful figure engaged in nefarious or criminal enterprises. Henchmen are typically relatively unimportant in the organization: minions whose value lies pri ...
, who attempt to disrupt all commercial and passenger transportation systems, and later all U. S. industry. Spider
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
novelist Norvell Page was one of the writers who worked on the serial's screenplay.
In the second serial, ''
The Spider Returns
''The Spider Returns'' is a 1941 15-chapter Columbia movie serial based on the pulp magazine character The Spider. It was the fourteenth of the 57 serials released by Columbia and a sequel to their 1938 serial '' The Spider's Web''. The first ep ...
'' (1941), The Spider battles the mysterious crime lord The Gargoyle and his henchmen, who threaten the world with acts of sabotage and wholesale murder in an effort to wreck the U. S. national defense.
Both serials have The Spider's black cape and head mask over-printed with a white spider's web pattern and then matched with his usual plain black
fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...
. This addition gave the
silver screen
A silver screen, also known as a silver lenticular screen, is a type of projection screen that was popular in the early years of the motion picture industry and passed into popular usage as a metonym for the cinema industry. The term silver scree ...
Spider an appearance more like that of a
superhero
A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...
, like other pulp and comics heroes being adapted for the era's movie serials; it also made the serial Spider look less like
The Shadow
The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...
, which was also produced as a serial by Columbia Pictures.
The depictions of the serial style Spider costume with red webbing reflects the character's appearance in the Dynamite Comics adaptation, and not the screen used costumes from the film serials.
Novel reprints
Many, if not all, of the original 118 Spider pulp magazine novels have been reprinted over the years in both
mass-market paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...
and trade paperback editions or some other form. Very few attempts have been made, however, to publish the novels in chronological order, making it difficult for collectors to read them in the order in which they originally appeared.
Berkley Books
Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group.
History
Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berk ...
(then Berkley/Medallion) first reprinted the Spider in 1969 and 1970, intending to reprint all 118 novels in order, hoping to tap into the reprint phenomenon of the
Doc Savage
Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, who first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Real name Clark Savage Jr., he is a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who "rights w ...
novels being published by
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...
. However, these first paperback reissues met with poor sales. After reprinting only the first four volumes in the original pulp series, Berkley canceled the series.
In the mid-1970s
Pocket Books
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.
History
Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing in ...
reprinted four Spider novels (originally published as pulps #16, 21, 26 and 100), featuring modernized pulp cover artwork by Robert A. Maguire. In this series, The Spider (renamed simply "Spider") is portrayed as a non-costumed, heavily armed muscular blond-haired hero (similar to James Bond). These paperbacks also failed to sell, and the series was canceled. These four novels were re-edited and heavily modernized. In the reprint of ''Death and the Spider'' for example (originally published as pulp #100 in 1942), Nita Van Sloan drives a
Jaguar E-type
The Jaguar E-Type, or the Jaguar XK-E for the North American market, is a British sports car that was manufactured by Jaguar Cars Ltd between 1961 and 1974. Its combination of beauty, high performance, and competitive pricing established the m ...
X-KE, a sports car not created until 1961, some 19 years later.
At roughly the same time in England, Mews Books/
New American Library
The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publishe ...
reprinted the same four Spider novels (#16, 21, 26 and 100) sporting entirely new cover art, but different in style and execution from those used by Pocket Books. Also called "Spider", this character also resembled a non-costumed James Bond-type character (only with black hair instead of blonde). This British Spider mass market series also ended after the four titles were released.
In 1979, Python Publishing published the never-before-seen last original Spider novel, ''Slaughter, Inc.'' (written by Donald G. Cormack), which was originally scheduled to have been published in 1944 as ''The Spider'' #119. Python published it as a one-shot mass market paperback. For copyright reasons, all of the characters' names were changed, the story was retitled ''Blue Steel: The Ultimate Answer To Evil'', and the author was credited as "Spider Page" (a reference to the novel's original author, Norvell Page). The Spider was recast in this book as a character named "Blue Steel". As with Pocket Books' modernized "Spider" editions, this paperback sported a modernized pulp cover painting featuring a non-costumed, but heavily armed, blond-haired hero (said to be an unused cover painting by artist George Gross, produced but never used for a Freeway Press reprint of another pulp magazine character,
Operator No. 5
''Operator #5'' was a pulp hero that appeared in his own ten cent pulp magazine. It was soon renamed ''Secret Service Operator #5'' and was published by Popular Publications between 1934 and 1939.
Characters
Within the world of the series, A ...
). In 2012, Moonstone Books finally published the 119th Spider novel ''Slaughter, Inc.'' in its original unedited form. The novel was reprinted yet again in 2018 by Altus Press as a "facsimile edition", this time designed to look exactly how ''The Spider'' #119 pulp would have looked had it been published in 1944.
