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Annette Vellurattil Ms. Bell English IV, Period 6 30 August 2013 Spiderman Essay Superheroes are known by everyone. Everyone has their own favorite one as well. Spider is a favorite amongst many people. Spiderman seemed like an interesting character due to the fact that he just got bit by a spider and turned into a superhero. He also had a sad past and his future did not look so good but then one thing happened and that changed his whole life. Everyday is a struggle for him because he has to face a new challenge almost everyday. 1. History of Comic Books Comics began in the late 1800s. In 1895, the New York World began publishing many comics by Richard Outcault, who created the character The Yellow Kid. Richard then got hired by New York Journals. Then Joseph Pulitzer, owner of New York World, hired George Luks to draw his own Yellow Kid. By 1987, Rudolph Dirks started his comic, The Katzenjammer Kids. It is still going on today and is one of the oldest comics. In 1907, Little Nemo in Slumberland, written by Winsor McCay, starts appearing in the New York Herald. This was the first comic with a continuing series, it is also known as one of the most richly illustrated comic strips of all time. In 1907, Mutt and Jeff became one the most successful daily comic. After being known as a comic, it gets made into a series of films in 1913. The strips were published until 1982.

Vellurattil 2 In 1913, a comic called Krazy Kat started into its own strip by writer and artist George Herriman. The strip was never really popular but it did have a small active time. Thankfully, William Randolph Hearst carried the strip on until Herrimans death in 1944. In between that time, in 1914 Rube Goldberg produced comics called Automatic Weight Reducing Machine was published in the New York Evening Mail. Action comics started to come about around 1938. The first superhero to be known was Superman. This character was a major hit and many more superheroes were to follow. In 1939, Batman made it into Detective Comics. Timely Comics then released Marvel Comics. Timely was eventually named Marvel. In 1940, DC Comics presented Alan Scott, the creator of Green Lantern. In 1941, Steve Rogers has come to be known as Captain America. This was also when DC Comics introduced Wonder Woman. Another character that was introduced was Archie Andrews, who made his first appearance in Pep Comics. In 1945, the published changed his from MLJ Comics to Archie Comics. By 1947, Uncle Scrooge by Donald Duck made its first comic book appearance. In 1961, Marvel released, The Fantastic Four. Then by 1961, it released two more superheroes: Spiderman and The Hulk. Archie Comics also starts the series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. This was also when Marvel started creating mutants like X-Men. In 1964, Daredevil appears in own Marvel Comics. DC Comics had Teen Titans make their first appearance including Aqualad, Robin, and Wonder Girl. By the time 2010 came, Digital comics became available online. As stated by comicalliance.com, graphic novel sales fell 20 percent in 2010. (Ross, Shmuel, Comics Timeline, Infoplease.com).

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2. Superhero History Spiderman is a fictional character mostly seen in the Marvel Comics. He has many different nicknames like spidey, web-slinger, or web-crawler. When Spiderman first launched, he was thought of as a protagonist or a sidekick not as a superhero. Spiderman is now one of the most successful superheroes. At Marvel Company, he was given the name friendly neighborhood hero. Spiderman was started when Steve Ditko, the creator of Spiderman, also created Peter Parker. Peter was an orphan who lived with his aunt and uncle. He was a lonely boy until one day he gets bit by a radioactive spider and has his life changed forever. Spider man learned that with all this power came great responsibility. Despite being Spiderman, Peter has to help his aunt pay rent while trying to keep away from his enemy Flash. He soon realizes how hard it is to juggle his personal life and being Spiderman. After Peter graduates from high school, he enrolls in a fictional college named Empire State University. He meets his roommate Harry and eventually gets a girlfriend named Gwen. When Harry starts to take drugs, he learns that Harrys father is Green Goblin, so he decides to stop being Spiderman for a while. He realizes that he needs to learn to hide his identity better than how he was hiding it before. Spiderman experienced problems with friends and family. In the 1962, Spiderman was known to fight for one reason and that was because of the death of his uncle Ben. He fights because he knows that he could have prevented that death from happening. Even though he tries to help, people view him as a bad person and think of him more as a criminal than a hero that saves lives daily. (Bremner, Robyn, The Next Big Thing: Spider-Man: Big Time, Marvel.com).

