Monthly Archives: January 2024

Comic Books, Fanfiction, Musings, Original Works, Updates

The Unofficial Amazing Spider-Man Newspaper Strip Tribute: Commentary

In 2022, I didn’t know what I was doing.

When you embark on a project, you can never see too far ahead of you.  Eventually, when you surround yourself with the right people, things become a bit clearer.

I had intended two years ago for the newspaper strip to run as long as I wanted, I had the resources, I had the contacts, I had the drive.

But as a writer, I found myself coming up with new ideas continuously, I wasn’t content to just limit myself to this one project…and then I got excited about what else I could do with all these resources, to the point that the newspaper strip project just didn’t appeal much to me anymore.

What else could I have done with it once I got the Parkers back from Australia? I had plans to introduce Miles Morales, get Gwenpool involved, make the strip more modern, but was that what fans really wanted? Was it what I really wanted? Would I have pivoted more to Miles over time just so I could devote all the homely moments to Peter and MJ? Love affairs, banquets, wonderful journeys, and maybe after a while, forget that I was dreaming.

The original strip was  originally six panels with no dialogue. A creative choice at the time, as I wanted to pay tribute to Marvel’s ‘Nuff Said’ branding from the 2000s. It worked for a while, but having six panels was like giving you a constant week’s worth of Sunday strips. It didn’t ‘feel’ like an authentic newspaper strip experience.

I realized it was a mess, and so I consulted with friends over on discord, recruited a couple of really good people I’d known for a few years, Maydaystan and Ursaber, to completly restructure and reimagine the newspaper strip.

Finally, I had a vision. I could see quite clearly. The mists had lifted.

What you have been reading for the past 21 days is a shortened, more authentic ‘proof of concept’ tribute strip, a means of showing what could still be done. I believe the ASM strip could return one day, under someone else’s pen, with their own unique ideas on how to best modernise it using the essential ingredients,  and maybe throw in some extra spice.

I hope you enjoyed this audition for the likes of Xavier and El_G (on art), Maydaystan (on dialogue) and ursaber (on lettering), they certainly passed the mustard with me.

Is this the end of the newspaper strip? Nothing ever ends, this project was a means of giving it a spark of life again, and life is never always just a possibility.

I hope reality will be kind to it.