Over the last two installments of this column, I have described the premiere of the documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist at this spring’s Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan. But that was not the only comics-related film premiere during the festival. Only four days later, on Monday, April 30, the festival presented its most stellar event: the American premiere of Spider-Man 3!.

This provided me with the unexpected opportunity to make up for my sole major disappointment in my trip last summer to the San Diego Comic Con. Regular readers will recall that I attempted to see the Spider-Man 3 panel featuring the movie’s director Sam Raimi, with most of the leading cast members appearing as surprise guests (though the “surprise” was an open secret). The panel was scheduled for the brobdingnagian Hall H, which holds 6500 people; even so, I waited in line for two hours and twenty minutes, only getting in once the panel was over and a filmmaker named K. Smith had taken the stage instead (see “Comics in Context” #146).

But here is my newly learned lesson that I wish to share with you, my readers: you need not play Hall H’s cruel game of thwarted hopes if you wish to see celebrities from superhero movies. Not if you live in New York City, anyway.

As I explained a few installments ago, Tribeca is a section of lower Manhattan, but this year the Tribeca Film Festival has expanded to venues ranging far beyond its nominal location. In fact, the Spider-Man 3 premiere wasn’t even in Manhattan, but in Queens, inasmuch as this is Peter Parker’s home borough.

Ideally, Columbia Pictures and the Tribeca Film Festival should have held the premiere in Forest Hills, the Queens neighborhood in which Peter grew up, but presumably there aren’t any theaters big enough there. Instead, the premiere was held in another Queens neighborhood, Astoria, at the UA Kaufman Astoria 14, a multiplex that I’ve visited numerous times, often to see films I’ve reviewed for this column. The theater is hardly in a glamorous area of the city, but it is right next to the legendary Kaufman Astoria Studios, where the Marx Brothers made their first movies–The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), both adaptations of Broadway shows the Brothers starred in–and where Sesame Street has long been shot.

On the morning of the premiere, the Spider-Man 3 cast were also scheduled to appear on the Today show on the plaza outside its Rockefeller Center studio. But considering that Today always attracts a big crowd, in order to get a decent spot on the plaza from which I could see the cast, I would probably have had to leave home before dawn, and I am not a morning person. So instead I woke up at a reasonable time and watched on television.

This meant that I didn’t get to see in person New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg proclaim “Spider-Man in New York Week” on the Today show plaza, but I’d already seen him in person when he declared “King Kong Day” in Times Square (see “Comics in Context” #121).

Why would Peter Jackson’s King Kong get only a day while Spider-Man 3 got a week? My guess is that it’s because Jackson recreated Depression-era New York City on sets and in computers, whereas Raimi has filmed much of his Spider-Man films in actual New York City locations. Raimi presumably recognizes the traditional importance of New York City to Marvel stories and that there is a specific look to this city that cannot easily be replicated elsewhere. The Fantastic Four and X-Men movies are shot in Canada, and their versions of “New York” come off as anonymous Big Cities. Raimi shoots parts of the Spider-Man movies elsewhere, as well. Did any of you spot the building in the background of one sequence in Spider-Man 3 that clearly bears the word “Cleveland”?

In proclaiming “Spider-Man in New York Week” Mayor Bloomberg was surely saying thank you to Raimi and Columbia Pictures for shooting so much of the three Spider-Man movies in New York City. In doing so Raimi and Columbia were spending considerable money in the city and employing large numbers of local citizens. Their success in filming here would presumably encourage other moviemakers to do the same.

Also, New York City looks spectacular in the Spider-Man movies, which thus serve to attract more tourists here. (I’ve been working on a travel guide to Marvel’s fictionalized New York City for Simon and Schuster. Once the book is out, comics fans who visit the city will easily be able to spend a day just exploring Manhattan, finding locations used in Marvel stories in both the comics and the movies.)

