For the last four years the Spider-Man newspaper strip had been re-running past Spidey adventures. The last new strip was printed back on March 23, 2019. It had a cameo from writer Roy Thomas artist Alex Saviuk.
Then from March 24, 2019 to October 21,2023 re-runs appeared. The strip has now been taken down from the King’s Feature website. For the newspapers it was still appearing in evidently starting on October 22nd it was replaced with another comic strip. The Daily Cartoonist was the first to report of the removal.
At the time of the strip ending in 2019 there was a talk of Marvel rebooting the title with a new creative team. That never happened and it seems that after 46 years the comic strip has finally ended.
I read the title off and on for much of those years. The St. Louis Post Dispatch carried the strip late into the 1990s. Once it was dropped I lost track of it. I then started reading it online and often shard the strip on the Crawlspace. I have fond memories of it and I hope IDW continues the hardcover re-prints of the strip. Please share your memories of the strip in the comment section.
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Stan often talked about the challenges of writing this strip vs. writing a normal comicbook. He knew that some newspapers would only carry the Sunday strip so that strip had to summarize what happened since the last Sunday strip (summing up the Mon-Sat strips). And he knew that the opposite was true – some newspapers carried the Mon-Sat strips but not the Sunday one, so the Mon strip had to summarize the Sun strip too. This would sometimes make it annoying for those that read every days’ strips, but it had to be done.
Did you ever hear about the 1970 tryout strips produced by Lee and Romita, but were unsuccessful in getting the strip started? Two weeks worth were produced and later published in the 1975 Marvel Comics Convention program booklet! https://forum.comicsheatingup.net/t/hidden-gem-mighty-marvel-comic-con-1975-program-first-spider-man-newspaper-strip/3474
Hey Bruce,
I read it in the Pittsburgh Press as well! We only got the Sunday paper as a kid, so i’d always miss the days in between. I grew up east of the city as well, although not that far east.
I would read it on the King’s website daily and the one above where Spidey spells out M-I-S-T-E-R-I-O was the last one printed there (on a Saturday). When no strip appeared Sunday people were commenting in Saturday’s comments asking where Sunday’s strip was, and someone posted the announcement of the strip no longer being reprinted there. Seems strange that they wouldn’t wait until the current arc was over – no I’ll never know if Marvella 2 ever finishes filming!
Given the date of the Mysterio strip at the bottom, was that the last one to appear in its rerun? Or perhaps the one that appears below it? I wasn’t expecting a reference to the movie Ghost.
I remember seeing the Spider-man strip in a newspaper from time to time when I was traveling with my family and wishing that we had it in my local newspaper. In fact, the very first time I saw it I was completely stunned because I had no idea that it even existed and was sorry that I had missed it.
When the strip started in 1977, I was 13. I had to buy the Pittsburgh Press to see my favorite character in the comic strips (Johnstown’s newspaper didn’t carry the strip). I cut out and saved the strips for the first few months! To me, crossing over into comic strips was another one of those events which “legitimatized” Spidey as a major pop culture character. 42 years of brand new strips is a long run!