Background
The Spider was created by Harry Steeger at Popular Publications in 1933 as competition to Street and Smith Publications' vigilante hero, the Shadow. Similar to the character of The Shadow, the Spider was in actuality millionaire playboy Richard Wentworth (who had been a Major in World War One), living in New York and unaffected by the Great Depression. Wentworth fought crime by donning a black cape, slouch hat. Later came vampiric makeup or face mask and a hunchback figure with grizzled hair to terrorize the criminal underworld with extreme prejudice and his own brand of vigilante justice. In the Harold Lloyd film Dr Jack (1921), Lloyd in the main role adopts the same appearance. Wentworth also went forth into the Underworld at times disguised as small time villain, Blinky McQuade, to gain information.
The stories often involved a bizarre menace and a criminal conspiracy and were often extremely violent, with the villains engaging in wanton slaughter of literally thousands as part of sometimes nationwide crimes. The first two novels were written by Reginald Thomas Maitland Scott but they were slow paced so another author was drafted in with later stories were published under a house name, Grant Stockbridge. Most of the Spider novels were written by Norvell Page. Other authors of the Spider novels included Emile C. Tepperman, Wayne Rogers, Prentice Winchell, and Donald C. Cormack. The cover artists for the Spider magazine were Walter M. Baumhofer for the debut issue, followed by John Newton Howitt and Rafael De Soto. The Spider was published monthly and ran for 118 issues from 1933 to 1943. A 119th Spider novel manuscript had been completed but was not published until decades later, then as a rewritten mass-market paperback (see paperback novels section, below).
Read more about this topic: Spider (pulp Fiction)
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