The Spider-Man 3 cast’s appearances on Today and the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival were only two of the many events that comprised “Spider-Man Week in New York” which, according to its official press release, was “the result of a partnership between Columbia Pictures and NYC & Company, the City’s tourism, marketing and events organization.” There were Spider-Man-related–or spider-related–events at the Bronx Zoo, the Central Park Zoo, Toys ‘R’ Us in Times Square, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Museum of the Moving Image, as well as commercial venues such as Burger Kings, Toys “R” Us in Times Square, the Trapeze School New York (for a substitute for web-swinging), SuperCuts (for redheads like Mary Jane only) and even the Crunch health clubs, as well as a closing night concert of raps about Spider-Man (!) at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre.

I am somewhat surprised that Columbia would spend all this time and money publicizing a movie that I would have thought would be a guaranteed blockbuster. But Spider-Man 3 is said to be the most expensive movie of all time, so presumably Columbia believed it should throw even more money into publicity to make sure it didn’t flop.

Of course, New York City is the home of Marvel Comics, and there are more editors, writers and artists who have worked on Spider-Man comics in the New York area than anywhere else on Earth. So you might expect that this citywide celebration of Spider-Man would make use of these talented people. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have veteran Spider-Man artists drawing sketches at some of these events, or have panels at museums, libraries, or the Tribeca Film Festival at which longtime Spider-Man writers, artists and editors reminisced about the character? People who played major roles in creating or developing characters and storylines on which Spider-Man 3 was based–like Danny Fingeroth or Jim Salicrup or Tom DeFalco, all based in the NYC area–could have been publicly interviewed about their contributions to Spider-Man history.

But, of course, almost none of this happened. Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada appeared on a Tribeca Film Festival panel, Ultimate Spider-Man editor Ralph Macchio got to speak at the New York Public Library, and Spider-scribe Peter David’s Midtown Comics signing of his Spider-Man 3 novelization was listed as an official “Spider-Man Week in New York” event. But that’s it.

Some of you may be wondering about “Stan Lee: A Retrospective,” the exhibition I co-curated at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (www.moccany.org) in Manhattan. Wouldn’t a museum show about the career of Spider-Man’s co-creator have been a perfect addition to the exhibits that were part of “Spider-Man Week in New York”? MoCCA was in contact with the “Spider-Man Week” organizers and did what it could to be included, but “Spider-Man Week” did not put the Stan show on its official list, and I don’t know why. Surely Stan Lee has more to do with Spider-Man than SuperCuts does.

The Tribeca Film Festival premiere was the grand finale to a marathon of Spider-Man 3 premieres that began in Tokyo, the home base of Columbia’s parent company Sony, and went around the world to London, Paris, and several other European cities. This reminds me of how for years I was told that only American comics fans were interested in superheroes, and that in Europe and Japan, where, I was informed, everyone read comics, and, it was implied, comics readers had more sophisticated tastes, no one cared about that genre. The worldwide popularity of the Spider-Man movies demonstrate that is no longer true and perhaps never was.

I was unable to find any information on the Internet about when on Monday the Spider-Man 3 premiere in Queens. But I knew that Kirsten Dunst, who plays Mary Jane, was scheduled to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman that night. I also knew that Letterman tapes at 5:30 PM Mondays through Wednesdays, and tapes two shows on Thursday. So, I reasoned, since the movie can’t start until after Ms. Dunst gets out to the theater in Queens, I should probably get over to the Kaufman Astoria multiplex by 6:30 PM.

This was perfectly logical, but founded on a major error. I did not know, or had forgotten, that Letterman had altered his taping schedule and now shoots two episodes on Monday: the Monday night show at 4:30 PM, and the Friday night show at 7 PM. So the episode with Ms. Dunst would have stopped shooting at 5:30 PM!

Even so, the fates were with me. I arrived outside the multiplex at 6:30 PM, which was exactly when the red carpet entrances began. (In fact, months later I discovered that the official Spider-Man 3 blog began online coverage of the premiere at 6:30 PM that night.)

As a member of the press (a freelancer for Publishers Weekly), I tried weeks earlier to arrange to attend the premiere screening, but did not expect to get a press pass and did not. That was fine: I was content to see the movie later in the week, once it had officially opened. Like probably all of you, I’d watched on television as actors make their arrivals on the red carpet at the Oscars and another events, but I’d never seen red carpet arrivals in person. This was my chance.

