Listen, Bud

The Spider-Man Project

A close-reading of the first great graphic novel in American
literature. 

"Perhaps the most detailed study of a comic book ever attempted; will be to The Amazing Spider-Man what Revolution in the Head is to the Beatles."

"You may think you love these comics. But Rilstone loves them more and has spent longer thinking about them than you have." 

"Whether it's Flash Thompson's honour code; the connection between Jonah Jameson and Stanley Baldwin or all the times Stan Lee wrote a caption without understanding the pictures Rilstone will point out things about Spider-Man you never noticed before." (*)





Steve Ditko 1927 -2018

Stan Lee 1922 - 2018


Prologue


How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created Spider-Man

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Amazing Fantasy #15


1963

Spider-Man - Freak! Public Menace!

Spider-Man vs The Chameleon

Duel to Death With the Vulture

Spider-Man vs Doctor Octopus, the Strangest Foe of All Time

Nothing Can Stop - The Sandman!

Marked For Destruction by Doctor Doom

Face to face with the Lizard

The Return of the Vulture


Interlude


1964

The Terrible Threat of the Living Brain

What is Flash Thompson's problem with Peter Parker?

Peter Parker's glasses as a clue to the meaning of the Marvel Universe

Spider-Man Tackles The Torch

In the neighborhood

A Man Called Electro

The Enforcers

Why Does J.J.J Hate Spider-Man?

Turning Point

Unmasked By Doctor Octopus

The Menace of Mysterio

1973: A Spider Odyssey I Week ending March 17, 1973

1973: A Spider Odyssey II Spider-Man Comics Weekly #5

1973: A Spider Odyssey III Amazing Spider-Man #13

The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin

Kraven the Hunter

Duel with Daredevil

The Sinister Six (I)

The Sinister Six (II)

Why is Doctor Octopus Spider-Man's Greatest Foe?

The Return of the Green Goblin

The End of Spider-Man

Spidey Strkes Back


1965

The Long 1965

The Coming of the Scorpion

Where Flies the Beetle

The Clown And His Masters of Menace

The Strange Case of Ditko's Feet

The Goblin and the Gangsters

Spider-Man Goes Mad

Appendix

Captured by J. Jonah Jameson

The Man in the Crime Master's Mask

The Menace of the Molten Man

Bright college days...

Never Step on a Scorpion

The Tables Turned

The Claws of the Cat

Twenty Weeks In Spring

I'm For No More Love

The Very Famous Master Planner Trilogy

If This Be My Destiny

Man on a Rampage

The Final Chapter  I

The Final Chapter II

The Final Chapter III


1966

The Last Days of Dangling Plot Thread Woman

Continuing to Dangle

The Thrill of the Hunt

The Molten Man Regrets

Where Falls the Meteor

Once Upon a Time There Was a Robot

The Curious Afterlife of Ben Parker

How Green Was My Goblin

The Insoluble Problem of the Green Goblin


Appendix

The Leopard From Lime Street

A serious but unsuccessful attempt to engage with Ayn Rand (I)

A serious by unsuccessful attempt to engage with Ayn Rand (II)

If you would like Andrew to complete this mammoth undertaking, please consider backing him on Patreon. If every regular reader pledged just $1 a month, this would be as good as a 10% pay rise..

(*) The kinds of things that I think people ought to be saying about the project: