The Spider
Here would be a 1-3 sentence summary of the pulp magazine.
Background
At first glance, The Spider looked like Popular Publication’s knockoff of ShadowThe The Shadow: black hat and cloak, blazing pistols and a maniacal laugh. But that’s where the similarities ended.
The SpiderThanks to author PageNorvell Norvell Page, writing under the name StockbridgeGrant Grant Stockbridge, The Spider took a decidedly weirder avenue than The Shadow. Whereas The Shadow battled more realistic villains, The Spider took on whole “Legions of the Accursed Light,” “Satan’s Sightless Legions,” “Dictator’s Death Merchants,” “Volunteer Corpse Brigade” and scores of other nightmarish evildoers.
The first two Spider novels, credited to ScottRTM R.T.M. Scott, took a more mainstream approach, with The Spider actually being a nickname for playboy detective Richard Wentworth. The villains were more mundane.
With the third issue, Page took over the writing duties and took The Spider pulp in a totally different direction. The Spider became Wentworth’s alter ego: a hunchbacked maniac who dressed in wild wig and fake fangs and terrorized the underworld.
Aiding The Spider were Wentworth’s perennial fiance Nita Van Sloan, his trusted Sikh manservant Ram Singh and butler Ronald Jackson. Though The Spider was wanted by the law, police inspector Kirkpatrick often unwittingly provided information to The Spider through his friend Wentworth.
The Spider was the seventh character pulp. It appeared with the October 1933 issue and continued for 117 issues more, until 1944.
The editors
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