Exiting the subway at the Steinway Street stop, I headed up the street to a large parking lot behind a P. C. Richard & Son electronics store. To one side of the parking lot, separated from it by a side street, was the Kaufman Astoria multiplex. There was already a large, enthusiastic crowd lining the sidewalk across from the multiplex, but it was only two to four people deep, so I would have no problem seeing the arrivals.

There was also perfect weather: after wintry weather that had extended well into April, this afternoon was sunny and pleasantly warm. It was one of those nearly summery days that New York City always gets towards the end of April.

The rest of the crowd and I were standing at the edge of the sidewalk across the side street from the multiplex. Directly in front of us was an open corridor, large enough to enable the occasional automobile to pass through, along the street. Beyond this corridor was another corridor along the street, this one reserved for the paparazzi, who scurried about snapping pictures of the arriving cast members. Beyond the paparazzi was, of course, the red carpet, or, rather, the black carpet, a reference to the alien black costume that Spider-Man wears for much of the movie. Over the black carpet stretched rod-like structures, some red, some black. I assumed that they were meant to signify webbing, but later read that they were supposed to represent a spider’s legs.

Beyond the red carpet, in a grandstand against the walls of the theater, sat the members of the Port Chester High School Marching Band, who also appear in the movie at the Spider-Man celebration hosted by Gwen Stacy. The band members wore particularly unusual hats, which looked to me like crosses between safari pith helmets and World War I German army helmets.

I had positioned myself across from and just to the right of the band members. Down to my left, across the street, was the entrance to the theater; to my right was the end of the street, guarded by policemen, where limousines dropped off the arriving guests. This proved to be a good spot from which to see the cast members as they started down the black carpet.

Here I learned what it is you don’t see when you watch red carpet arrivals on television. The arriving celebrity will stand and pose for the photographers, then walk several feet down the carpet, and stand and pose again, for a different set of paparazzi. Making one’s way down a red–or black–carpet is a series of stops and starts.

Watching the arrivals I had an epiphany: though the actors and actresses on the black carpet were spectacularly dressed, coiffed and made up for the occasion, I realized that I know people who are basically just as attractive as some of these performers. I wonder what these friends of mine would look like if they had movie premiere makeovers. This is a heartening thought: beauty in real life can equal beauty on the screen.

Also, I’d never realized before that there appears to be a hierarchy of sorts to red/black carpet arrivals. The arrival festivities took roughly an hour and a half, but the two lead actors, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, did not turn up until after the halfway point, nor did director Sam Raimi. Otherwise I did not have a sense that cast members were arriving according to their placement in the credits. But it makes sense that the two leads would not be the first to show up; this way, the red/black carpet arrivals build towards their appearances.

So whom did I see? I didn’t spot every cast member or other celebrity who was there (such as director Ang Lee, who, I would hope, learned where he went wrong with Hulk by watching Raimi’s Spider-Man 3). But early on I saw Thomas Haden Church, who plays the Sandman, and (I think) Topher Grace, who portrays Eddie Brock, who ultimately becomes Venom. Though he was among the first arrivals, Church did not duck into the theater but remained outside a long time, taking the opportunity to do interviews with the members of the press along the black carpet.

There was Theresa Russell, looking youthful and glamorous, who briefly plays the Sandman’s wife (not a character from the comics) in the movie (here & here). I wonder if casting Russell in a Spider-Man movie is a subtle in-joke, inasmuch as her most famous performance was in the title role of the 1987 thriller Black Widow. (And look at the color of her gown in the photos.)

A friend whom I met in graduate school thought I was “wasting my life” by going into comics. (My bank account might indicate he’s right, though my heart says he’s wrong.) In contrast, he became a theater professor, one of whose students, Molly Lazer, whom I recently met, is now a Marvel editor. Another of his students, Elizabeth Banks, plays Betty Brant in the Spider-Man movies. As I watched Ms. Banks pose for the paparazzi at the premiere, I contemplated life’s ironies (here & here).

