Spectacular Spider-Man makes a move

“The Spectacular Spider-Man” is moving to a new network, but the show’s co-creator says the new episodes will retain the same contemporary but classic feel of the first season.

The animated series “The Spectacular Spider-Man” will move to Disney XD (151 on Cox Digital Cable, 174 on Dish Network, 292 on DirecTV).  New episodes will debut on the network in summer 2009.

“The Spectacular Spider-Man” animated series is based on the Marvel Comics superhero “Spider-Man,” and is set during his junior year of high school. Spider-Man was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko in 1962.

Greg Weisman, the supervising producer of the series, talked about Season Two of “Spectacular Spider-Man,” and the inspirations for the series, in a recent phone interview with The Oklahoman.

“When I first got the job, I went back and bought all the big, ‘Essential Spider-Man’ volumes and reread all the Lee-Ditko and Lee-(John) Romita Sr. issues,” Weisman said. “It wasn’t that I hadn’t read them before, but I wanted to have them all fresh in my mind.”

Weisman wanted to take those original tales and make them resonate for a modern audience.