First Drawing of Spider-Man Now at Library of Congress

The Library of Congress had just acquired the original 1962 drawings from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s "Amazing Fantasy #15" – complete with Ditko’s pencil erasures and white-out opaquing fluid – in which Spider-Man made its first appearance in print!

Matt Raymond of the Library of Congress Blog wrote:

People who are more familiar with Amazing Fantasy #15 than I are probably not surprised by this fact, but I got a good chuckle from the disclaimer that appeared at the top of the first page (pictured at left). It almost seems to be begging skeptical readers to give Spider-Man a chance, completely unaware of the phenomenon that was about to be unleashed on the world.

The excessively exclamatory paragraph reads: “Like costume heroes? Confidentially, we in the comic mag business refer to them as ‘long underwear characters’! And, as you know, they’re a dime a dozen! But, we think you may find our SPIDER-MAN just a bit … different!”

The good folks at the LOC promises to digitize the collection forthwith! Link – Thanks Matt!