Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man Club 9 9

[Spider-Variant]

Here's one of the humorous panels of two police officers trying to apprehend the Rocket Racer, again from ASM 182. As a back drop, Ross uses the United Nations buildings and the ventilation building that we saw in ASM 152.  I'm starting to notice some repeat areas that Ross used toward the end of his run.

(I've started messing around with recreating the ASM panel using the real life reference and the as drawn protagonist from the panel, here the police car, but usually Spidey or the villain.)

[Get Marwood & I]

7 hours ago, Spider-Variant said:

(I've started messing around with recreating the ASM panel using the real life reference and the as drawn protagonist from the panel, here the police car, but usually Spidey or the villain.)

It would be cool if you could recreate an entire page - or issue even. There's a challenge for you Reggie 

[bababooey]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

It would be cool if you could recreate an entire page - or issue even. There's a challenge for you Reggie 

Like those old photo novels.  I had this one.

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, bababooey said:

Like those old photo novels.  I had this one.

Cor, I'd forgotten about them! I had the Lord of The Rings one. Loved it. Thanks for the reminder Triple-B  

[Spider-Variant]

Happy Belated Birthday Mr. Andru!  Ross would have been 93 years old yesterday.

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, Spider-Variant said:

Happy Belated Birthday Mr. Andru!  Ross would have been 93 years old yesterday.

How did we miss that Reggie! 

[Spider-Variant]

30 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

How did we miss that Reggie! 

I caught it at about 10:30 Pacific Coast time last night, but fell asleep shortly there after.

I would love to see an interview with Ross, but it probably doesn't exist.  We just have little snippets from Mike Esposito and others who knew the name.

[Spider-Variant]

A young Frank Miller wrote this about Ross's efforts on ASM 165, page 14.   I think he absolutely got it 100% correct.  Here is that page recreated using the real life places of NYC.  I could not get every angle correct or every height spot on, but it's not a bad depiction of where Ross recreated NYC as Peter and MJ converse about the state of their relationship.  The journey starts at the New York Historical Society, goes along the sidewalk in front of the American Museum of Natural History, and follows the cobblestone road around back to the Hayden Planetarium.  I had to put Pete and MJ on the cobblestone road instead of the sidewalk because of space limitations.  Some things have changed a little since 1977, like the facade of the Hayden Planetarium.  As a bonus, I threw in the first panel from page 15 as well.  Enjoy.

[ADAMANTIUM]

4 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

A young Frank Miller wrote this about Ross's efforts on ASM 165, page 14.   I think he absolutely got it 100% correct.  Here is that page recreated using the real life places of NYC.  I could not get every angle correct or every height spot on, but it's not a bad depiction of where Ross recreated NYC as Peter and MJ converse about the state of their relationship.  The journey starts at the New York Historical Society, goes along the sidewalk in front of the American Museum of Natural History, and follows the cobblestone road around back to the Hayden Planetarium.  I had to put Pete and MJ on the cobblestone road instead of the sidewalk because of space limitations.  Some things have changed a little since 1977, like the facade of the Hayden Planetarium.  As a bonus, I threw in the first panel from page 15 as well.  Enjoy.

That's awesome!!  

[Spider-Variant]

On 6/13/2020 at 3:45 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

It would be cool if you could recreate an entire page - or issue even. There's a challenge for you Reggie 

Challenge accepted my friend.

[Get Marwood & I]

10 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

Challenge accepted my friend.

[Get Marwood & I]

23 hours ago, Spider-Variant said:

Challenge accepted my friend.

Joking aside, brilliant Reggie. Just brilliant 

[Spider-Variant]

Thamks for the kind words Steve and Adamantium.

I chose this sequence because the reference were still there and there were a lot of good views.  I would have perferred some Spidey action, but this one was probably the easiest  to tackle .

Ross really copied the real world on this page.  The buildings are easy to see the effort in.  I would have beefed up the horse a little more, but it's the real statue.  The little details are what impress me.  The distace between the spaces in the sidewalk, the cobblestone road leading to the planetarium, the flagpoles, stuff like that.  Just little real world details I can now see, that I had not seen before.

I doubt there will be another Andru page that translates from real life to comic art aswell as  this one, but I know of a few more issues that have several spot on panels throughout.  I'll do a few of those as time permits.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Spider-Variant

[ADAMANTIUM]

11 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

Thamks for the kind words Steve and Adamantium.

I chose this sequence because the reference were still there and there were a lot of good views.  I would have perferred some Spidey action, but this one was probably the easiest  to tackle .

