Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man Club 9 9

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 minute ago, Spider-Variant said:

Ok, I haven't posted a new one of these in a while.

One of my most nostalgic issues, ASM 145, features Spider-Man and the Scorpion battling in a Cement Processing Plant.  I never understood this choice of a battlefield, but it's the one Ross chose, so it's good enough for me.

I don't think the two plants I show are the one he used as reference, but the Gowanus Canal one is very close.  The other is a location in the Bronx that was converted from a plant into a park, which is very cool, IMHO.  The problem in trying to find Ross's inspiration for this issue is that the place in the story is never identified and it's not famous either, so not a lot of pictures from 1975 to compare his art to.

Based on the equipment in these two plants, I am certain Ross used a real location to model his art.

 

 

 

These can not be easy to figure out or find!  I'm just in awe! thanks for this thread, I enjoy it very much  

[Get Marwood & I]

2 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

One of my most nostalgic issues, ASM 145, features Spider-Man and the Scorpion battling in a Cement Processing Plant. 

These are great Reggie - you should get a book published mate! 

[Spider-Variant]

Thanks so much guys.  I really enjoy the hunt for these.  Some of these places are disappearing and I wanted to capture them as much as possible.  I do think these could be part of a book, but with someone who has a lot more time than I do.

 

[Spider-Variant]

You know I bet somewhere, there is an envelope with all the pictures Ross Andru used for his Amazing Spider-Man references.  Would love to find that one day.  

[ADAMANTIUM]

4 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

You know I bet somewhere, there is an envelope with all the pictures Ross Andru used for his Amazing Spider-Man references.  Would love to find that one day.  

If it also had notes on the back of the pic's, would be a great discovery  A book is an awesome idea, with a description and a little history!

You've done half the work, just need someone at Marvel to "ok it" and do the rest   

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, Spider-Variant said:

You know I bet somewhere, there is an envelope with all the pictures Ross Andru used for his Amazing Spider-Man references.  Would love to find that one day.  

It would make a beautiful, poignant book I think. His original photography alongside the finished artwork, with maybe a brief comment or two on where he was at in his life. I can see it in my minds eye, and I like it. Such a shame it can never be so, but a homage could be possible in some shape or form. In the meantime, your posts will do nicely Reggie.

Ross did leave his mark with all that wonderful printed artwork though, and his Spidey work touched our souls. It's a shame that so many other talented people pass on, and fail to leave a trace of their work and life behind them. Ross was one of the lucky ones I guess. 

[Spider-Variant]

"That's the difference between Ross and most guys.  He didn't know how to fake.  He loved what he did, and didn't care how much he had to bleed to do it"  Mike Esposito

Found this quote the over day and really thought it summed up Ross's work nicely.

[Spider-Variant]

6 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

It would make a beautiful, poignant book I think. His original photography alongside the finished artwork, with maybe a brief comment or two on where he was at in his life. I can see it in my minds eye, and I like it. Such a shame it can never be so, but a homage could be possible in some shape or form. In the meantime, your posts will do nicely Reggie.

Ross did leave his mark with all that wonderful printed artwork though, and his Spidey work touched our souls. It's a shame that so many other talented people pass on, and fail to leave a trace of their work and life behind them. Ross was one of the lucky ones I guess. 

Nicely said my friend.  

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, Spider-Variant said:

"That's the difference between Ross and most guys.  He didn't know how to fake.  He loved what he did, and didn't care how much he had to bleed to do it"  Mike Esposito

Found this quote the over day and really thought it summed up Ross's work nicely.

There's the inscription for the book...

[MGsimba77]

The bottom section of the middle paragraph here is interesting. It refers to 138.

I wonder what Andru did with all those pictures? Did he just throw them out? I don't know if he used Polaroids? Maybe Conway kept them? 

[Spider-Variant]

5 hours ago, MGsimba77 said:

The bottom section of the middle paragraph here is interesting. It refers to 138.

I wonder what Andru did with all those pictures? Did he just throw them out? I don't know if he used Polaroids? Maybe Conway kept them? 

I've been searching for that house for six months.  It's the holy grail of Andru references.  I think it no longer exists, but I would love someone to prove me incorrect.

[Spider-Variant]

As stated before and referenced a few times (for example https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-mindworm-rockaway-house/, ) Ross nearly got Marvel sued by his depiction of a real house in Amazing Spider-Man 138.  