In Spider-Man 3 Kirsten Dunst plays Mary Jane with the character’s trademark red hair, while Bryce Dallas Howard is an astounding doppleganger of John Romita Sr.’s depiction of Gwen Stacy, complete with her long blonde hair. In real life, at the premiere, Dunst had blonde hair and Howard was a redhead. It as if they had exchanged hair color for the movie. Then again, why not, considering that they have also exchanged the character’s functions? In the movies it is MJ who is Peter’s first true love and who dangles from bridges, and Gwen who has seemingly turned supermodel. Look at Howard’s red hair, sparkling eyes, and smile: she could be a doppleganger of the comics’ MJ, too!

I saw Cliff Robertson, who plays Uncle Ben, but didn’t realize who it was until later. Just recently I once again watched the end of The Best Man (1964), in which Robertson played a scowling presidential candidate based on Richard Nixon. No wonder I didn’t recognize him as the senior citizen with the big, beaming smile at the premiere.

You probably don’t know the name Mageina Tovah, but you’d recognize her as the daughter of Mr. Ditkovich, Peter Parker’s appropriately named landlord. Dressed very differently than in the movie, Ms. Tovah took a giddy glee in posing for the paparazzi on the black carpet, as if it was her first time doing it, as indeed it might have been.

I admire Raimi’s casting of actors who can look so much like the characters from the Spider-Man comics, and James Cromwell as Captain George Stacy is another example of this. This portrait of Cromwell at the premiere conceals his fashion faux pas: the tiny ponytail he wore at the back of his head.

The crowd’s excitement was audible when Kirsten Dunst arrived, having changed from the outfit she had worn at the Letterman taping into what I thought was a sleek, silver Versace dress which I assumed was ankle-length. I could only see her from the waist up, missing the fact that it was actually a very becoming minidress. The day of the premiere was Dunst’s 25th birthday. According to a newspaper report, there were fans at the premiere who sang “Happy Birthday” to her, but she ignored them. Well, I didn’t hear the singing, so I expect that she didn’t either. It wasn’t a quiet occasion.

Shrieks from the crowd alerted me to the appearance of Tobey Maguire, who did something that none of the other cast members did. As if he were Bill Clinton campaigning for president, Maguire came over to the crowd of spectators and moved his way down the line, smiling and shaking hands with delighted fans as he went: he looked delighted, too (here & here).

As I mentioned earlier, there were a few rows of people in front of me, but even so, I ended up being only several feet away from Maguire as he moved past. Had I succeeded in getting into the Spider-Man 3 panel in Hall H, I still wouldn’t have gotten a seat anywhere near the cast. From most seats in Hall H, they would have looked like tiny dots on the dais, and I would have spent most of the time watching them on the enormous overhead videoscreens. Here outside the Kaufman Astoria theater, I had a fine view of each cast member as he or she came by, and a real life closeup of Maguire. This set me thinking.

Barring unforeseen developments, I won’t be attending this year’s San Diego Comic Con. Having been there the last two years, I don’t feel the impetus to go this time, and I can’t say that I will miss standing in line for Hall H. Quick Stop editor Ken Plume has informed me that he’s not going either, the San Diego crowds having swelled beyond his level of tolerance. And, of course, Quick Stop contributor Fred Hembeck never goes.

But wait! What about this news report that the “Nickelodeon Resort by Marriott,” including a water park, will open in San Diego in 2010, and include “live entertainment featuring costumed Nickelodeon characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants”? Do I foresee a cross-country road trip in Fred’s future?

After Maguire had showed up, the Port Chester Marching Band finally burst into action, playing the Spider-Man theme from this first animated series (“Spider-Man, Spider-Man/Does whatever a spider can”), as they do in the movie as well. (How interesting that the composers for the Spider-Man movies haven’t devised a memorable Spider-Man theme to take the place of the TV theme in the public imagination, the way that John Williams and Danny Elfman did in the movies for Superman and Batman. At the end of the music, a cannon beside them abruptly, loudly fired–how did I miss noticing this earlier?–and showered the area, including we onlookers, with red and black confetti. I picked up a handful and stuffed it into my bag as souvenirs.

