Amazing Spider-Man: Activity Book - Arachnid Attack! (Bendon)

Background

Bendon Publishing had produced a couple of dozen colouring and activity books up to 2012, and managed to grind out another half-dozen or more to tie-in with the 2012 "Amazing Spider-Man" movie.

This is the smallest of the new Bendon movie tie-in books. It offers are meagre 24 pages.

Story Details

Physically the book is 8" x 10.5", staple-bound. The 24 pages are black and white, and are perforated near the spine for easy tear-out.

The front and back cover feature a photo from the movie. Everything else is simple line-art. The 24 pages are made up of a standard mix of activities, puzzles, and a few full-page scenes to colour.

Spider-Man makes up 90% of the content. Peter Parker appears on a couple of pages, Gwen Stacy on one, and Dr. Curt Connors on a couple of them. The Lizard makes an appearance on four stickers, but doesn't show up on any of the drawing pages.

General Comments

The art-work is clearly based on the designs from the 2012 movie. Gwen and Dr. Connors are depicted with faces matching the film. Spider-Man's costume design is clearly the costume from the movie.

The puzzles themselves are adequate - not particularly inspiring, but at least the content is clearly constructed new for this series of books.

The sticker page is the biggest disappointment of the book. There are 30 stickers, but they're quite small (only really one sheet of stickers), and each sticker has been ruined by a big text tagline attached to each one. "Slash!" "Hang Time", "A Greater Good", "Stick With Me". These pointless and irrelevant slogans spoil what was already an miserly sticker page to begin with.

Overall Rating

A skimpy book, with stickers poor in number and size. No Lizard, and no plot.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the art-work or puzzles, just a pervasive lack of affection or interest.

Two webs.