"Hero Envy" The Blog Adventures: May 2019

THE LAST SPIDER-MAN
DAILY NEWSPAPER STRIP

BY
"RASCALLY" ROY THOMAS
AND
ALEX SAVIUK
(Edited by John "THE MEGO STRETCH HULK" Cimino)

The "Rascally" one has his say...

Sometime in the first few months of 2000, I dropped Stan Lee a line saying I'd love to do some work for Stan Lee Media, Stan's well-publicized and multi-staffed dot-com company, if he could ever use me. He replied that, while he'd like to work with me again, I would've had to be around L.A. to work for SLM, but that, by coincidence, he really needed a writer to work with him on the SPIDER-MAN comic strip... to plot out and do the first-draft script of the seven-days-a-week King Features strip. I said that sounded fine to me (even though I'd never really been wild about writing Spidey compared to the F.F., Avengers, Conan, etc.). He replied with a chuckle that maybe I should wait till I heard his offer, because the money was so minuscule... just $300 a week. I laughed, and told him that he had no idea how little money it cost me to live on my 40-acre place in the middle of South Carolina. The mortgage and both our vehicles were paid off, so Dann and I had no expenses except what we spent month-to-month. So a deal was quickly struck, and I went to work, with my first strip (a Monday, of course) appearing on July 17, 2000.

As it turned out, although I never got a raise in 18 1/2 years I basically ghost-wrote the strip (though, until recent years, with his often hands-on editing), it was a great gig. I spent maybe two days a month writing four weeks' worth of strips, and another day 2 or 3 times a year doing outlines for upcoming storylines.

After Stan cut back his activities a few years ago, following installation of his pacemaker, etc., I worked primarily with his longtime assistant, Michael Kelly, with some indirect verbal input from Stan, and in some ways I liked that even better, since Stan and I were only about 80% on the same page as to what made a good comic strip. Despite his well-known (and correct) views on how important the writing was to the success of Marvel Comics from 1961 on, he would often talk about how it was the artwork that sold the strip. I didn't think that reflected the realities of the situation, particularly after John Romita left the strip a few years after it began, and as the printing of the strips grew smaller and smaller. Stan's brother Larry Lieber was a good journeyman penciler (and Alex Saviuk considerably better), but the artists didn't really have the scope, especially in the dailies, to do the kind of artwork that was going to excite readers the way, say, Milt Caniff once had in Terry and the Pirates. The sight of Spidey or Dr. Octopus in a strip might draw people in, but the writing had to bring people back, day after day, since Spidey and Peter and MJ and Doc Ock would always look basically the same, squeezed into small panels--with no "full-page spreads" like in the comicbooks. And yes, I wrote a bit more text and dialogue than he did... but that was partly because, otherwise, I wasn't sure people could really follow the strip from day to day... or at least, no new readers would be brought in if it was hard to start reading the strip at any given point.

Mostly, though, Stan and I got along fine. For the most part, he liked what I submitted, accepted most (not all) of my ideas for stories... and until a few years ago often "suggested" (or insisted upon) alterations in them. For some years, he would rewrite a panel or balloon here and there, or even more... while other dailies or Sundays would sail through without a single word change.

The major change I tried to effect, after the first "Spider-Man" movie, was to go back to a time when MJ and Peter weren't married. Stan agreed, and seemed halfway enthusiastic about the change at first, and we did one whole storyline (involving Electro) that way. But then Stan changed his mind, and I saw at once that I wouldn't be able to change it back. So I wrote a "Dallas"-type scene in which Peter woke up (after going to sleep in Aunt May's apartment as a single young man) to find himself married (again) to Mary Jane... and that's the way we kept it from then on. Actually, I was increasingly happy with that, as an alternative to the bouncing around of the comicbooks, in which MJ and Peter totally forgot each other and their marriage, and who-knows-what occurred. Left increasingly to my own devices, and building on MJ's modeling career in the comicbooks, I gradually took her from working in a computer store to becoming a Broadway star and movie actress, playing a super-heroine called "Marvella" (before the female Captain Marvel was a big deal, or maybe even was around at all)...but I kept her and Peter, somewhat incongruously, in their relatively small Manhattan apartment (except when they were in L.A., of course)... although they occasionally shopped around for something bigger.

In recent years, I had taken increasingly to using guest stars: Wolverine, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Namor, Iron Fist and Luke Cage. We never bothered to try to follow the current Marvel continuity, which Stan didn't want to do... the more so, I suppose, as from time to time it was given increasingly to violent wrenches and re-starts, such as when MJ and Peter were abruptly uncoupled. If there were eventually several Spider-Man universes in the comics (with different Spider-Men, a Spider-Girl, whatever), well, our comic strip universe was yet another one... just about the only one, in recent years, in which Peter and MJ were a married couple, continuing the original direction of decades of the comicbooks. We were all kind of proud of that.

When the strip died (i.e., was killed), the Mammon Theatre where MJ's hit play was running was shuttered by damage (in a Spidey-related fight, of course), and "Marvella II" had flopped, so the two of them took off to Australia for a vacation, and I wrote a couple of weeks of a continuity (along with a full outline approved by Michael Kelly) involving the villain the Kangaroo. Then Marvel decided to kill the strip and not print the final couple of weeks, and I declined to rewrite the last published strip or twoto turn it into a "goodbye" strip. My feeling was that I had accepted the snuffing of the strip, and didn't takeit personally... it was just a business move (although when I was told the strip was being killed I wasn't told—perhaps because those who informed me didn't know--that Marvel was planning to either revive the strip with a new team or to start a new strip that might not be a Spidey strip per se, but more the equivalent of DC's latter-day successor to its Superman strip, The World's Greatest Heroes, which had featured the whole panoply of DC heroes). I felt that I had written what I had written for the strip, and they were welcome to do whatever they wanted to with the script (as long as I was paid for what I had done, naturally), but I preferred never to touch it again. When I'm done with something, I'm done with something.

Alex Saviuk, bless him, graciously reworked the final strip to show the two of us in it, and to add a "'Nuff Said!" headline on the Daily Bugle. He was perhaps a better sport about things than I was... and I admire him for that, since he had spent well over two decades penciling the Sunday Spider-Man and then had only recently been promoted to seven-days-a-week penciler... only to see the strip almost immediately canceled so that he was out of a regular gig. I hope he finds one. He deserves it.

Naturally, I was sorry to see the strip end (the more so because it signaled the finale of the only long-lasting adventure strip launched in the past half century), just at the time when I could finally have begun to receive on-strip credit for the work I did... although of course I did have that for two years on the Conan the Barbarian comic strip at the end of the 1970s. But at least, once Stan wrote vaguely, maybe a decade ago, in his introduction to the hardcover volume Marvel Visionaries: Roy Thomas, that I "help[ed]" him with the Spidey strip, everybody with half a brain knew what I was contributing to the strip anyway. That didn't bother Stan, and it didn't bother me. The strip was Stan's, and I was happy to co-write or write it under his name... although I wouldn't have been willing to go on writing it anonymously once he had passed on, had that alternative been suggested to me.

Working with Stan and Michael Kelly (as well as with Larry, Alex, and the ever-amiable Joe Sinnott--with Joe spelled occasionally by Jim Amash or Terry Austin) on the Spider-Man strip was an enjoyable experience, and I'm grateful to Stan for offering me that "pittance" back in 2000. The strip became the last of our many collaborations of one sort or other, which began when, in early July of 1965, I inherited a Modeling with Millie story that he had previously talked over (I suppose) with penciler Stan Goldberg.

Take it away Alex...

The LAST SPIDER-MAN Daily newspaper strip! It’s been a fabulous time for me being part of such an iconic character for so long. I’ve drawn Spider-Man in comics and newspapers for 32 years in a row and unless I get another crack at him NEXT year that run will come to an end. But I am digressing a bit; I’m here to talk about the newspaper strip which for me OFFICIALLY started in the spring of 1977 probably around April-May. I say OFFICIALLY because back in 1980, John Romita, Sr. who was still drawing the entire strip at that time called me and asked if I had the time to ghost lay out some Sunday strips for him since he was incredibly busy with everything else he had on his plate for Marvel. John lived (and still lives, I believe) in the town next to mine on Long Island when I was there and I actually met him about 10 years earlier since I was in high school with his sons. (that’s right, I went to high school with JR, Jr.— he IS four years younger than me to the day and when I was a senior he was a freshman and today looks 20 years younger than me!) I was in a club in school with the older son Victor who over time found out I was interested in drawing comics and came to me one day and said “… my father draws comics — would you like to meet him?” Of course I knew that but I would never impose. We met soon after that. What happened after that is another story!

BACK TO THE STRIP: I did at least 4 Sunday layouts for John on vellum tracing paper and he took it to the next level and beyond yet saving him a ton of time. I was really happy and excited just to be called to assist him, first of all, and then get the privilege and honor of working with one of my comic book artist “heroes." IDW just recently published that volume of reprints and it was fun to see our collaborations again.

FORWARD to 1997: Ralph Macchio at Marvel calls me up and asks if I would be interested in penciling the Spider-Man Sunday strip since fill-in penciler, old time artist Fred Kida wanted to leave. Of course I agreed — I would get to work directly with Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott! I put a package together of my Web Of Spider-Man and Spider-Man Adventures books and sent them to Stan. His assistant Mike Kelly called a few days later and said Stan liked the work but wanted to see how I would handle a “horizontal” strip in a six panel grid format. I admit, I was a bit surprised by that request since with my 20 years of experience at that time I figured I showed what I can do in just the comic books. But I went ahead and penciled a six panel episode of an encounter with Spider-Man saving J Jonah Jameson from a few muggers with the end panel having an ungrateful JJJ waving his fist at Spidey as he swung away from the scene. I sent that in and a few days after returning home from running errands I found a message from Stan Lee on my answering machine. “Hi, Alex… this is Stan Lee. I LOVE your work and I’d love to work with you. It doesn’t pay that much but think of the GLORY!” Actually the page rate was as much as I was making at the time so I couldn’t complain. No raise in 22 years (but from what I understand things haven't changed that much for mainstream freelancers even today.) I got my first script a few days later and in May 1977 I penciled a Sunday in the middle of a Kingpin storyline which was inked by Joe Sinnott , lettered by Stan Sakai and was published in August 1977. Sundays were always drawn 3 months ahead of publication. What a rush to see those preview Xeroxes and then the colored version in the newspaper (which I had to hunt down! There were no papers in Florida where I lived carrying the strip but the local Barnes & Noble sold out of town newspapers so I managed to find one that published the Sundays).

FORWARD to Feb 2003: Got a call asking me if I could ink a week of Dailies drawn by Larry Lieber because inker John Tartaglione needed to go to the hospital for a procedure. John ended up being OK after that week but I had a blast inking Larry’s pencils since I really never inked anybody else other my own pencils for my Web Of Spider-Man covers. Sadly that November, I got a call that John Tartaglione had passed away at 82 because he lost the fight with his particular illness. At the same time I was asked if I would be able to take over the inking of the Dailies. Affirmative….

FORWARD to July 2018: Larry Lieber wants to retire at 87 after 25+ years (maybe 30+?) and I inherit the penciling duties! Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I thought the Stan Lee would live forever especially since a few years ago when he got his pacemaker. He said he was the next Tony Stark and felt stronger than ever. Unfortunately and sadly as we all know, that didn't happen and Marvel decided the strip shouldn’t go on without STAN LEE at the helm. But I am forever in Stan Lee’s debt for having me join him, Joe Sinnott, Roy Thomas and letterers Stan Sakai, Kenny Lopez, and Janice Chiang for all these years in bringing our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to our readers each and every day for these months and years! It’s been a joy, an honor and privilege which I will never forget!