Director Sam Raimi finally arrived, and Ken Plume’s buddy, former Marvel Studios chairman Avi Arad was nearby. Mr. Arad bet that the first Fantastic Four movie would make Ken cry; Ken didn’t, and won a five dollar bill from him that Mr. Plume prizes as if it were Scrooge McDuck’s Number One dime. If only Ken had been at the Spider-Man 3 premiere: he could have made another bet with Mr. Arad on Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

I’ve read enough about movie premieres to know that other celebrities besides the cast members attend, and there were a few who made it out to Queens. The spectators were audibly pleased to see Susan Sarandon, with kids in tow. To me she looked the most beautiful woman at the premiere, and that’s an inspiring thought for us Boomers (here & here).

At one point the members of the Port Chester Marching Band grew more excited than they had during the entire time I was there. The object of their glee was an African-American man in dark glasses who strode down the black carpet. I speculated that this man must be a popular musician, perhaps a hiphop artist, but hiphop is not one of my areas of expertise. I know the names of very few rappers: P. Diddy, and that’s about it. Looking over photos of the premiere the next day on the Net, I discovered it really was Sean Combs, a. k. a. P. Diddy. My miniscule level of knowledge of contemporary African-American music had proved equal to the task.

By this point there were still people arriving in tuxedos and gowns, but I didn’t recognize any of them, and I presume they were Sony and Columbia executives or people who worked behind the scenes on the movie.

Since this premiere was taking place in New York City, the home of the comics industry, I wondered if I might see anyone I recognized who was associated with Spider-Man comics. Wouldn’t it have been grand to see Stan Lee or John Romita, Sr. walk down the black carpet? But no, it was not to be. If any comics people had been invited to this premiere, I didn’t see or recognize them.

You can find plenty of more photographs of the Spider-Man 3 stars arriving on the black carpet from CBS’s coverage and Broadway World’s.

Towards 8 PM, it was still daylight, but it had become clear that all the recognizable celebrities had come and gone into the theater. The paparazzi packed up and moved out, and the crowd of onlookers took the hint and began to disperse. I moved down towards the entrance of the theater and saw Thomas Haden Church still conscientiously giving interviews, but, looking through the glass doors from across the street, I could see that the people in the lobby were being motioned to go further inside. The show was evidently about to begin.

I looked about, and, to my surprise, saw not a scrap of the confetti that had littered the sidewalk only minutes before. Had it all blown away? But there wasn’t a strong wind? Had everyone picked up confetti as mementos as I had? That seemed unlikely. It couldn’t have all dissolved–like Spider-Man’s webbing–could it?

Then I spotted one lone red scrap of confetti left on the sidewalk. I quickly snatched it up, and the sidewalk was bare, as if the movie premiere, having moved into the multiplex, was vanishing without a trace from the outside world. I headed over to the subway and home.

As for the movie, I saw Spider-Man 3 on the following Saturday. And you’ll find out what I thought of it in the coming weeks.

ATROCITY OF THE WEEK

This week’s honoree is Kyle Smith, film critic for The New York Post, who wrote in his June 14, 2007 review of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer that “Like all comic books, these [FF] movies operate on a fifth grade level. . . .”. That’s “all comic books,” including the works of Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner, Chris Ware, Marjane Satrapi, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Harvey Pekar, and anyone else you can think of. But wait, there’s more: Smith says that the Fantastic Four movies “operate on a fifth grade level, only in this case without shame. Good and evil play catch with their power rays and zoom through the skies without any strenuously phony efforts to be ‘dark,’ ‘allegorical’ or ‘relevant.’ Which is why I’d rather watch the ka-powing Batman 1960s TV show than any X-Men movie.” So, according to Smith, all comics are juvenile material that should not attempt depth or sophistication.

Smith has performed a service for us. With all the growing recognition and acclaim of comics as an artform in recent years, it is important to be reminded that the old prejudices against comics are still out there and still very much active. The people who disdain the medium may not be as vocal as its advocates, but they haven’t gone away.

We also have two runners-up. In his June 14 Chicago Tribune review of Rise of the Silver Surfer, Michael Phillips says that “It is passable comic book stuff, dumb and loud”. That, apparently, is what he expects comic books to be. If, say, Love and Rockets ever gets turned into a movie, it had better be noisy enough to satisfy him.

