Sunday, November 14, 2010

Art Gallery: The Spider - Reign of the Vampire King (1992)



8 comments:

Deka Black said...

I fear to ask... but, this covers are from the 1990's comic limited series? Good covers, and good clothing, but is not the image i would use with the Master of Men, to tell the truth.

From what i know, if the covers are from the said comic book, some changes would make Norvell Page resurrect in anger.

Deka Black said...

Almost forgot. A sword? The Spider don't need a sword! Well, in The Spider Strikes Wentworth uses a sword cane, but is not the same thing. Oh, and City of Flaming Shadows too. But is a sword cane, too

Randy Johnson said...

Was this an attempt to turn him into a straight superhero type?

Charles Gramlich said...

I have this book in a collection of three SPider novels. I'd rather have had these covers though. Pretty cool.

Evan Lewis said...

Yeah, this was a strange attempt at giving Richard Wentworth the superhero treatment. It's hard to hate them, because I always like Tim Truman's work. There were three earlier issues (also a trilogy) of this comic book done a year earlier. I'll be posting those covers soon.

This story was based on the pulp novel "Death Reign of the Vampire King," which has been reprinted a couple of times. The first time was in a series of paperbacks that tried to make Wentworth look like a cross between 007 and the Executioner. In those, the text was revised to give him modern weapons and cars. Pfui.

Deka Black said...

WHAT? They modified the original text? Now i know i want to get the replicas or the reprints from people like Age of Aces.

Ann Littlewood said...

Where's Charlotte?

shonokin said...

Never understood the need to rejigger the look of an established hero. I guess the Spider might be seen as ambiguous since he's described one way in the books but a larger portion of the covers portray him differently. Though The Spider is my favorite pulp when Page is at the helm, honestly the frightwig with putty nose and fangs never really did it for me.

This comic interpretation was pretty over the top. I have this comic but never really had the patience to read through it.

BTW, I totally missed out on the Ken Carter collection until I noticed your review at amazon this morning. Thanks for the great review as it totally sold me on it.