During the 1980’s Fred Kida drew Spider-Man five days a week in newspapers across the country. He replaced John Romita senior on the Spider-Man strip and he did a hell of a job. He was the first artist I saw when I first started reading the strip. Fred passed away Wednesday April 3rd and was 93 years old. Kida was already well known in the golden age of comics penciling Airboy in the 1940s. He worked on comics and strips until 1987. Thanks to Mark Evanier’s blog for the heads up. Also here is his obit. Check out one of the images of Peter getting rejected by Mary Jane when he proposes to her. I’d forgotten that happened. I hope Marvel continues to release the newspaper strips in trade form.
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He’s my great grandfather
I loved Fred Kida’s art, but I hated Larry Lieber’s. Once Lieber took over, I stopped reading the comic strip, his art always threw me off.
I had totally forgotten about Fred Kida’s work. Some of the items above look like they were inked by Frank Giacoia, who was on ASM for years covering Ross Andru.
RIP in Mr. Kida.
He will be missed
According to Wikipedia: “In 1980 and 1981, concurrent with the Hulk strip, Lieber contributed some degree of penciling on the daily and Sunday comic strip The Amazing Spider Man until Fred Kida took over as regular penciler. Lieber then succeeded Kida on the daily strip in 1986. Lieber also penciled the Sunday page again from 1990 through at least 1995.”
RIP. He was one of the workmen that made the Golden Age run.
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“He replaced John Romita senior on the Spider-Man strip …”
Technically, no. Larry Lieber replaced John Romita. I believe that Kida replaced Lieber, though I’m not 100% sure if there was someone in-between.