April 26, 2002
Contact: Jason L. JenkinsSenior Information Specialist(573) 882-6217[email protected]
EDITOR'S NOTE: Photos of Carrel in his office with his Spider-Man poster are available online at http://www.missouri.edu/~news/releases/spiderman.html.
MU'S REAL-LIFE 'SPIDER MAN' IS FAN OF COMIC BOOK HERO
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- His name isn't Peter Parker, but there's a real-life "spider man" on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus. When the highly anticipated Spider-Man movie hits theaters May 3, you can bet that Jim Carrel will have his soda and popcorn ready.
Carrel, an MU professor of biological sciences, is a nationally recognized expert in spiders and spider ecology. For more than 30 years, he has studied all aspects of spiders, from the population dynamics of red widow spiders in Florida to the diversity of spider species in the Missouri Ozarks. However, the first spider Carrel ever studied was the one fighting crime in the red and blue suit.
"I was an undergraduate at Harvard University in 1963, and Marvel had started the Spider-Man comic book series the year before," he said. "My friend, Chuck, who was an English major, introduced me to them, and from there, it became a hobby."
Carrel recalls how he and Chuck would stake out the Harvard Square Book Store, waiting for the latest installments of the comic book series to be delivered. As soon as those shiny new comics hit the squeaky rotating wire rack, they would scour through them looking for Spider-Man and their other favorite superheroes.
"You had to be patient," Carrel said. "Not only for the comics to arrive, but also for your turn to read them. After all, we only bought one copy."
After Harvard, Carrel went on to earn his doctorate in behavioral biology at Cornell University, eventually coming to MU in 1971. His enjoyment of the Spider-Man series followed him to campus, and today, he still finds room on his office wall for a poster of the masked crime fighter.
"I think Spider-Man's appeal is that he wasn't an over-the-top superhero," Carrel said. "He wasn't super-fast or super-strong, and he wasn't invincible. As a young man, you could relate to him and his life situation. I think the same holds true today."
Although Carrel considers himself a classic Spider-Man fan, he said adaptations of the original storyline for the movie won't bother him. "It'll just be great to see him brought to life on the big screen," he said.
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