And another! This is from Kevin Maher’s June 14 review of Rise of the Silver Surfer from the UK’s Times Online: “At last! A comic-book blockbuster that doesn’t feel the need to justify its own existence with ponderous philosophical subtext and bloated running times. Instead, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is everything you’d expect from a movie that began in the pages of a 1960s comic book – garish, giddy, emotionally simplistic, boldly idiotic and mercifully short”.

Yes, it’s still another critic who believes that comics can only be garbage. Well, as I write this, I haven’t yet seen the new Fantastic Four movie, which may well be as awful as the previous one (although the trailers look great). But, having lectured on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s “Galactus trilogy” at New York University and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, I can assure you that their original storyline about Galactus and the Silver Surfer has subtexts that are far from either “simplistic” or “idiotic,” as I shall explain in my forthcoming review of the film.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF

There are now two new additions to “Stan Lee: A Retrospective,” the exhibit that I co-curated at New York City’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (www.moccany.org.). Longtime Spider-Man editor Jim Salicrup has recorded an audio tour for the exhibit. Rather than repeating the information provided by the “story cards” I wrote for the exhibit, Jim’s highly entertaining narration serves as the perfect complement to them, drawing upon his long personal association with Stan both at Marvel and at Stan Lee Media.

Moreover, on a videoscreen, MoCCA visitors can watch Stan Lee himself touring the exhibition, commenting on each item on display, at the opening night party, thanks to Comicology TV. Attentive viewers will even catch glimpses of me among the appreciative onlookers.

When the Stan show opened, MoCCA was also holding “Saturday Morning,” a comprehensive retrospective of television animation from the 1950s on, curated by Matt Murray. This was a superb show, with a wide array of animation art, video and collectibles, ranging from Crusader Rabbit to SpongeBob SquarePants, that would stir fond memories in anyone born in the last sixty years, and Matt’s highly informative story cards providing detailed background.

“Saturday Morning” has closed, but there are now two other shows sharing museum space with the Stan Lee retrospective. One is “A Face like Mine,” an exhibit of original comics art featuring African-American characters, curated by Dr. William Foster. It was Foster who organized the small exhibit of comics art about African-Americans that I saw at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum (see “Comics in Context” #177). But while the Geppi dealt mainly with well known characters like Marvel’s Black Panther and Will Eisner’s Ebony, I find Dr. Foster’s MoCCA show more interesting, since it principally deals with interesting works, ranging from vintage comic strips to current independent comics, that I hadn’t previously known about. (Coincidentally, the Stan show includes an Avengers page featuring an African-American character he and Don Heck created, Dr. William Foster, who later became the superhero Black Goliath. But, to answer the recurring question, that Bill Foster was created forty years ago, and hence was not named after the real life scholar.)

The other current MoCCA exhibit is the latest in the museum’s “New York Artists Showcase” series, which features local New York City talent. In this case, it’s the aforementioned Jim Salicrup, who is also a MoCCA trustee. Though Stan Lee is certainly an exception to the rule, editors usually remain behind the scenes, and readers may not know exactly what their contributions are. This exhibit, “Salicrup’s Section,” persuasively demonstrates the importance of Jim’s role as editor at Marvel and other companies, including his current work at PaperCutz. Here you’ll discover the major part he played in the creation of Venom, for example. (But was he invited to the Spider-Man 3 premiere? No.) There are facts revealed on the story cards that not even I knew: for example, that Jim was replaced as X-Men editor when he refused to kill off Jean Grey at the end of “The Dark Phoenix Saga.”) Plus there is original art on display from various people Jim has worked with over the years, including Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Byrne, Todd McFarlane, and Fearless Fred Hembeck!

The annual MoCCA Art Fest, a mini-convention primarily showcasing alternative and independent comics, will be held on the weekend of June 23 and 24 at the Puck Building in Manhattan’s SoHo. This year the Art Fest’s panels will take place at MoCCA, only a few blocks away. So, anyone coming into town for the Art Fest will have the opportunity to take in the museum’s three current exhibits as well. It now looks as if the Stan Lee retrospective will continue into early August.

–Copyright 2007 Peter Sanderson

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