Jazzy

I haven't posted any comics stuff in a while, but I been reading. In fact I have embarked on a fairly large comic book project I had been contemplating for a while.

I'm reading Amazing Spider-Man #39 - 125. Spider-scholars everywhere will immediately recognize that as more or less the initial "Jazzy" John Romita run (there are some issues mixed through-out contributed by other awesome dudes like Gil Kane, a post for another day...). Penciled by JR they were of course written by Stan the Man.

These are great comics. Arguably the high-point of the web-heads long and storied career. Not to take anything away from the incredible kick-off penciled by Steve Ditko, but I feel like Marvel, Stan and Spidey just kept getting better and better throughout this period.

I actually started reading Spidey right around #130 (so just after the JR run). The year was 1974 and I was just learning to read. The stories in the JR run were constantly flashed back to and referenced but were not necessarily all in reprints. So while the first dozen or so ASMs I have read and re-read over and over again as part of reprint collections, these stories not so much.

I just finished #50 "Spider-Man No More", one of the highlights I had read before and it was as good as I remembered.

That particular issue of course reminds me just how influential JR's run was on the Sam Raimi films, much to Mr. Raimi's credit. He really gets Spider-Man and these issues in particular.

After I finish up these books I will take a break from Spider-Man for awhile, but eventually I might plot out one of these read-a-thons for John Romita Jr.'s run on Spider-Man. He also put his own cool graphic spin on web-head literature.

...back to reading, True Believers!