The Spider's Web

 

Remember back in the day when upcoming writer / artist Todd McFarlane co-owned a comic shop in Puyallup, Washington with co-owner and President, Kim Kolomyjec? No?

That's no surprise. Many people don't.

Though the store has since moved locations, and unfortunately closed down, The Spider's Web was a comic shop located in a small strip mall at  729 River Road. While these days it's an all you can eat sushi location, back in the 80's and early 90's, this location was the place to go not only for comics, but autographs from the soon to be megastar of the comic book industry.

Todd frequently made appearances at the shop, signing books for fans directly or for the store to put on shelves and sell later. Though he signed several books, the ones most notable for being sold by the the shop were the green and silver covers of 1990's Spider-Man number one.

This would lead to the mysterious red stamped issue. The book with its funny looking signature being passed off as Todd McFarlanes. Looking at the old signatures of the artist, many fans immediately write them off as forgeries, and poor ones at that. Little do they know, they are very much legitimate.

Being an age with no internet, this relatively unknown store, and its affiliation to McFarlane was left to the advertisements that were slapped on store windows, printed advertisements across paper fan magazines, and / or word of mouth of his pending appearance. So basically, word didn't spread far. As time went by, these books fell off the radar for many collectors, if they were ever on them to begin with, and have become an urban legend unto themself.

Such is the case of the promotion run by The Spider's Web, where they posted an ad in Comic Buyer's Guide issue 851, which offered one copy of Spider-Man number one, signed by Todd McFarlane. When this all began, Kim thought at best they would receive 8,000 or 9,000 orders. Little did he and McFarlane know, they would soon be diligently at work fulfilling 24,000 requests, as professed by Kolomyjec in a follow-up article in Comic Buyers Guide 859.

McFarlane spent months signing copies of the book, while Kolomyjec took on the one-man job of stamping each issue, boxing them up, and mailing them. As evidence of the signature, he provided a printed certificate of authenticity with each order, noting the stamp backing up the autograph being legit.

Flipping the book over would reveal the stamp in question.

McFarlane signed two different versions of the green cover variants in silver pen and one of the silver cover variants with gold. More on this below.

Comic Buyers Guide would print a follow up story to the promotion in issue number 878.

Comic Buyers Guide Issue 878 Article

The store only web stamped the back of comics they sold through the promotion. Customers who came in with their own book to be signed when McFarlane was present didn't receive this or a COA. Coupled with the relatively unknown signature style, and you can see how many fans would call ones without this fake - even to this day. Meaning if you're going to try and sell this book as an authentic Todd McFarlane signature, you're going to have more luck with the stamp, COA and history of how it came to be in existence.

CGC acknowledges their existence, and there are a few graded copies here and there. Neither the green or silver covers seems more common or rare than the other, and they all sell within the range of fifty to ninety dollars. However, many of these don't have the COA, and this price range is only reflective of raw books, not graded. It's also worth noting that the second print gold cover was not signed / sold during this time, so you won't find ones with the stamp on them - Not legit ones anyway.

Green Cover / Purple Webs

Green Cover / Silver Webs

There are three different versions known to be in existence. Regarding the green covers, McFarlane signed both the purple webs, which he removed the polybag from, as well as the silver webs version. The silver cover he signed was the price printed direct edition, which did not come polybagged. It would, however, be interesting to see if any of the blue, or even rarer, copper lizard error printings were among any of the silver cover versions signed, as this is the print which these errors are known to exist in.

I don't know what it is about Spider-Man number one. I know the book sold over a million copies, yet I always want to pick them all up when I see them. I don't, because they aren't cheap, but I certainly have enough copies of it in various different versions. I would honestly buy a long box of this issue if the price was right.

While everyone knows the fate of Todd, what about co-owner Kim? He was listed as President of Spider's Web, Inc. from 1989 to 2010, which is potentially the full timeline the store was open and operated. In 2011 he transitioned to working for McFarlane Toys, noted as presently still employed with the title of Manager of ECommerce (source).

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