Perez 1 Rocky Perez Ms.

Bell English III Period 5 01 September 2013 Comic Book Research Essay: Spiderman Comic strips and comic books have had major influences throughout American history. They have been used in a wide variety of things from campaigning for presidency to just pure entertainment. Many Americans enjoy comic books about heroes such as the web slinging Spiderman. Americans are not only fascinated by the heroes of these comics but also the origin of how they came to be in the head of the authors. Later in all the interest they judge or critic these comics but they cannot do this without summarizing the comic. All of which shall be talked about in this essay. The History of Comic Books The first comic book in America though can be traced back to the comic book by Swiss author Rudolphe Topffer when it was translated to English in 1842. The first real American comic strip though was created by Richard Felton when he created The Yellow Kid which was actually the first to use bubbles for dialogue. The Yellow Kid led to the creation of more and more comic strips which were focused originally on comedy to widen the range for the newspaper. Later the some of the first American comic books were created but were usually just a bunch of the already printed comic strips just put all together and titled Famous Funnies or just The Funnies for example.

Perez 2 Later though the comic book evolved and entered the Golden Age. With this coming of age came the introduction of superheroes starting with Superman in 1938. After the Kryptonian came many more of the well-known comic heroes such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and so on. With the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War came the coming of the second age for the comic books, the Silver Age. The Silver Age was more of a decline of the traditional "flawless" superheroes depicted in the previous years and brought in comic book heroes with noticeable flaws such as Spiderman and the Hulk. The last age of the comic book before reaching the modern age can be marked around the time of the Watergate scandal which leads to the Bronze/ Iron Age. This age can be summarized basically as the age when comic book sells continued to drop, so they began to sell the right to make movies and television series out of the comic book superheroes. The History of Spider-man In 1962 the Amazing Fantasy comic book was falling and falling fast. It could not stand toe-to-toe with the other comic books of its time and was reaching the end of its days. For what they thought would be the last issue the Marvel owners of the comic decided to take a chance with a character that was thought to be too scary for the children and, because it was the "last" issue and nobody pays much attention to them, they created Spiderman. Little did they know they had a new hero and comic book line on their hands. The last issue comic became a surprising hit and they began to receive mail from fans telling the creators to keep up with this high swinging, red and blue suit wearing, vigilante story. The creators then realized what they had on their hands and thus Amazing Spider-Man #1 was created. Spiderman has since taken off in many different directions. He has repeatedly shown up

Perez 3 in numerous amounts of other comic book series throughout his years. One series, Marvel TeamUp, had even been replaced by Web of Spider-Man one of the side stories, like the Spectacular Spider-Man, of the web slinging hero. The side series comics of Spiderman had also added more villains to the original Spiderman series. Some of these villains are very well known and still seen in random Spiderman merchandise to this day. The Original Artist and Writer of Spiderman In the creation of The Amazing Spider-Man there were two co-creators, the artist Steve Ditko and the writer Stan Lee. The artist was a man who was born November 2, 1927 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania had later studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in New York City under Jerry Robinson and began illustrating in 1953. His drawing style emphasizes mood and anxiety, which most readers enjoy about him. Ditko, who has always been a quiet type and kept to himself, had left the Spiderman scene after four years due to what some think to be because Stan Lee failed to acknowledge him as a co-creator and what others think was a disagreement over the secret identity of the Green Goblin, but the true reason is still not for sure. Ditko went on to illustrate for many other comics and still to this day keeps drawing devoting time each day to his studio where he can be alone with his drawings. Stan Lee, born Stanley Martin Lieber on December 28, 1922, is quite the opposite to his co-creator in terms of his attitude towards people. He is a very outgoing individual who speaks his mind. He admits to beginning his career out as an eraser boy who erased the stray and extra pencil marks on many comics before they were finalized in ink. But this eraser boy grew up to create some of the most well know superheroes of all time including Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-men, and Thor. As he got older he began to get involved in the movie

