Where is "The Spider"?

[Shonokin]

from "The Norvell Page page"

	Quote:
	There may have been a Spider radio show as well. There was an ad for a radio show, airing on KMOX in St. Louis in The Spider August 1935. According to the ad, it was to air every Thursday at 6:30 Central Standard Time. Unfortunately, the radio show was never mentioned before or since in the pages of The Spider. Interestingly enough, it is possible that Lee Falk, creator of The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, could have scripted the show--he was working as a writer at KMOX at the time. Unfortunately, there seems to be no proof that the show ever aired. It could have been a project that died before it reached the air. At the moment it seems that only a search of St. Louis radio schedules from July and August of 1935 would show if there was ever actually a Spider radio show.

Carroll & Graf republished 16 The Spider stories in 8 pocketbook sized paperbacks. You can get the full set for a steal at http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pulpfi...ckReprints.php

[Gregg]

Girasol Collectables has a nice series of "Pulp Double" reprints, formatted very much like Sanctum Books' Shadow reprints.

As for the "apocalyptic" nature of the Spider stories (and that might very well have been me, talking about Android Assassins, which it tried to give a Spider-esque flair in the scope of the crimes)... but at any rate, I offer this from Don Hutchison's excelent book The Great Pulp Heroes:

	Quote:
	...the Spider tread boldy in the Shadow's footprints, but wielded an even bigger schtick. Page quickly dispensed with Scott's mild plotlines and plunged deliriously into a mad netherworld threatened by masterfiends as bent as boomerangs. To state that he brought a level of emotional intensity to the Spider's world of death, torture and apocalyptic terror is raw understatement... This approach to the Pulp Hero formula -- the sheer magnitude of the villain's crimes and his utter disregard for human life -- was an element that typified the Spider epics of the 1930s... One story alone ("The City Destroyer," January 1935) began with the destruction of the Empire State Building and Grand Central Station, then went on to polish off Brooklyn Bridge and the New York subway system along with miscellaneous real estate and the usual cast of hundreds of thousands of screaming extras.

Although that's what I love about the Spider, it's also why I find I get fatigued of the series quickly. Sometimes I wish he'd just catch some art thieves or something. But then he really wouldn't be the Spider, would he?