This is another long-lost interview from the past, from the Spider-Man-themed fanzine THE WEB-SPINNER produced by Mike Appel. It was conducted in 1966, the year that its subject, John Romita, took over the artistic reins of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, replacing teh feature’s departing co-creator, Steve Ditko. Once again, it’s an interesting insight into just what the people involved with making the comics thought and were thinking back during the heart of the Silver Age of comics.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Gotta say, Romita’s assessment of Ditko as a plotter has not held up well.
LikeLike
The story of Ditko making Osborn the Goblin when Stan wanted Ned Leeds contradicts with the story I had always heard, which is that Ditko wanted the Goblin to be a stranger to Spider-Man, whereas Stan insisted on it being someone known to Peter. Obviously, there’s a whole lot of “he said, he said” going on here, but is there a general consensus on what happened with that story in particular?
LikeLike
Ditko planned for it to be Norman Osborn. Everything else was largely fan conjecture run wild.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good to know. Like I said, I had only heard the other story, so I’m glad to get the truth.
LikeLike
As Ditko pointed out some years back, he’d already pulled the “unmask as nobody you’ve ever seen” twist with the Crime Master. It wouldn’t have made sense to pull that stunt again.
LikeLike
I’m curious if the pages of Spidey by Bill Ward ended up getting drawn and used and, if so, which pages those were.
LikeLike
https://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/2015/03/john-romitas-first-fanzine-interview.html
LikeLike
This later interview with Romita is an interesting read:
https://twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/06romita.html
LikeLike