Mini-Spidey Comics in the Newspaper

[Kep!]

I've just discovered that for the last few months Marvel has been reprinting CLASSIC Spidey's episodically (two-three issues per story) as inserts in the Sunday newspaper (one in each major market I think). Has anyone else been reading these? Does anyone know the reason Marvel decided to do this? Has it been a success for whatever benchmark they used? Does anyone besides me LIKE the cheap paper?

[kdmelrose]

Does anyone know the reason Marvel decided to do this?

It was part of the agreement Marvel made in November 2005 with News America Marketing (a division of News Corp.). The reprints were to run in 122 newspapers nationwide, which means a decent amount of exposure for Marvel.

[Kep!]

Has there been any public comment or opinion besides "Hey look, it's a comic!"?

[kdmelrose]

Most of the coverage has come from the newspapers themselves -- touting that they'd begin running the inserts -- marketing trade publications, and comics news outlets. And most of that was right before the inserts began.

Outside of a newspaper readership survey (usually highly secretive), I don't know of a way to gauge public opinion on the supplements.

[Kep!]

Pity. I wonder what the printing costs are in that format, it's cheap but the colors pop...I like it. Of course, I'm cheap.

[Nitecrawlah2]

I've always been a fan of that "old school" paper. Feels nice to the touch.