In 1980 Dimedia, Inc. (a.k.a. Pulp Press) reprinted three Spider pulp novels (#9, 10 and 11) in the larger trade paperback format. In 1984, they reprinted those same three novels as mass market paperbacks, sporting new cover paintings of the original costumed Spider by artists Ken Kelly (on volumes one and two) and
Frank Kelly Freas
Frank Kelly Freas (August 27, 1922 – January 2, 2005) was an American science fiction and fantasy artist with a career spanning more than 50 years. He was known as the "Dean of Science Fiction Artists" and he was the second artist inducted by ...
(on volume three).
In the early 1990s
Carroll & Graf Publishers
Carroll & Graf Publishers was an American publishing company based in New York City, New York, known for publishing a wide range of fiction and non-fiction by both new and established authors, as well as issuing reprints of previously hard-to ...
issued a series of eight mass market Spider paperbacks, each one reprinting two complete Spider novels. These 16 novels were the longest-running Spider reprint series done for the mass market paperback book market up to that time. The novels reprinted in this series were #14, 15, 17, 26, 30, 40, 41, 50, 52, 54, 75, 76, 78, 81, 92 and 113. All of them use the original ''The Spider'' pulp magazine artwork for their covers. (One cover was a newly done painting by Rafael DeSoto, the original pulp cover artist.)
After Carroll & Graf, several specialized small press pulp reprint houses tried their hand at reprinting ''The Spider'' series. Bold Venture Press published ten issues of ''The Spider'' (#5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 26, 31, 50, 69 and 70).
Wildside Press
Wildside Press is an independent publishing company in Cabin John, Maryland, United States. It was founded in 1989 by John Betancourt and Kim Betancourt. While the press was originally conceived as a publisher of speculative fiction in both trade ...
published two ''The Spider'' reprints (#78 and 92).
Pulp Adventure Press (PAP) reprinted 12 Spider novels in a magazine-sized format, even including the original interior artwork from the pulps (#12, 31, 36, 37, 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 and 85).Girasol Collectibles (aka Adventure House) reissued the novels as a series of single pulp novel facsimile editions, as well as re-typeset stories in "pulp double novel" trade paperbacks. Both series use the original pulp magazine cover artwork for their books. Girasol published the first 23 issues of the original pulp series as "facsimile" editions. They also published 25 of their "double-novel format" issues, which total 50 novels reprinted in all (#1, 3, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34, 35, 42, 43, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 64, 66, 70, 71, 72, 77, 82, 83, 86, 87, 91, 95, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112 and 114).
In 2007, New York science fiction publisher
Baen Books
Baen Books () is an American publishing house for science fiction and fantasy. In science fiction, it emphasizes space opera, hard science fiction, and military science fiction. The company was established in 1983 by science fiction publisher an ...
published a trade paperback featuring three Spider novel reprints (#16, 74 and 85). In 2008, they released a second companion trade paperback featuring two more Spider reprints (#26 and 75) as well as a third bonus story about another pulp hero called "The Octopus". In 2009, Baen re-issued both volumes as mass market paperbacks. The Baen editions sported brand new Spider cover paintings by noted graphic designer and comics artist
Jim Steranko
James F. Steranko (; born November 5, 1938) is an American graphic artist, comic book writer/artist, comics historian, magician, publisher and film production illustrator.
His most famous comic book work was with the 1960s superspy feature " ...
.
Also in 2007,
Moonstone Books
Moonstone Books is an American comic book, graphic novel, and prose fiction publisher based in Chicago focused on pulp fiction comic books and prose anthologies as well as horror and western tales.
The company began publishing creator-owned com ...
published an original
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
of brand new Spider short story pastiches entitled ''The Spider Chronicles''. In 2013, Moonstone published a second anthology, ''The Spider: Extreme Prejudice'' featuring 12 more brand new Spider short story pastiches.
In late 2009, Doubleday's
Science Fiction Book Club
Bookspan LLC is a New York–based online bookseller, founded in 2000.
Bookspan began as a joint endeavor by Bertelsmann and Time Warner. Bertelsmann took over control in 2007, and a year later, sold its interest to Najafi Companies, an Arizo ...
reprinted (in hardcover) Baen's second Spider three-in-one volume from the previous year. This became the first Spider hardcover edition ever to be published.
In August 2009, Age of Aces reprinted The Spider's ''Black Police'' trilogy in a single volume which they titled "The Spider vs. The Empire State". This trilogy consisted of three 1938 issues that were connected plotwise: #60 (September 1938), #61 (October 1938) and #62 (November 1938).
In October 2012,
Moonstone Books
Moonstone Books is an American comic book, graphic novel, and prose fiction publisher based in Chicago focused on pulp fiction comic books and prose anthologies as well as horror and western tales.
The company began publishing creator-owned com ...
published an original Spider pastiche novel, ''Shadow of Evil'', by C. J. Henderson.
In 2013, Sanctum Books reprinted 20 Spider novels in ten "double novel issues". Each book contained two reprinted novels. The pulps Sanctum reprinted were # 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16, 17, 18, 30, 31, 68, 74, 78, 90, 92, 93, 96, 106, 111 and 118.
The Vintage Library has 34 licensed Spider novel reprints in the PDF format. For a small fee, each one can be downloaded from their website.
