Spider-Man, Frank Miller, The Fall and Bend Sinister!

 

Yes, there is a connection! Six years before The Fall's Bend Sinister album (1986) writer, Dennis O'Neil and Frank Miller, having discovered the band Shrapnel at CBGB, decided to incorporate them into the Spider-Man King-Size Annual #14. 

The term 'bend sinister' appears in the intro (above) as translated by Doctor Strange. In reality it has a few different meanings and why not introduce another? 

Now, Mark E.Smith was no doubt referencing Nabokov's novel of the same name when he titled The Fall's ninth studio album Bend Sinister, not only to prove his literary chops (as if we didn't know already) but because the phrase is so interesting, of course. That and the fact that 'bend sinister' was also 'used in older literature to mean a defect, stain, or stigma on someone's reputation', apparently. Smith may have been suggesting that society was 'stained' and defective or, perhaps, his reputation was at the hands of those in the media who did not appreciate him. Either way, I was surprised to see the band in the Spider-Man story chanting the term as they marched, Pied Piper-like, through the streets of New York.