Spider-Man 2: How To Draw Spider-Man (Scholastic)

Background

Scholastic is a big name in kids books. I didn't see any books from them for the 2002 Spider-Man movie, but this time they're determined not to be left out of things. They've cooked up a series of eight coloring/activity books, each with a different gimmick. Four of them feature goodies stuck to the front of the book, and one of them is bilingual Spanish/English. Looks promising. Let's open the covers!

Story Details

I must own at least half a dozen "How to Draw Spider-Man" books. The Scholastic version is on clean white paper with black and grey outlines complemented by blue ink markup working lines. The book starts with a basic intro to drawing solids, then moves on to Spidey's mask, his Spider emblem (front and back variants), then his hand. Suddenly, the next two pages cover stick figures, pipe figures, cleanup and perspective! WHAM!

Compared to the Klutz: Draw The Marvel Comics Super-Heroes book we reviewed a few months back, this Scholastic book just races through the material in a rather hasty fashion. The material is not well structured at all. I get the feeling that the book is all for show, and that it isn't based on any proven teaching material. Sure, most capable teenagers will be able to copy verbatim the examples given in the book, but it seems most unlikely to me that anybody will "learn to draw Spider-Man" in a general sense.

Overall Rating

Sure, the price is only four bucks, but that doesn't make up for the rather hasty and ineffective structure of the book. Two webs, a disappointing book.