Facsimile Spider novels continue to appear in print from other publishers, especially Altus Press; they have also been issued in the Kindle
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
format.
Altus Press has begun reprinting the entire Spider series of novels in their original order of publication beginning with #1, on a monthly basis. Altus also launched (in August 2018) a "Wild Adventures of The Spider" pastiche novel series. The first pastiche was written by
Will Murray
William Murray (born 1953) is an American novelist, journalist, short story, and comic book writer. Much of his fiction has been published under pseudonyms. With artist Steve Ditko, he co-created the superhero Squirrel Girl.
Biography
Early ...
. ''The Doom Legion'' has Richard Wentworth team up with James Christopher (a.k.a. "Operator No. 5") and "G-8", two of Popular Publications' top pulp heroes. A pastiche sequel, ''Fury in Steel'' by Will Murray, came out in 2021.
Spider comics and graphic novels
In the early 1990s, ''The Spider'' and its characters were reinterpreted in comic book form by
Timothy Truman
Timothy Truman (born February 9, 1956) is an American writer, artist and musician. He is best known for his stories and Wild West-style comic book art, and in particular, for his work on ''Grimjack'' (with John Ostrander), '' Scout'', and the re ...
for
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market. It was ...
. As noted in ''Comics Scene'' #19, Truman set his version of The Spider in the "1990s as seen by the 1930s". Elements of this version of The Spider's milieu include airships as common transportation, the survival of the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
into the near past (Wentworth meets Ram Singh during an intervention into India/Pakistan), and World War II, if it ever happened, taking place differently. This series featured an African-American Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
Moonstone Books
Moonstone Books is an American comic book, graphic novel, and prose fiction publisher based in Chicago focused on pulp fiction comic books and prose anthologies as well as horror and western tales.
The company began publishing creator-owned com ...
started a new Spider graphic novel series, in which installments are structured more like illustrated prose stories than traditional panel-by-panel comics. In March 2011, the same publisher offered the first issue of a more traditional Spider comic book, with art by veteran creator
Pablo Marcos
Pablo Marcos Ortega, known professionally as Pablo Marcos at the
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book publisher founded by Nick Barrucci in 2004 at Mount Laurel, New Jersey. It is best known as the owners of '' The Boys'' franchise across several IP medias. Dynamite primarily publishes adaptation ...
announced an updated Spider comic book series, written by novelist David Liss; the first issue was released in May 2012. The Spider's costume in this series is based on the one worn by actor
Warren Hull
John Warren Hull (January 17, 1903 – September 14, 1974), known professionally as Warren Hull, was an American actor, singer and television personality active from the 1930s through the 1960s. He was one of the most popular serial actors in t ...
in Columbia's 1940s Spider movie serials, but the black costume's web lines are rendered in blood red instead of white. This comics series depicts The Spider and his allies fighting crime in a modern-day U. S. In 2013, Dynamite announced that issue #18 of ''The Spider'' would be its last.
In December 2012, Dynamite released the first issue of ''Masks'', an eight-issue comic book miniseries that teams The Spider with Dynamite's other pulp hero-based comic book characters, including the Green Hornet and Kato,
The Shadow
The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...
, and a 1930s descendant of
Zorro
Zorro (Spanish language, Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp magazine, pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed a ...
. Together, they fight a powerful criminal syndicate, which, along with its gangster henchmen, secretly controls New York City through the corrupt and powerful Justice Party, which has seized complete control over the city and its citizens. This miniseries, set in the Depression Era of the 1930s, is not in the same continuity as Dynamite's ''The Spider'' comic book series. The story is based on The Spider Magazine novels "The City That Paid To Die", "The Spider at Bay", and "Scourge of the Black Legions", all written by Norvell Page. Page was not credited in this adaption. The completed ''Masks'' miniseries was gathered by Dynamite into a one-volume graphic novel.
References
Further reading
*Barbour, Alan G. ''Cliffhanger: A Pictorial History of the Motion Picture Serial''. A & W Publishers, 1977. .
*Goodstone, Tony. ''The Pulps: 50 Years of American Pop Culture''. Bonanza Books (
Crown Publishers
The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Penguin Random House that publishes across several fiction and non-fiction categories. Originally founded in 1933 as a remaindered books wholesaler called Outlet Book Company, the firm expanded into ...
, Inc.), 1970. SBN 394-4418-6.
*Goulart, Ron. ''Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine''. Arlington House Publishers, 1972. .
*Gunnison, Locke and Gunnison, Ellis. ''Adventure House Guide to the Pulps''. Adventure House, 2000. .
*Hamilton, Frank and Hamilton, Hullar. ''Amazing Pulp Heroes''. Gryphon Books, 1988. .
*Hutchison, Don. ''The Great Pulp Heroes''. Mosaic Press, 1995. .
*Quezada, Rome, Senior Editor. "A classic from the Golden Age of pulp fiction returns." ''Science Fiction Book Club'' magazine. Late Winter, 2009. No ISSN.
*Robinson, Frank M. and Davidson, Lawrence. ''Pulp Culture''. Collector's Press, 1998. .