Ross really copied the real world on this page.  The buildings are easy to see the effort in.  I would have beefed up the horse a little more, but it's the real statue.  The little details are what impress me.  The distace between the spaces in the sidewalk, the cobblestone road leading to the planetarium, the flagpoles, stuff like that.  Just little real world details I can now see, that I had not seen before.

I doubt there will be another Andru page that translates from real life to comic art aswell as  this one, but I know of a few more issues that have several spot on panels throughout.  I'll do a few of those as time permits.

Your certainly welcome  Anytime!

It's fun!

[Get Marwood & I]

13 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

I chose this sequence because the reference were still there and there were a lot of good views.  I would have preferred some Spidey action, but this one was probably the easiest  to tackle.

Whole issue Reggie. Do it 

[Spider-Variant]

Here's a real life Ross Andru reference from ASM 134 that took me a while to track down.  I assumed by the detail Ross put in that it was a real building, and it turned out to be the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Dave Hunt did the background inking for this issue.  Shown below is a Xerox that he took of his finished work of the panel from page 17.  The letterer had finished and Dave had done the backgrounds.  The page would then be sent to Frank Giacoia for inking the major characters.   What's odd in this one, is that Spidey is no where to be found and a stat must have been used on the finished page.  There is also a little note to the colorist to ensure the fountains are colored correctly, similar to @Get Marwood & I 's page from ASM 137 with the pumpkin pieces.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Spider-Variant
clarification

[Spider-Variant]

Here's a new take on my Ross Andru Amazing Spider-Man Original Art tracking graph.

I looked at individual page numbers instead of individual issue numbers to see if there were any trends.  When I say page numbers I mean the published page number in the issue.  This would typically be pages 1 through 32 and includes ad pages and letter pages.   For the Giant Size Spider-Man books, those would have a greater number of pages, so I did not included them below.  The chart below is for ASM 125 through 185, 61 issues, with four of them not drawn by Ross, but included because I am lazy.  Pages 4,5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 18-21, 24, 25, 28, 29, and 32 were typically ad pages or letter pages and are not included because the low number of actual art pages in those book pages would skew the chart.  Only the pages number listed with a data label are graphed.

The way original art was returned to the artists back in the day was similar to what it is today, with some of the art going to the penciller and some going to the inker, but I do not know the ratio.  From my chart, if I eliminate the highly desirable splash page, the pages seem to be equally distributed around 30% of art having been verified to exist (i.e. I have a scan of it) within the last couple of years .  One standard deviation is 5% for those statistician.  Page 22 is the highest number with 22 pages out of a possible 59 art pages verified for 37%.

[Get Marwood & I]

36 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

Here's a new take on my Ross Andru Amazing Spider-Man Original Art tracking graph.

I looked at individual page numbers instead of individual issue numbers to see if there were any trends.  When I say page numbers I mean the published page number in the issue.  This would typically be pages 1 through 32 and includes ad pages and letter pages.   For the Giant Size Spider-Man books, those would have a greater number of pages, so I did not included them below.  The chart below is for ASM 125 through 185, 61 issues, with four of them not drawn by Ross, but included because I am lazy.  Pages 4,5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 18-21, 24, 25, 28, 29, and 32 were typically ad pages or letter pages and are not included because the low number of actual art pages in those book pages would skew the chart.  Only the pages number listed with a data label are graphed.

The way original art was returned to the artists back in the day was similar to what it is today, with some of the art going to the penciller and some going to the inker, but I do not know the ratio.  From my chart, if I eliminate the highly desirable splash page, the pages seem to be equally distributed around 30% of art having been verified to exist (i.e. I have a scan of it) within the last couple of years .  One standard deviation is 5% for those statistician.  Page 22 is the highest number with 22 pages out of a possible 59 art pages verified for 37%.

Have you calculated exactly how many pages RA drew across his ASM run and how many of them you have an image of Reggie?

 

[Spider-Variant]

21 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Have you calculated exactly how many pages RA drew across his ASM run and how many of them you have an image of Reggie?

 

Steve, it's going to be around  the 30%, but I'll get the full details when I can.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Spider-Variant
spelling

[Spider-Variant]

Mr. Andru worked on Amazing Spider-Man from Issue 125 through 185 over a span of 61 issues.  During that period there were 5 issues that other artists drew (132 - Romita, 150 - Kane, 154, 155, 181 - S. Buscema) meaning Ross pencilled 56 issues during this run.

In this 56 issues, Ross produced 988 pages of art, or about 17.5 pages per issue.  Of those 988 pages, I have scans of 315 pages for a 31.9% verification rate.

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by Spider-Variant