Working at Marvel Comics has been a job dreamed of by so many young people, every since the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and the original Avengers made it the cool, connected, offbeat place it was in the Marvel Age. Virtually every one who came to work there, from the late 60's onward, was a massive fan of some (or nearly all) Marvel character. So here's the story about one of those young people. (And here is Glam rocker Marc Bolan- who once interviewed Stan Lee for a BBC show-holding the first comic scripted by DAK! Yeah!) Stream or download, and happy 2019! DAK: Everyone likes to use the phrase, “break into comics”- but I like to say, I was invited. Not that I wouldn’t have broken in! Lue: You already had taken on work, in high school, as a literary agent for the work of pulp writer Otis Adelbert Kline. You simply wrote, expressed some knowledge and interest- boom, you got it. DAK: I put an inquiry to see if I could work for Marvel. One day, I went ...

The image of Spider-Man most seen in toys and other 1960s, ‘70’s and 1980s merchandise was not usually derived from his rather creepy, gangly, unique look from his visual creator, Ditko, but rather, the more formulaic interpretation by Marvel’s art director, his second regular artist, John Romita. (And yes, his first-ever appearance in the throwaway Amazing Fantasy #15 was on a cover drawn by the other Marvel legend, Jack Kirby. By that count, it was the third time that was the charm, commercially.) I’ve been, in absence of sleep between part-time job shifts, flipping through Ditko’s last issues of Amazing Spider-Man, anticipating something to say for this essay, which tells the story of the passing of the torch (or web shooters) to Marvel’s new hire, John Romita, better known at this point for drawing the kinds of popular romance comics that, until recent years, not one in a hundred collectors sought anymore. The newest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, as #27, under the current num...