Do you have a favorite BEHIND THE SCENES Spider-Man Story

[arosenbarger]

Been a Spider-Man geek for over 25 years, and I find the behind the scenes stories almost as interesting as Spider-Man himself. Regardless if its the real reasoning Ditko left the book, the decision to kill Gwen Stacy (CBR had an article on this decision), reaction to Kraven's suicide, Tom Defalco (one of the most underappreciated ASM writers, in my opinion)'s departure from his mid 80s run, the clone saga, Peter's "Parents," fans have a soap opera of drama at their disposal (thinking of the Untold Tale of Marvel Comics, Creators on Spider-Man, various internet articles).

Turning to my fellow Spider-Man geeks - I have to ask - what is your favorite Spider-Man behind the scenes stories? What questions regarding BTS would you love answered?

Thank you and take care,
Andrew

[Rob London]

I'm fond of one of the less-dramatic behind-the-scenes stories - Tom DeFalco buying a set of Safari Cards and using them as inspiration for new villains. Read about it here.

[Michael24]

I honestly don't know too many, but as a Todd McFarlane fan, I always get a laugh out of his story about Tom DeFalco's frustrations over his changes to Spidey's webbing.

DeFalco: "Would you stop with those... those... spaghetti webs!"
McFarlane: "Oh, great, now I've got a name for them!"

LOL! The way he told it in one particular video was perfectly funny.

[arosenbarger]

I'm fond of one of the less-dramatic behind-the-scenes stories - Tom DeFalco buying a set of Safari Cards and using them as inspiration for new villains. Read about it here.

Good point

[Mister Mets]

Roger Stern came up with the idea for "The Kid Who Collects Spider-man" fully-formed. He was worried that it was a silver age DC story he had remembered, so he had to ask other comics pros if they remembered a Superman story like that.

[normanosborn]

It's been a while so I can't remember who wrote it, but the series of articles called Life Of Reilly exploring what went on in the offices during the Clone Saga is a fascinating read! It explains that quite a few things were just as confusing to the creators as they were to the readers. Like someone just decided to add that skeleton to the smoke stack without coming up with any resolution for this side plot, and Norman was obviously retconned to be the mastermind behind it all as a last resort. The single worst decision during the time was the resurrection of Aunt May IMO, but they just wanted to get the whole thing over and back to the status quo.

[RobertMacQuarrie1]

It's been a while so I can't remember who wrote it, but the series of articles called Life Of Reilly exploring what went on in the offices during the Clone Saga is a fascinating read! It explains that quite a few things were just as confusing to the creators as they were to the readers. Like someone just decided to add that skeleton to the smoke stack without coming up with any resolution for this side plot, and Norman was obviously retconned to be the mastermind behind it all as a last resort. The single worst decision during the time was the resurrection of Aunt May IMO, but they just wanted to get the whole thing over and back to the status quo.

It's things like the Life of Reilly blog that makes me wonder what really goes on behind the scenes in the industry the whole time. LoR really shows that while the creators may say they have everything worked out and are on top of everything and everyone is working great together, the reality may be a lot different.

[Mister Mets]

It's been a while so I can't remember who wrote it, but the series of articles called Life Of Reilly exploring what went on in the offices during the Clone Saga is a fascinating read! It explains that quite a few things were just as confusing to the creators as they were to the readers. Like someone just decided to add that skeleton to the smoke stack without coming up with any resolution for this side plot, and Norman was obviously retconned to be the mastermind behind it all as a last resort. The single worst decision during the time was the resurrection of Aunt May IMO, but they just wanted to get the whole thing over and back to the status quo.

Those are fantastic.

Andrew Goletz was the guy responsible for it. He put it all online.

http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/

[Metamorphosis]

Life of Reilly is a fantastic read, and I pretty much hated that era of Spider-man comics.

For me, the one that's most interesting is the mess regarding the identity of the Hobgoblin, involving Stern, DeFalco, Owsley and PAD.

[arosenbarger]

Those are fantastic.

Andrew Goletz was the guy responsible for it. He put it all online.

http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/

I had never read this article - it's fantastic! Thank you very much for posting!

[Mister Mets]

It's things like the Life of Reilly blog that makes me wonder what really goes on behind the scenes in the industry the whole time. LoR really shows that while the creators may say they have everything worked out and are on top of everything and everyone is working great together, the reality may be a lot different.

Things may be different now with all the available behind the scenes commentary, in addition to all the places writers, artists and editors have to discuss their version of events, and say things they may quickly regret. It gets tougher to keep a secret. It'll be interesting years from now to see if there's anything more to the firing of JH Williams from Batwoman than we already know.

The Life of Reilly series was first published back in 2002, about six years after the clone saga ended. So it didn't take long for secrets to come out, even before writers with time on their hands had accounts on twitter and facebook.

[Metamorphosis]

^ Huh, I always thought Uncle Rog moved on from ASM by choice..

[Spider-Man]

He choose to leave ASM rather than choose to continually fight with Fingeroth. So yea that's one way of choosing.

[arosenbarger]

He choose to leave ASM rather than choose to continually fight with Fingeroth. So yea that's one way of choosing.

Say what? Stern was one of the best Spider-Man writers PERIOD. Do you know how they butted heads?