On the heels of the success of Street and Smith’s The Shadow, Popular Publications brought another black hat and black cape wearing hero to the pulps — The Spider, Master of Men! He was the seventh pulp character to get his own magazine.

Readers met another “wealthy, young man-about-town” who in reality was a crimebuster, Richard Wentworth, in “The Spider Strikes,” October 1933.

Initially penned by R.T.M. Smith, The Spider’s exploits began as run-of-the-mill battles against typical racketeers and criminal masterminds.

But that changed as quickly as the author’s name on the magazine’s cover. Beginning with the third issue, December 1933, Grant Stockbridge was credited with the writing and The Spider’s adventures began to take on mythic proportions. His struggles pitted him against foes such as “The Mad Horde,” “The City Destroyer,” “Serpent of Destruction” and “The Devil’s Death Dwarfs.” And, the character of The Spider changed from simply a nickname for detective Wentworth into a shocking, caped and fanged wild man that Wentworth dressed up as.

During this time, Norvell W. Page took the reigns as head writer. He shared the Stockbridge monicker with four other writers, including Emile Tepperman.

In the adventures, Wentworth was aided chiefly by the lovely Nita Van Sloan, his trusted Hindu servant Ram Singh and his chauffeur Ronald Jackson. And, Inspector Kirkpatrick unwittingly helped out during The Spider’s 118-issue run from 1933 to 1944.

Links

The pulp magazine newsgroup

You can find discussions of The Spider, and other pulp characters, in this newsgroup. (If your internet service provider doesn't offer access to this newsgroup, access it through Google Groups.)

The Spider Returns

Chris Kalb has put a year’s effort into the ultimate site on The Spider. Everything you’d care to know about the Master of Men is here, plus some extras, such as essays and articles on collecting and protecting pulp magazines. It’s Chris’ second Spider site (the first is still online and worth a look). Chris, you may recall, is proprietor of the 86th Floor — the Doc Savage site. The Spider Returns is an outstanding resource. Don’t miss it.

The Spider’s Web page

Tom Powers offers information on the pulp Spider and the serial Spider, plus a personal essay on the character and an original poem “The Web of The Spider.” Look for a lot of good information about the serial.

The Spider bibliography

As mentioned elsewhere at TPN, this Geocities site provides a complete bibliography of The Spider and other pulp characters. It used to housed at the SF-Lovers’ site.

Background and authors

The Vintage Library, an online business selling pulp material, offers a rundown on the Master of Men and his authors.

Best of The Spider

Besides covers, lists and such, Tomi Vaisala republishes the results of Will Murray’s survey of the best Spider stories.

Bold Venture reprints

Rich Harvey’s Bold Venture Press picks up where Pulp Adventures Press, below, left off with new trade paperback reprints of The Spider. The high-quality reprints include original cover and interior art, as well as The Spider story and some backup features.

Rafael M. DeSoto

Rafael DeSoto’s artwork graced numerous pulp magazine covers, including notably those of The Spider. There’s not much on the DeSoto Web site now, but the site is under development, so keep an eye on it.

R.A. Maguire Cover Art

Robert Maguire is chiefly known for his cover paintings for the paperback books that supplanted the pulps as cheap popular fiction. But if you burrow down into this site, established by his daughter Lynn, you’ll find the original references photos of Steve Holland that Maguire used when he painted the covers for the Pocket Books reprints of The Spider.

Pulp covers

Tomi Vaisala has posted several covers of The Spider pulps.

The Spider meets the Lynx

The Lynx has culled a variety of pulp cover scans from around the Web and posted them by catagory at this site. You'll find galleries of covers from The Shadow, The Spider, Black Mask, The Phantom Detective, Amazing Stories, Startling Stories, Weird Tales and more.

Pulp covers

Here is Chris Ragaisis' collection of pulp character images, including a couple of Spider pulp covers.

The Spider for sale

Here’s a chance to purchase electronic copies of some of The Spider’s adventures. They are offered for sale by the Vintage Library.

The Spider’s Web page

Look for a lot of good information on the two Spider serials, including cast lists and plot descriptions and plenty of photographs, at Tom Powers’ Spider site.

The Internet Movie Database

Find out about The Spider’s film serial adventures at the Internet Movie Database:

• The Spider’s Web (1938)

• The Spider Returns (1941)