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3. Writer / Artist History The creator of Spiderman is Steve Ditko. He is best known for being the artist and writer of Spiderman comics. He was born on November 2, 1927. He started by studying with the help of the Batman artist, Jerry Robinson. He started working professionally in 1953 as in inker. During the 1950s he drew for Atlas comics. Then he went on to work for Marvel, which included co-creating Spiderman which became a big hit. He also created Doctor Strange, The Incredible Hulk, even Iron Man. Later on he left Marvel for no specific reason. Ditko then worked for DC Comics, where he continued to create other fictional characters. Steve partnered with Stan Lee while making the Spiderman comics. He met Lee in 1955 while he was working for Atlas Comics. Ditko and Lee shortly released the Hulk series beginning with issue number 60 in October 1964. Ditko also sketched Iron Man to feature in one their comics in November 1963 to January 1964. Steve then started working at Charlton and with Lee. In Charlton there were plenty of gigs available. Then, in 1958 Jack Kirby started working for Ditko. Steves original leading artist was Jack Kirby. For a few decades, Ditko worked at both Charlton and with Marvel/Atlas Comic. Most of the characters and concepts were written by Lee himself. This caused a rising competition between DC comics. Ditko eventually mainly worked on Spiderman and Dr. Strange with other Marvel projects while Kirby worked on his six main Marvel books. Besides some brief work, like creating a cover for the Hulk, Ditko made no regular appearances on any Marvel events until the mid 80s. Steve moved to DC Comics in 1968, where he continued to create different comics. Ditko retired in 1998.Since then he worked strictly independently. (Heer, Jeet, Steve Ditko, Jeetheer.com).

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4. Summary Now here is a summary of the Amazing Spiderman. This comic book was one of the first comic books to be made about Spiderman. It starts when Peter Parker, a lonely high school student, gets bit by a radioactive spider. A few days later, he starts gaining different powers, strength, and speed. He soon learns that he is able to shoot webs out of his hands as well. He soon becomes a TV sensation. One day while coming out of a TV studio, he does not stop an escaping burglar. He let his greed get the best of him and that cost him a lot. A few days later he finds out that his Uncle Ben had been shot and so he goes out and tries to find the murderer. He figures out that it was the burglar that he let escape. He then realizes that with all the power he has comes great responsibility. He realized that if he did not help people when they needed it, then there is no use to his powers. Each comic book had different things happening in them. Each comic also had enemies and characters. In each comic, Peter is facing new challenges and learning how to embrace his powers and strengths. In the comic it shows how fast he has to transition from being a normal man to a hero whenever or wherever he is needed. He tries to never let any crime just go past him like he did the other time. He knows that a life is on the line and that if he sees trouble he needs to help no matter what. In the comic that I read, it was when Spider man was trying to kill Doctor Octopus. It talks about how the Doctor went a little overboard with an experiment and it blew up the lab. During the explosion, he absorbed too much radiation and started to change. He thinks he has so much power that he can go out and do anything. Now it is up to Spiderman to go and stop him.

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5. Review My review on this comic is that it should be read by others. If a person has only seen Spiderman movies, they will not know the roots in which he came from. The old comic books really give you a flashback on how Spiderman started. Although they do not sell the comic books anymore, they can be found online. I have found out that in each volume there are a certain number of comic books available. I just happen to have chosen The Amazing Spiderman. Each one has its own enemies that Spiderman has to fight off. The Spiderman comics did have short period of brake. They kept it going as long as they could, but it could not last. After all these Spiderman movies came out, there was no real need for the comics because people would rather watch the movie. Each year in the making brought different ideas to the writers. They each kind of fed off each other as well in order to keep the sequence going. They created new enemies to keep the books interesting. I would recommend that everyone read this comic because it is different than watching the movie. In fact, I am sure that all the Spiderman comics are great because of the way they are written. The comic book has better humor and is definitely going to be loved by action hunters. It is fun to read and is easy to read. It may seem like a childish thing to do, but everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I have grown to like this issue of the Spiderman comics. The pictures really add to the comic making it so that you dont loose interest. If you think you might not really enjoy reading comics you have to check out this one before you come to the conclusion that you do not like reading comics. I dont have anything negative to say about this comic. I thought this comic was worth my time to read. Although its hard to find this comic at any store, it is still out on different websites that offer comic books.

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Work Cited 1. Ross, Shmuel. "Comics Timeline." Infoplease.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2013. 2. Bremner, Robyn. "The Next Big Thing: Spider-Man: Big Time." Marvel.com. N.p., 27 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Aug. 2013. 3. Heer, Jeet. "Steve Ditko." Jeetheer.com. N.p., 03 May 2003. Web. 28 Aug. 2013. 4. Lee, Stan. (w), Ditko, Steve (a). "Amazing Spider-Man." Comic strip. Amazing Spider-Man. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York: Marvel Comics, 1963. Print.

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