Spider-Variant

Ross and Mike Bio from Hell Rider #1 (1971), a year or two before their failed attempt "Up Your Nose".

Ross Andru and Mike Esposito holding their Magazine "Get Lost" in 1954.

I always laugh at that burger eating cover.

Excellent. There are some cool things here. The "R" meant Ross's Dad rented their place and the 55 was $55/month that he paid. The 2 1/2 means Ross was 2.5 years old on this April 5, 1930 dated census. Ross was born in Michigan, while both his parents were from Russia. If you look at the rest of the document, it lists his Dad as a Musician, which matches the Wiki articles about Ross. Thought this was neat.

Correct. What year?

Who knows what this is? (I'm bored today, just had four hectic work days and doing research is how I unwind, apparently)

Got any cool Bronze Age Spider-Man swag? Any cool stories from yesteryear? Black Bear, Beets, Battlestar Galactica....

I see that now... Never noticed it before.

I usually prefer Giacoia but Mike Esposito does a great job with this issue. One of his best on ASM IMHO. On second reflection, Dave Hunt probably did most of the inking in this panel. He probably played a significant role in why I liked the inks so well in this issue too.

Thanks for the kind words Off Panel and Happy Birthday (according to Adamantium). It's been fun digging into these. I'm running out of material, I will admit. I think there are a few more out there, but not many.

I posted this before, but it bothered me, so I dug deeper. I must not have a life, lol. Here is Ross's depiction of the waterfront near the 41st street Con-Ed Power Plant, where Spidey begins his search for the Shocker in Amazing Spider-Man 152. What bothered me was the building (highlighted on the comic panel) that disappeared behind the coal conveyer structure, which is simply a lattice of metal and should have been see-through, except for the steel girders. I think between Ross, Mike, and the colorist something got missed. I believe the line (as seen more clearly on the original art and highlighted below) above the conveyer was part of the building. That means the entire area behind the conveyer should have been building, and colored a different color. There is also a little note by Ross below this panel reading "east river". So, it's nice to know I got the right place in my comparison. The power plant is actually across the FDR, so I think Ross took a little creative liberties to work it into the scene.

Very Nice book @ADAMANTIUM I like the lay out of this cover, but not one of my Gil Kane favorites. His Spidey seems off and his Goblin not maniacal enough.

Not many Ross Andru real life references left, but I dug this one up a few days ago. Apparently the locals didn't like the fact that these apartment buildings were being built in the town of Breezy Point, which wasn't far from where Ross lived in the mid-70s. Lots of court orders and local support caused the project to be in continuous delay, and eventually abandoned. The buildings stood as abandoned eyesores until they were demolished by explosives in the mid 1980's. Not sexy, but somethin'.

That Issue 69 could have easily been an Amazing Spider-Man cover.

I remember my older brother and I buying two copies of this off the stands in late summer of 1975, because we knew it would be a collector's item. It never really took off, but it will always be a fondly remembered issue due to that fact.

Hey Steve, I asked many time if we ever knew of Ross attending a comic convention. Here is the answer from that Dan Best article: From Mike Esposito "We ended up at a convention, Ross and I, and we were trying to sell all the original art for whatever we could get. Finally we got rid of them for about $10 a page, anything we could get." Of course that was pre-Amazing Spider-Man days....

I think you said it very nicely. If you read that Dan Best article I linked, Mike Esposito's wife wanted to call it Get Lost II, after the first attempt of the two into self-publishing. Mike probably suggested Up Your Nose on a whim, and Ross said, sure, whatever. It was then unfortunate that Michelle Esposito had a friend named Joe Snow. If any of these things didn't happen on this magazine, Ross and Mike probably would have never worked on ASM.

I'm laughing a little because I think it was a very poor choice for a magazine to be called Up Your Nose and feature a character called Joe Snow. Bad choice.

Johnny Carson is where they got the name of the magazine from, as he would say "May the birds of paradise fly up your nose" on his show. Maybe you knew that though...

The year was around 1972, when Ross Andru and Mike Esposito wanted to publish an independently published magazine, similar to Mad magazine. They came up with the name Up Your Nose (and Out Your Ear). It was a combination of Ross and Mike's art with real life photos thrown in here and there. Mike Esposito hired his daughter Michelle (far left in the photo) and her friends Caryn and Joe Snow (both in center of the photo) to be involved in the photo shoots. The photo below was provided by Caryn, who is in the photo and good friends with the Espositos. I asked her if she remembers anything about Ross. That's when she came up with the photo and wrote " He loved interfering with the direction, thus, probably annoying Mike and the photographer. Poor Michele was often his target. We shot one issue at Ross’s house in Rockaway, when he was out of town. I have a proof foto of Ross doing just that. When I locate it, I’ll try to post it here." So, the man on the far right, is ..................Ross Andru. It doesn't look like what I envisioned, although it's hard to tell from this angle. He would have been 45 at the time, but if I compare photos of him from the 1978 Spider-Man calendar, again it doesn't look like him. But maybe those photos in the calendar were of a younger Ross. I did some digging and found this great article by Dan Best https://mike-destasio.blogspot.com/2011/07/thelma-of-apes-article-by-daniel-best.html?fbclid=IwAR1BbUIYTao5mUCmHiIiO6Ty1VMq3RwlYUNlRetdOaz6HtOZDTdsKv8wzd8&_sm_au_=i057QHV1DvSNnf3qML8tvK34L00HF This article matches what Caryn posted to me exactly. So, I am going with Caryn that the gent in the far right is indeed Ross, giving direction on this photo shoot. Up Your Nose was a huge shipper, but when I got to the stands, the stores refused to sell it. The reason. They thought it was a drug book, because of Joe Snow, the guy on the ground in the photo. The stores returned all the books. So it went from huge success, to failure over night. The sad part is that the guy's name really was Joe Snow. And thus instead of continuing to publish Up Your Nose and making great money, Ross and Mike went on to do the art for Amazing Spider-Man, all because of a man named Joe Snow. And now you know the rest of the story.... Please read Dan Best's article, lots of great stuff in there. Ross and Mike were definitely ahead of their time.

Well done everyone! Up Your Nose is the right magazine and Joe Snow is the guy on the ground of the picture I posted. Full details when I get the chance.

We have a positive ID on the magazine. Now, @ganni name one of the players!

Well, to be fair, the magazine in question is pretty obscure....

Ok, think 70s magazines. Think artist and inker. There is one person in that picture that everyone here knows. Again, not recognizable, at least by me.

Should I post the answers to the Trivia Questions yet?