The Amazing Spider-Man Stick & Stack (Panini France)

Background

Panini is a Europe/UK company which publishes stickers and trading cards, as well as sticker albums and associated activity products like this one. Marvel purchased Panini way back in 1994, back in the Marvel Junk Bond hey-day, so they have a close association.

This 2012 product is from the Panini France S.A. entity, and features French language in the copyright and safety information, and in the little pamphlet insert. However the title is "The Amazing Spider-Man" and the series is "Stick & Stack" in English. The book was actually printed in Italy, where Panini's manufacturing seems to be based.

Story Details

Physically this is "tall magazine" size at 8.7" x 11.7". It has a glossy staple-bound cover. Inside is 16 pages, being 7 full-colour double-page scenes for the placing of stickers, plus two single-page scenes. There are two sheets of stickers, featuring Spider-Man and Lizard from the 2012 Amazing Spider-Man movie.

This is the same format as the 1996 Spider-Man Stick & Lift (Panini UK) product, so clearly Panini doesn't feel the need to mess around with a formula once they have it well-established.

General Comments

Artistically this book is absolute Blergh. That's a technical term I just invented, which means that it is murky, dark, and entirely lacking in play-appeal.

The already gloomy color palette from the movie has been taken as a basis, and the artwork has then been further smeared, shaded, and generally muddied around until it resembles the bottom of a jar that has been used for washing toddler's paint brushes all week without being rinsed.

In fact, if my toddler ever produced something this unappealing, I would whisk them off to the psychiatrist before you could say "Franz Kafka and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Overall Rating

This product is living proof that even professional designers can have a bad day.

The ASM films deliberately went "dark" in their look, in an attempt to distance themselves from the Sam Raimi trilogy. As a movie for moody teenagers, that worked fine, I guess. But as a sticker book for pre-teens, it's far less appealing.

One Web.