Marvel Super Heroes Activity Book (Modern Promotions)

Background

This book is surprisingly bulky. From the front it's a standard magazine-sized 8.3" x 10.9", but in depth it's 1.25" and packs 216 pages of sturdy newsprint.

The content is actually not original. It is reproduced from the 1970 Fun and Games twelve-issue run of comics. So technically speaking it doesn't qualify for a review of its own. But the book is interesting enough to justify a few notes.

Story Details

The material is adapted from the original, specifically the raw material featured colour illustrations, but this presentation uses only a single colour ink for each page. The illustrations are occasionally simplified too, but otherwise the content of the puzzles and games is essentially unchanged.

As you would hope, all the answers for the puzzles are presented at the back of the book.

General Comments

I spent ten years trying to find a copy of this activity book, after first seeing the a photo on the website of fellow collector Peter Kroon. I eventually spotted an unmarked copy on eBay. I just had to know what was inside!

Well, now I know. It contains a cheap reprinting of previously presented material.

Overall Rating

This book of monochromatic reprints sold for $8.95 in 1981. Two years earlier you could have purchased all 12 full-colour original issues of Fun and Games for 50c each — a total of $6.

By my maths that doesn't make for particularly good value in this later format! I have to hand out a corresponding rating of Two Webs.