A fantastic new Spider-man book has just hit the market.  It comes from TASCHEN, a company that I have bought many wonderful books from.  They are known for marketing these HUGE OVERSIZED editions.  I love these things.  It’s just that I don’t have anywhere to put them any longer.  They don’t exactly fit on a bookshelf.  (They do market many normal-sized books as well.)

With that said, let’s talk about their new Spider-man book.  This is Volume 1 and covers the first 21 stories of the Spider-man comics from the years 1962-1964.  It’s a giant hardcover book, measuring 11 x 15.6 inches.  It weighs 10.62 pounds.  And it’s a whopping 698 pages.  This is a first printing of 5,000 numbered copies.

For this next part, I’m just going to quote their site.

“Rather than recolor the original artwork (as has been done in previous decades’ reprints of classic comics), TASCHEN has attempted to create an ideal representation of these books as they were produced at the time of publication. The most pristine pedigreed comics have been cracked open and photographed for reproduction in close collaboration with Marvel and the Certified Guaranty Company. Each page has been photographed as printed more than half a century ago, then digitally remastered using modern retouching techniques to correct problems with the era’s inexpensive, imperfect printing—as if hot off of a world-class 1960s printing press. Three different paper stocks, including an uncoated and wood-free paper, were exclusively developed for this series to simulate the feel of the original comics.”

As for my review, I absolutely love this thing.  I do wish it wasn’t so big, but it does sort of add to its coolness.  It’s going to take me forever to read through this book.  I’ve read some of these comics from reprints years ago, but I don’t really remember most of them very well.  And some I’ve never even seen before.

As for the price of the book, it runs $200 on TASCHEN’s site.  And it runs about the same on Amazon right now.  The prices on TASCHEN tend to stay the same, whereas with Amazon, it will probably dip at some point.

Even though it’s hard to complain about the price for what you get, I’d probably still be a bit more comfortable around the $160 mark.  But that’s just me.

But if you think that’s expensive, in March they are releasing a collector’s edition of the book for $600 which includes a slipcover (“Hardcover with ChromaLuxe aluminum print cover tipped into a leatherette-bound spine.”).  That version is definitely for the Super-Spidey fan who has money to burn.  The collector’s edition is limited to 1000 numbered copies.

Anyhow, if you’re looking for a better idea of what this book contains, I did an unboxing and flip-through video which I’ll post below.  I do give some of the same information in the video as I do above. 

I’ll also post some of the links for your convenience in case you’re interested in purchasing.

For the regular $200 edition, click HERE:

For the collector’s edition available March 2022, click HERE:

For Amazon, click HERE: