|
|
YOUR TIME MACHINE TO THE PAST!
Contact Us: Swapsale@aol.com
THE SPIDER
A LOOK AT THE PULPS
The Spider was the violent, relentless hero of a pulp magazine series produced by Popular Publications from 1933 to 1943. There were 118 stories in the pulps and another one, "Slaughter Incorporated" was published privately. It had been previously published under the title "Blue Steel" by Spider Page (a.k.a. Donald Cormack) with all the names changed. Often the adventure in a Spider pulp would start on page one of a story and would go full speed to its conclusion where on the last page, the villain would be killed then unmasked. The Spider was billed as the "Master of Men" on the covers of the pulps.
Created by Henry "Harry" Steeger as competition to Street and Smith Publications' The Shadow, and at first written by R.T.M. Scott. Several years earlier Scott had written seven fast paced books from 1923-1947 about a character named Secret Service Smith who was probably the role model for the character of The Spider as he chased after deadly criminals. Like Wentworth, Smith had a faithful Indian servant (Langa Doonh) who was deadly with his long knife and would say "Han sahib!" to Smith. The books were "Secret Service Smith", 1926 "The Black Magician", 1926 "Ann's Crime" and in 1928 "Aurelius Smith : Detective". In 1936, "Murder Stalks The Mayor" followed, 1946 came "The Agony Column Murders" and in 1947 "The Nameless Ones". They were book length stories except for the fourth, a collection of twelve stories of Smith. Other stories remained only available in original pulp magazines. Scott also wrote in 1935 "The Mad Monk" which was not a Smith book.
http://www.spiritone.com/~maxpax/pulp.htm
Under Scott, The Spider began as a mysterious, but uncostumed, avenger who operated after the fashion of a secret agent. After two issues, the series was handed over to Norvell Page, who wrote under the house pen name Grant Stockbridge. Page's changes included making Ram Singh a burly, bombastic Sikh, and giving The Spider a 'public' persona: a disguise that made Wentworth look like a cloaked, slouch-hatted and hunchbacked 'monster' with a fright wig, hooked nose, bushy brows and fanged teeth. This disguise may have been copied from a 1921 Harold Lloyd film, Dr Jack where Lloyd dressed up in 'exactly the same disguise' as The Spider later wore, though other sources say it may have been a blending of John Barrymore's Mr. Hyde and Lon Chaney's vampire from London After Midnight. This character had been one of Wentworth's earlier aliases, Tito Caliepi who he used as an alias in "The Citadel of Hell", pretending to be a street violinist while on the run from criminals. He dropped this as an alias and used it for The Spider to make himself more fearsome. Another alias was Limpy Magee, a man with a heavy limp who owned a small shop where he fenced stuff for the Underworld and under whose guise he could listen in on conversations between crooks and pick up Underworld gossip. While this scuttling horror of the hunchback graced the ink sketches illustrating the inside of the magazine, it only graced a few of the covers. Most of the magazine's covers muted The Spider's look by depicting him in cloak, slouch hat and a black domino mask, akin to the mask of The Lone Ranger. In one of the early Page stories, before Wentworth created the 'vampiric' disguise, The Spider wore a full-face "curtain" mask with eyeholes. Unlike The Shadow, which focused on mystery, The Spider stories focused on frenetic action and desperation, with Wentworth battling to foil some of the most vile and sadistic villains in pulp history. Probably the most violent and action-packed of any of the major pulp series, The Spider has a gritty feel whose appeal seems ironically fitted to the modern age, despite when the stories were written.[1]
For more covers and info go here: http://homepage.mac.com/cdkalb/spider/pulps/covers/1933.html
http://homepage.mac.com/cdkalb/spider/
http://www.empirecollectibles.com/pulp.html
Richard Wentworth was a wealthy socialite and amateur detective, who lived in a penthouse and had previously served in WWI. Wentworth led a double life as The Spider, a mysterious and fearsome vigilante who killed criminals and stamped their foreheads with the seal of a crimson spider. He had many doubts and fears but when in the guise of The Spider he fought fearlessly and relentlessly in a two-gun battle against evil, often being injured or wounded, even near to death as he dodged in and out of life or death situations. In the 100th issue, "Death and The Spider" (January 1942), it was prophesied that The Spider would die and Wentworth believed it, but he made it through alive.
Wentworth was aided by his fiancé, Nita Van Sloan. She featured in his deadliest adventures, sometimes fighting side by side with The Spider and even impersonating him when he was out of action (First in "Master of the Death-Madness", August 1935). In "Spider and the Slaves of Hell" (July 1939) she works under her own masked identity as The Black Widow. She and Wentworth were lovers but knew that they could not marry, as Wentworth believed that he would eventually be unmasked or killed as The Spider and his wife would suffer for it. Several times they almost married in lulls between super-criminal activity, only for some crisis to occur and bring them back to the status quo.[2]
His Sikh (originally Hindu) manservant Ram Singh was a deadly knife thrower. Though Ram Singh referred to Wentworth as "the Master", he is not an employee but happily serving someone who was the greatest warrior he had ever known and would have laid down his life for him, as he knew Wentworth would have done for him in turn.[3]
There were two movie serials produced about The Spider. They maintained the character of The Spider and his assistants fairly well with the police chasing them as well as the crooks. Commissioner Kirkpatrick was for unknown reasons changed to Commissioner Kirk. There was more hand to hand combat, as in common in serials, with a death trap to be escaped at the end of each chapter before the final unmasking in the last episode.
 | The Spider’s Web (1938) |
| The Spider Returns (1941) |
These were 15-chapter cliffhangers produced by Columbia Pictures, and starring Warren Hull as Richard Wentworth. The film depiction had The Spider wearing a web-patterned black cloak and full-head hood which nowadays looks closer to Spider-Man's costume rather than the pulp 'monster' image. These are not currently available on the home video market. They are available on the video collector market.
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------