Perez 4 industry and heads POW! Entertainment which is involved in creating characters ready to become television and comic book series and movies. He is still involved with comics and says they will always be around whether they are hard copies printed on paper or whether they are electric copies published on websites for people to read on their computers, iPhones, and iPads. The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Summary The comic starts off by depicting the radio-active spider biting the teenage bookworm Peter Parker. It goes on to tell of Peter's uncle had being killed in a home robbery and Spiderman chasing down the murderer and turning him over to the authorities. Peter and his widow Aunt May live together and, with the death of Uncle Ben, they are left with little money and in debt. With his powers Peter decides to put on a show where he would use his powers in an effort to try to make some money for him and his aunt. This plot fails because he is depicted by a lying editor by the name of J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson writes editorials and gives speeches where he turns the people against Spiderman. Even after Spiderman saves his son from a missile launch accident where the guidance package falls out and Spiderman springs to action to replace it in mid-air, Jameson claims Spiderman caused the accident in a plot to make a hero of himself and turns Spiderman into a wanted criminal through his influence. In his further attempts to earn money the human spider chooses to contact the Fantastic Four where he hopes to join their group and make some money, where he finds out they only keep enough money for finances and the rest goes to scientific advancements. Spiderman, frustrated from his findings, swings off to search for a job. In the midst of all this an evil spy plots to make money by stealing documents and selling them to the Communists across the world. This spy is named Chameleon who frames Spiderman by calling him to meet on the roof

Perez 5 of the building in which he would steal the documents while wearing an imitation Spiderman costume. Spiderman falls for the bait and is almost arrested by the police but escapes and tracks down the Chameleon before he can sell the papers and brings him back to the building. Where he turns the Chameleon over to the authorities and almost gets arrested again when the Chameleon tries to trick the cops. The issues ends with the young Spiderman running off sobbing that he wishes he never received his powers because he claims every time he tries to help he makes everything worse. Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Overall the issue was a well thought out well written and illustrated comic. It introduced the background of the character rather briefly which is how it should be but also seemed to foreshadow a future flashback to a more detailed description of how Peter got his powers and how he reacted. This is also true about the characters uncle's murder because it briefly states that he was murdered and Peter chased him down and turned him into the police. It leaves a person questioning how and why with every turn of the page because they want to find out the details and as they turn the page they await for more information. The issue did rather well on the action part of the comic. Whether it was Spiderman putting on a show for money, jumping from a plane to an out of control space shuttle, fighting with the Fantastic Four to get their attention, or fighting and chasing around the Communist Chameleon, there was not a dull moment at all in the issue. The issue did a rather good job on the dialogue also. There was not so much dialogue that the reader would think it was a book not a comic but there was also enough to where the reader would not lose interest. It was rather well balanced between dialogue, action, description, and depiction. Lastly, the ending definitely left

Perez 6 the reader, at least in this case, wanting more and wanting to find the second issue to see how Peter dealt with all of his mixed emotions. All in all the comic book was really good and can be placed up there in the list of the good long series comic books throughout time.

Comic Book Research Essay Bibliography Bynum, Rust. "Stan Lee, Spider-Man Co-Creator, Recalls His Origin Story." Huffingtonpost.com. N.p., 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 1 Sept. 2013.

Perez 7 "Comic Book DB - Steve Ditko." Comic Book DB - Steve Ditko. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2013.

Gillette, Eric. "History Of Spider-Man - Ditko Era Page 1." History Of Spider-Man - Ditko Era Page 1. Marvel Characters, Inc., 1999. Web. 01 Sept. 2013.

Marvel Comic Book App, The Amazing Spider-Man #1

"Stan Lee Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2013.

"Var Addthis_config = {"services_compact":"email,fark,digg,delicious,linkedin", "services_expanded":"email,fark,digg,delicious,linkedin"}; Archetypes, Commercialism, and Hollywood." A History of the Comic Book. N.p., 18 Mar. 2008. Web. 01 Sept. 2013.

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