Iconic Amazing Spider-Man Page - #52 P. 19 (2003) by JMS, John Romita Jr & Scott Hanna

“Just slide the food through the webs and nobody gets hurt.”

The best Christmas gift? The best Christmas gift!

A couple of weeks ago, I got a CAF notification that the art of issue #52 of Amazing Spider-Man (2003) by J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr. and Scott Hanna was being sold. I spotted the email within a couple of minutes and reached out to the seller around 4 pm local time. Of course, art from this run is in demand and not cheap. So I kept going back and forth, and even talking to people that know nothing about art on how much I was debating to get this page. Then it was 6.30 pm and I had decided – I had to go for it.

But, around 7 pm, I got the bad news – it had already sold. But now I wanted it, of course. So I inquired again with the seller; and then asked him to give me the contact info of the buyer, so I could perhaps negotiate with them. Yup, I went that far… My girlfriend started panicking and unfortunately, I ruined the surprise that way. She couldn’t bear seeing me like this, so she had bought it for Christmas.

About this page from one of the best Spider-Man runs… I love that this is a self-contained story, highlighting one of the funnier & “typical Peter Parker” moments in comics. We see Spider-Man on a private jet, while a (remarkably sexy) hostess tries to seduce the webhead. But to no avail! JMS’s dialogue adds a lot here, so I have attached a version of the published page.

From a collector’s perspective, this features original pencils by JRJR with inks by his longtime partner Scott Hanna. Hanna also signed it on the back. Size is 11x17 and on the backside, there’s a Marvel stamp, too.