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Francesco Vanagolli
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Location: Italy
Posts: 3130
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| Posted: 21 July 2012 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | 1
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The classic logo, Greg... is, well, amazing! Simple, elegant, dynamic. Funny how here in Italy it was just rarely used... for some reasons, the Italian Spider-Man mags often had different logo styles.
Now, let's begin... my first exposure to Spider-Man was in, if I recall correctly, in 1987: the 1982 animated series. I didn't knew anything about the character, so that was something completely new to me. I loved the art style, ignoring that it was based on John Romita's (and of course, I ignored who this John Romita could be), and the opening theme (by Shuki Levi, who performed it in Italian!) was great.
But Spider-Man was "just another tv hero", I was not particularly fond of him.
One year later or so, I managed to find some old comics, and this is the one I suppose was "the first":
I loved it. those comics were so colorful, action packed, enjoyable! You knew there was a backstory, but you didn't need it to read the book. The problem was that those comics were OLD, so I could not to learn how storylines ended. No comic shops, no reprints, no American books to fill the gaps (but, five years old, the only English words I knew were "Masters of the Universe").
So, while I could enjoy the more some self contained stories, multi parters were a bit frustrating. Heck, my last story was ASM #196, which ended with Spider-Man helpless in front of the Kingpin... and Aunt May dead! After that, I was SURE she was really dead!
Notice Spider-Man's eyes... yellow. Comics were recolored in Italy and, due to an error by the colorist, Spider-Man'e eyes became yellow after a handful of issues. Honestly, I liked that... yellow covered Peter's eyes better than white (so his secret id was safer!), plus it's a primary color... just like blue and red, so it just seemed fit.
Anyway, I had to wait some years yet to become the big Spider-Man fan I'm today... but that's a story for another post!
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DW Zomberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 June 2012
Posts: 444
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 8:14am | IP Logged | 2
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yellow covered Peter's eyes better than white. ???
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Francesco Vanagolli
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Location: Italy
Posts: 3130
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 3
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My childish naivety made me think, so many years ago, that yellow lenses made harder to see Peter'e eyes from the outside.
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | 4
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I kind of dig the yellow myself.
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | 5
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Ramos' art is what happens when you don't give a flying f*ck about what you're doing, but you still get paid to do it.
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Chad Carter
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Joined: 16 June 2005
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | 6
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Still the best recap ever. Don't recall who did it, unfortunately.
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | 7
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While looking for Sal Buscema Spider-Man (my favorite), stumbled on this:
Artwork by John Romita Sr, with Sal inking! Brilliant! Stupendous!
By the way, the above standing Spider-Man image was always my favorite corner logo image. I don't know why it's so evocative of the character, since he's just, like, standing. But it's amazing.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | 8
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Michael Todd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 September 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 4115
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | 9
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Hey! I had that All Spider-Man comic book, I'd forgotten about that.
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Francesco Vanagolli
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Location: Italy
Posts: 3130
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | 10
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Part 2 of my "A life with Spider-Man" saga.
In Jr. High, I wasnt reading comics. Aw, wait. AMERICAN comics. For some reason, I didn't feel compelled in reading them. I knew about the death of Superman and stuff like that, and spinner racks were filled by Italian editions, but frankly I DIDN'T CARE.
11 years old, I watched the X-Men cartoon and I thought it was cool. It was enough to make me search for those old comics I had put somewhere in the garage. But no new comics for me, yet. I didn't kn ow HOW to start. My last Spider-Man story was dated 1979, so there were over 15 years of gap I wasn't able to fill. Until that day in 1995 when Marvel Italia (an Italian branch of Marvel makes you think how popular was Marvel here) decided to reprint Spider-Man's first Italian book from 1970. Could there be a best beginning than... the real beginning?
Man, I was hooked for life! Reading that book (which reprinted AF #15 and ASM #1) I thought Spider-Man was the coolest character ever! That harsh lesson he learns in his first adventure! His heroic (and succesful) attempt for saving the space capsule! His misadventures with JJJ or in the bank, when trying to collect the money he earned on tv!
That day, I couldn't imagine my life as a comic reader without Spider-Man. NO WAY!
And, while not particularly attracted by the new material (even if well drawn by Sal Buscema and Mark Bagley), I was lucky enough to feel this renewed interest in Spider-Man just when his classic stories where chronologically reprinted in a monthly title. So lucky that I jumped aboard just when they were reprinting the stories from "my" era. Hey, at last I could to know the fate of Aunt May or who did the pictures of Spider-Man disposing of the clone's corpse. All this after 7 years... and 7 years are a lifetime when you're a kid.
I loved the Marvel line of comics, but Spider-Man was my #1. Every Spider-Man comc I could grab was a sort of treasure to me, and I never felt anything like that for any comic book before. But Spider-Man was special.
He could learn the truth about the third Green Goblin, to save the Bugle with Daredevil, to stop Carnage's wave of madness in a massive crossover... he was my hero. Fictional, no doubt, but a hero nevertheless.
Seeing him in a fight versus Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin or Venom was a joy, seeing Peter Parker trying to adjust his life was great fun.
A list of every story I appreciated would be extremely long... but let me post some covers of my top favorites!
#1? This:
followed by this
and this
Favorite runs?
Lee/Ditko/Romita is the best.
Stern/Romita, Jr. is a classic.
Wolfman/Pollard thrilled me a lot when I was a kid.
But, except for a couple of unfortunate eras, Amazing was always at least decent.
Outside Amazing, MTU by Claremont and JB is a real must have. DeMatteis and Buscema did some good stuff on Spectacular. Mackie and JrJr. gave the adjectiveless (later Peter Parker) a sense, while DeZago and Wieringo were great on Sensational.
There are so many good Spider-Man stories out there... waiting to be reread!
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Francesco Vanagolli
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Location: Italy
Posts: 3130
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | 11
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Another good moment was when, 15 years old, I heard about an upcoming relaunch. 15 years old... wasn't I too OLD for this stuff? But, hey, Marvel announced my favorite author was going to write and draw my favorite character. You can't be too old for good stories.
Of course, I'm talking about JB taking over Amazing plus a new series featuring a revised origin for the Wall Crawler. I mean... that was JOHN BYRNE. John Byrne doing Spider-Man. Niot a dream, an hoax or an imaginary tale! And I was there, I could read that! You can't imagine how hard was to wait for the Italian release... I had big problems in finding American editions, so I had to wait for everything.
Anyway, this was my first American comic book.
It was great to think that this was the same comic book my fellow American readers held in their hands in the same moment. I still have it, of course, and signed by JR Jr. when he came in Italy some years ago.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 22 July 2012 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | 12
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And let us not forget Romita's original, painted version! Of course, ASM Annual # 9 reprinted the magazine's story, hence the reuse of the cover design. 
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