Here is the house

Now, Marvel I think took this threat seriously, because look at the house as it appeared in Marvel Tales 115, which reprints ASM 138.  A chimney was added, along with the removal of the columns and porch.

The question is, does this house still stand today?  There are a lot of older houses still in the Far Rockaway area, where the story in ASM 138 was set.  So, it could still be there.  But after about six months of off and on searching in the area using googlemaps, I cannot find a house that looks similar enough to this one.  I do know some houses that were there in 1974 are no longer there.  There is even one house on googlemaps in the area that is blurred, but looking from a satellite view down, I don't think it matches either.

There are some clues above about it being on a cul-de-sac, but not a lot of cul-de-sacs in this area.  It mentions "fans" were looking for the Mindworm, which leads me to think fans = kids and that it must be located near a school.  But no luck there either.

Anyway, if anyone has time to kill, jump into the Mindworm House Challenge and see if you can be the first to find it.  As always, SV is providing the No Prize!  

 

[MyThreeSons]

Recent Spidey Andru pages added to my collection 

[Spider-Variant]

Those are great @MyThreeSons .  If you ever do a high res scan of that 138 page, please let me know.  I want to check out the detail on that house.

Nice last Spider-Man panel in that ASM 184 page.  Love the quirkiness of Spidey's landing.  I didn't buy issue 156 off the stands, so my only exposure to the Bum Octopus was issue 154, but I wasn't a detective, so no idea who the bum was.

 

[MyThreeSons]

[Spider-Variant]

6 hours ago, MyThreeSons said:

Thanks my friend. 

[FoggyNelson]

On 6/13/2019 at 1:11 PM, Spider-Variant said:

As stated before and referenced a few times (for example https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-mindworm-rockaway-house/, ) Ross nearly got Marvel sued by his depiction of a real house in Amazing Spider-Man 138.  

Here is the house

Now, Marvel I think took this threat seriously, because look at the house as it appeared in Marvel Tales 115, which reprints ASM 138.  A chimney was added, along with the removal of the columns and porch.

The question is, does this house still stand today?  There are a lot of older houses still in the Far Rockaway area, where the story in ASM 138 was set.  So, it could still be there.  But after about six months of off and on searching in the area using googlemaps, I cannot find a house that looks similar enough to this one.  I do know some houses that were there in 1974 are no longer there.  There is even one house on googlemaps in the area that is blurred, but looking from a satellite view down, I don't think it matches either.

There are some clues above about it being on a cul-de-sac, but not a lot of cul-de-sacs in this area.  It mentions "fans" were looking for the Mindworm, which leads me to think fans = kids and that it must be located near a school.  But no luck there either.

Anyway, if anyone has time to kill, jump into the Mindworm House Challenge and see if you can be the first to find it.  As always, SV is providing the No Prize!  

 

Excellent post‼️‼️👍

[Spider-Variant]

Here is a little project I have been working on for years.  My computer hard drive went down in 2014, so I lost my original data.  I recreated it in August 2017 and maintained it since then.

What this is:  I have a scan of each of the Original Art pages that is listed as verified.  These are drawn by Ross Andru (and a couple of other artists as I wanted to capture ASM 125 through 185) during his ASM run.  I also included the five Giant-Size Spider-Man issues that contained new stories (Issue 6 was a reprint).  I did not include Super-Man vs Spider-Man, though.

The graph below is the summary data for each issue.  

 

What this isn't:  A guarantee that the Original Art page still exists.  Someone may have posted a scan one day and his/her house burnt down the next.  No idea of the current existence.

Observations:

Most of the issues with 100% listed are from the Ross Andru Artist Edition.  Issue 159 is the only issue I was able to cobble together all the scans on my own.  Love that Artist Edition.  I actually had a scan of a page from issue 126 that is not in the Artist Edition.

If you look at the area, about 25% of Ross's work is accounted for.  I hope there are a lot more pages out there in the hands of private collectors who haven't shared their art.

I have scans of about 50% of the covers during this same time period.

I know there were a few more pages that I didn't capture in my 2017 version that were on my original files.

Any way, hope this post drives some more discussion.

[FoggyNelson]

Very interesting graph above - thanks👍👍

[Spider-Variant]

I think the take away for me is how little of this art makes a public appearance.   With that said, there were several nice pages over the past few months offered on Heritage Auctions.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Spider-Variant