"Spider-man is a pain in the neck to draw," laughs John Romita Jr. "All those webs!" It's a surprising confession from an artist who has been pencilling the wall-crawler's adventures on and off for more than 30 years. More so when you realise that the man who spun those difficult webs throughout much of childhood was his father, John Romita. Spider-man is an important part of the Romita family.

"Spider-man connects me and my father and I’m not afraid to say that he's helped our relationship," he says. "I grew up with Spider-man. Then I started drawing him and I had to constantly ask my father’s opinion. We have a great relationship and Spider-man has made it that that much better."

Romita Jr is one of the best artist working in comics. No other, bar the legendary Jack Kirby and, of course, Romita Jr's father, has left their stamp on so many heroes. All the more amazing is the fact that he is producing monthly fireworks at 53, an age when most in the industry are winding down. His crisp, clear heroic lines are made for superhero comics. His action scenes are as inventive as any dreamt up by Brian de Palma or Steven Spielberg and he rivals Martin Scorsese in capturing the detail and character of New York. But it his ability to bring out the vulnerability and humanity of his heroes that makes him a Romita. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko may have created Spider-man but it was Romita Jr’s father who gave the hero his heart, and it is for this reason that, for many, Romita Sr’s Spider-man is the definitive Spider-man. Romita Jr certainly thinks so. "I think Spider-man should be done in a certain way - the way my father did it - which is a selfish way of looking at it."

Romita Jr was born in New York in 1956, a child of the comic book industry; his father was making his name as a penciller and inker, his mother, Virginia, was working her way to becoming production editor for Marvel. Although he grew up around comic book stars, there was only one hero in his mind and that was his father. "My father used to do covers for romance books for DC. He worked very long hours in our attic and was always drawing women and men kissing. Late in 1965 I remember going up to visit him and I saw him doing brush work for what I believe was his first work for Marvel, the cover of Daredevil No 12. I was shocked by what was on the page, so I asked him, 'What is that? What's going on?' I know my eyes must have been like saucers. He said, 'This is a character called Daredevil and he's a superhero and he's blind. 'What? Not a chance, he can’t possibly be blind. How’s he gonna fight' My father then began to explain the concept of superheroes to me and what Daredevil's powers were and so on. From that point I was hooked. Everything he brought home I would read and then ask him questions. I began to doodle a short time later as did my brother. It was such an interesting turning point in my life. Here I am 45 years later still doing the very thing that hooked me at that age, it’s amazing to me. I’m still amazed because I can’t believe it was such a simple thing."

With hindsight, it seems almost inevitable that Romita Jr would end up drawing the same characters his father, but he had to fight to get there, fight against the crippling weight of his own expectations and the sly asides that it was his father's name that was winning him assignments. "As a young kid I was sceptical because it was such a high goal to be a cartoonist. But then when I got better, and started attending art school, the stakes became much higher. If I had failed, it would have hurt more because I was trying that much harder. I did have doubts, of course, because I wasn’t nearly as good as those people that I hoped to be like.

"When I was 20 I got a job as a production assistant at Marvel, which improved my skills considerably. Even after I became an established artist there were doubts because there were so many people that were better than me and there was a lot of name calling and accusations of nepotism directed at me. My father was also concerned. He was concerned about the accusations of nepotism and he was concerned that if I failed, it would be a crushing blow to me and, of course, his pride would have been wounded. But it all worked out. People still make comments and there is still a certain amount of grudging jealousy from some quarters. But I've lasted long enough to see those people move on or get fired. I laugh at them. I call this success by attrition."

Throughout the interview Romita Jr repeatedly plays down his talent, while praising others, but there is nothing false about his modesty. "Humility is a level-headedness. When I was in my twenties I tended to keep quiet because, as my father said to me, there’s always somebody smarter, better looking and more talented. That tends to keep your feet on the ground. If I came into the industry and was a hot shot – let’s say there wasn’t a Frank Miller that had preceded me – and I had been treated as the king right off the bat, I may never have gotten better. I’m serious. There’s a survival mode in being behind someone else. You’re able to give yourself a goal to reach. So I’m happy there are Frank Millers in the world. It gives me goals to achieve and I’m fine with that. As as long as I’m in comics there’s always going to be a Jack Kirby. There’s so many brilliant artists before me how can I possibly get an ego?

"But deep down inside me there’s a burning desire to be the best. So even though I don’t reach it all the time I still have that burning desire inside of me."

For an artist, the pressure of doing a monthly book can be considerable - tenfold when the book is Spider-man, where a simple sentence such as "Doctor Octopus throws Spider-man off the top of the Chrysler Building and sends him crashing down onto the Green Goblin" can make a lesser artist wilt. "Drawing Spider-man is an exercise in the everythings of life, because when you draw Spider-man you draw the city of New York and there are so many things within that: buildings, cars, people, backgrounds, everything. There’s no cheating on backgrounds when you have a father like mine. There’s no shortcuts. So you learn quickly.

"All you can do is try to do something different, and that’s all. Even before I had started as an artist everything had been done already and better than I could ever have done it. Jack Kirby had done so much. My father had done so much. John Buscema had done so much. But you challenge yourself. You tweak it ever so slightly and hopefully that opens up a new vein so to speak.

"The most important thing I’ve learnt from my father is storytelling. I’m not nearly as good an artist as he is but his approach to storytelling has made made my life and art better. Slight of hand I call it. My storytelling leads your eye away from the lack of quality in the minor details. My storytelling makes up for my shortcomings."

Perhaps the most difficult book Romita Jr has worked on was the 9/11 issue of Amazing Spider-man. In it Spider-man, and the Marvel Universe, are thrown into the middle of a real-life tragedy, powerless witnesses to the kind of villainy they almost always stop in the nick of time. "My father and I both felt that it shouldn't be done. Both of us said, no, they can’t do that. You can’t cover it. It’s like covering the Holocaust. You can’t. You can’t explain something so insane and tragic in the terms of a comic book, and yet once it was done it was done beautifully and it personalised the event to a lot of comic book fans.

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