Spider-Man 2: Jumbo Activity Book (Funtastic)

Background

Funtastic brought out a swag of coloring and activity books back in 2002 for the first movie - the usual mix of jumbo coloring pads, sticker books and such like, but also including a tattoo book and a paint-with-water book. Sadly, the rather disappointing art they decided to use last time really overshadowed any high points that the format may have provided.

For "Spider-Man 2", Funtastic is back with new art and even more nifty formats. As your devoted reviewer, I headed down to my local Warehouse (the NZ equivalent of Wal-Mart) and picked up one of each of the different books I can find. And here they are. Note that Funtastic appears to be an Australian company. I'm not sure if these books will make it to the US If they don't, then please accept my condolences. If you get something else instead, please drop me a line and let me know...

Story Details

At last! Something with a bit of weight. Here are 128 pages of square-bound soft-cover activity book. While the art suffers from the same problems as before in terms of glaring contrast between the two characters and the lack of background inks, at least this book is jam-packed full of puzzles and activities of all shapes and sizes.

The variety and bulk of this book means that this book will last a demanding eight year old at least an hour or two before they start looking for something else to destroy. My local store was asking $5.99 (US$3.60) for this jumbo book. That's only twice the price for this 128-page book as for the wimpy 24 page "coloring book". At last we're getting close to value for money.

Overall Rating

I'm gonna give this one a stonking three webs. i.e. I consider it to be a basically average mass-market product at an acceptable price. Not stunning, but at least getting close to adequate.