Marvel.com Blogs - World Wide Webhead by Spider-Office

web marvel.com

BLOGS HOME|COMIC BLOGS|VIDEO GAME BLOGS|OTHER BLOGS|MARVEL NEWS

My favorite Spider-Man cover...at least today
2008-03-27 16:24:32

Here's a cool little cover that really caught me off-guard back in 1984. My memory is that I was not a regular reader of the Peter Parker book at the time, but had jumped on with the previous month's issue 100 and was ready to jump ship again until I saw this really eye-catching John Byrne cover.

At 13, my uneducated eye didn't even know how you could create a cover like this. One friend had told me that you just took white ink and drew on black paper...but he was usually an idiot who pronounced the 'A' in AVENGERS as a soft 'A' like in "tap."

Whatever the science was, John did a lot with a little and introduced my young eyes to the world of high-contrast and made me really appreciate the still relatively new black Spidey costume. If I take issue with anything it's the bright yellow/orange logo that fights with the concept of the piece.

However, it's easy to understand the choice for a brighter logo. These were still the days when you had to keep one eye on making sure your your covers "popped" off of newsstands and grabbed a kid's attention against dozens of magazines. Today where we can generally be a bit more artistic since our main distribution is in comic shops and subscriptions.

Doing some quick research, I see that with this issue Jim Owsley takes over the editing duties on the book and it sort of bounces around with various creators until Peter David starts his run a few issues later, so I don't know if this was just an inventory Byrne had done for the previous editor (Danny Fingeroth) or if Jim had the bright idea to get a Byrne cover for his first issue.

Either way, it's my favorite cover for today.

IN OTHER NEWS:
In the comments within a previous entry someone recommended that Brennan and I should talk to the MS. MARVEL editors and learn from them and writer Brian Reed how to do a good comic. We agree completely.

-Wacker

Well, here's one reader who thinks you Spidey guys are doing just fine!

Posted by chapter11studios on 2008-03-27 18:36:31

Mike Deodato Jr. won me over in amazin spidey #521, looks like a real overgrown spider..gorgeous art

Posted by Islam on 2008-03-27 19:50:18

Hmm
....But Avengers is pronounced with a soft "a". Unless you say "AH-vengers" Instead of with a silent "a" sound that is almost silent. Must be an accent thing.

Posted by Chocolate Marvel on 2008-03-27 22:31:15

John Byrne is one of the greatest Spider-Man artists of all time. (His 1990s run excluded.) See also his excellent run on Marvel Team-Up and the covers he did for early issues of Web of Spider-Man (Priest has an interesting story about the cover to #4).

Posted by Fetsur on 2008-03-28 04:32:00

I am glad that the Ms. Marvel comment made you guys smile as much as it did me. There are times when it pays to read the credits!

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2008-03-28 12:15:44

Greatest cover
Amazing #101. hands down. I have a huge re-creation of that one by classic Marvel inker Mike Esposito hanging in my home. No other cover comes close.

Posted by Steve Zoovie on 2008-03-28 15:19:50

Steve
How big is the Esposito recreation. I bet it looks awesome!

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2008-03-28 16:11:27

Kudos to Byrne!
Even though JB was not one of my more favorite Spidey artists--he did have some wonderful moments--as in his classic run of Marvel Team-up issues. JB has always been a classic "Super-hero" kind of artist for me with barrel chested heroes in the Kirby style. Not so translatable with Spidey, who has always been defined in my mind by the Ditko style--dark, edgy, and kind of skinny!

Posted by iluvshelly1 on 2008-04-01 08:30:11

Array

Enter a response to this blog post:

About this blog:
Freshly spun news and previews from the office of the Amazing Spider-Man

About the author:
Editor "Simperin" Steve Wacker and assistant editor "Typin" Tom Brennan take time out from bringing you Amazing Spider-Man thrice monthly and indulge your need to know everything now!!!