I´m still trying to finish my post on John Byrne´s short but memorable run on AVENGERS so I have decided to make another tribute post for the late greate Ross Andru, THE Spider - Man artist of my misspent youth and at the same time giving another fond farewell to a big chunk of my former comicbook collection : my issues of DIE SPINNE from the Condor Verlag.
Now longtime readers of the blog know that one of the main topics here are writers or artists that I think are underappreciated or at least are my personal favorites and which I think deserve more attention. And I have done posts on Ross Andru before. In 2016 I did two posts in homage for him, one about his work on the Superman titles which I read as part of the german SUPERMAN / BATMAN issues by Ehapa Verlag and one for his five year run on AMAZING SPIDER - MAN where he co - created the Punisher.
But that Spider - Man post was just splash pages so I wanted to do a black and white post for Ross Andru. Which I did in 2019, only that it turned out to be twoposts rather than one. Since I already went into the publishing history of Spider - Man in Germany in this post I don´t want to bore my readers with all the details again. Let me just mention that Ross Andru was the artist of the last issues that were published by the Williams Verlag and also the first issues Condor Verlag brought to german readers when DIE SPINNE finally became a monthly title in Germany again back in 1980.
Besides accompanying me on a long stretch of my comic reading another reason why I wanted to make this post is I still haven´t seen THIS version of Peter Parker on the big screen. I know that I have done a number of posts about " my Spider - Man "which for someone like me who has been reading comic books for over 40 years now have been different versions of Spider - Man at different times. Naturally I started with the early Steve Ditko issues but the thing that kept me reading the title was that with each issue and each new artist it just kept getting better and better.
There were some periods I did not enjoy as much but from JohnRomita to Sal Buscema to John Romita Junior to RonFrenz to Todd McFarlane to Erik Larsen etc. there are a lot of periods that I thoroughly enjoyed. So it´s hard to pick one favorite and say : " That´s the one Spider - Man artist for me, the end - all - be - all of Spider - Man artists. "Coming back to Ross Andru, while I can´t say that he is my favorite Spider - Man artist he definitely is the one who defined the alter ego of Peter Parker for me.
Which may sound strange but for me that was the Peter Parker that was as interesting as Spider - Man ( if not more interesting ) because it was the guy that grew up with me. He lost the big love of his life ( there is still a DEATH IN COMICS : THE DEATH OF GWEN STACY post in the works ) and his relationships to the whole supporting cast changed - especially to Mary Jane ( who is back in Peter Parker´s life although it took Disney forever to reach that realization ), he graduated from college and he became more confident moving away from the puny bookworm Parker image.
What´s even more important is that Ross Andru had such a knack for drawing backgrounds and especially Peter´s bachelor pad that you really had the impression that this was a guy you really knew and visited once a month. There was the busted sofa he got from the trash together with the wooden indian and all the other stuff in his apartment. Plus the signature sweater. I remember that one Christmas my mother got me a sweater as a present and she thought I would not like it because I would have preferred a toy. Little did she know that it became one of my favorite sweaters because it looks just like the sweaters that Peter Parker was wearing in those Ross Andru issues of AMAZING SPIDER - MAN. Like most of my clothes sadly it didn´t make the move from Germany to Spain.
Anyways, in the movies Peter Parker is getting younger and younger and his evolution has been from socially awkward but good looking nerdy guy to funny but moody hottie to annoying millenial so I don´t think we will get to see this version of Peter Parker on the big screen any time soon.
spinnensinn