"Death Reign of the Vampire King"
A 1975 reprint of a 1935 pulp. With Conan doing so well in new editions with Frazetta covers a lot of the old pulps were ripe for repackaging. The Spider was one of them. He was very much like the Shadow and the Green Hornet complete with a Kato-like valet and sidekick. I started rereading it, and it's obvious to me that Bob Kane must have read a few Spider pulps before he cooked up Batman.
The 1975 cover dropped the Spider's theatrical costume designed to strike terror into the hearts of criminals in favor of depicting a generic gun-toting adventurer which made it appear to be more like a James Bond or Destoyer novel. It's more like Doc Savage than Ian Fleming. It's pulp at its pulpiest.
The illustrator's painting looks like Darren McGavin.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Spider
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