This month Titan Books publishes Spider-Man: The Icon, a lavishly illustrated coffee-table book tracing the history of Marvel’s flagship character through the comics and other media, including extensive licensing and merchandising programs.
Spider-Man: The Icon marks the debut of Steve Saffel as an author, after working at Marvel's marketing and editorial departments and then becoming an editor at Random House for 10 years. Saffel is currently a freelance editor and intellectual property developer.
PW COMICS WEEK: What does your title, Spider-Man: The Icon, mean?
Steve Saffel: An icon is a figure who elicits an intense emotional response.
There are hundreds of images [in the book], each designed to spark that emotional response and remind the readers of that moment when they first encountered Spider-Man. There have been key events in each decade which kept the character in the spotlight, and we trace those events through text and visuals. So Spider-Man: The Icon shows the web-spinner as millions of people have seen him, in comics, on screen, as toys, through video games, in novels and in the popular media.
PWCW: What distinguishes this book from other books about Spider-Man?
SS: Spider-Man: The Icon allowed me the opportunity to follow the history of popular culture in a series of snapshots , with Spider-Man as Marvel Comics’, well, icon. So this is much more than a history of the character—it's a time line of American pop culture and ways it affected other countries as well. So the book should have a much broader audience as a result.
PWCW: You also cover the history of Marvel as a company from the 1960s into the present.
SS: Spider-Man: The Icon may be considered the inheritor to the Les Daniels book [Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics]. I don't think there's been another attempt at a comprehensive history of the company since that one [in 1991].
PWCW: How did you come to write this book?
SS: The folks at Titan asked me what I would do with a book of this sort, and I submitted a detailed outline, which they accepted. Once I was on the case, I worked with a terrific editor, Adam Newell. I actually got to finish the book at their offices in London, where I was able to work hand in hand with Adam and the designer, Martin Stiff, who did a wonderful job with all of the astonishing visuals.
PWCW: Who do you see as the book’s potential audience?
SS: Since there are five decades of Spider-Man fans and millions of people who have followed his career in all of the media, the potential audience is huge. And since we don't limit ourselves to the comics, there's going to be something for everyone. If you remember Spidey from the cartoons or The Electric Company or the death of Gwen Stacy, the book will take you back to that moment.
This book really allowed me to go far beyond the comics into things everybody enjoys—like the movies and television—and to reveal things most people don’t know, such as the fact that Richard Nixon was responsible for Spider-Man’s first live-action television series.
You don’t have to be a hardcore fan to enjoy the book. It really follows our culture over the decades, revealing things like the origins of trading cards, video games and the comics themselves in a very entertaining and accessible way.
PWCW: Another theme of your book is how the audience for Spider-Man and comics has changed over this 45-year span. How would you describe this change?
SS: The audience has become more and more fascinated with celebrity and with the downfall of those celebrities. That's led to a fascination with heroes who give in to their flaws—it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Yet that same audience, I think, takes great pleasure in seeing Peter Parker overcome the odds and prevail. Spider-Man becomes the person we'd all like to be, and because of his humble origins, we can place ourselves in his shoes, er, tights.
PWCW: Why is it that over more than four decades Spider-Man has gone from being a cult character for comics fans to a worldwide icon? What is the secret of Spider-Man’s vast popularity?
SS: There's been a cascade effect, so that each time Spider-Man made a major breakthrough into another medium, more doors opened. They all propelled him into a new spotlight, through moments such as that first network cartoon, the live-action television series, The Electric Company (which took him into thousands of classrooms nationwide), the syndicated comic strip and the recent movies.
It was the essence of the character, however, that made Spider-Man so real that he had such an impact. Back in 1965, it was a Village Voice article that touted him as "the super anti-hero of our time," and the New York Herald Tribune called him "the Raskolnikov of the funnies."
PWCW: Toward the end of the book, you point out that pop culture icons often fade in popularity. Do you think Spider-Man will remain 20, 50 or even 100 years from now?
SS: I think, yes, because Spider-Man has proved so enduring and so inspiring that there will continue to be people who will want to tell his stories. There's been something—often more than one thing—in each decade, some event that's kept the character vivid. So Spider-Man has never faded, as have so many other characters.
Since our media change at a breakneck pace, it’s impossible to say in what form those stories will appear. But they will continue to appear.
