Spidey's Clever Crosswords

Background

Back in the mid/late 70's Tempo Books was (as far as I'm yet aware) the first publisher to produce a series of Marvel tie-in puzzle books. Printed in a handy 5.25" x 8" square-bound format, these books are tough to find now in top-notch condition, and are prized by many collectors.

Story Details

This is the second book in the Tempo series of Marvel Puzzle books from the late 70's. It's essentially the same profile as the original Spidey's Wall-Crawler Wordwebs - square bound, cardboard cover, with the same 64 page count.

The puzzles are one per two-page spread, illustrated with black and white art from contemporary issues of Amazing Spider-Man. There are 24 word puzzles altogether, with the answers provided in the back.

The major difference is in the nature of the puzzles. Where as its predecessor gave you the words, and left you to figure out where they went, this book is a conventional crossword puzzle. Once again there are around 15 words per puzzle, and clues are like... "The part of your body you stand on (4 letters)."

General Comments

Yet another winner from the guys at Tempo Books. This was a great way to get young boys with a pen or pencil in their hand, thinking about words.

Overall Rating

A great product at the time, and a great collectible now. Four webs.

Footnote

My copy of this book is printed on much thicker and higher-quality bright white paper than it's predecessor Spidey's Wall-Crawler Wordwebs which was produced on thin, cheap newsprint. Also, this one is slightly wider at 5.25" wide against 5" for Wordwebs.

However, my copies are from different publishers. This larger one is from the U.S. publisher Tempo Books, while the smaller Wordwebs is the UK published Carousel Books. So I'm not sure if they changed the format for all markets for "Clever Crosswords", or if perhaps it's purely the two different printers. I'll try and get my hands on a Tempo Books version of Wordwebs to settle the question once and for all.