According to this report, Spider-Man is coming back to newspapers in a big way. News America Marketing and Marvel Entertainment are reintroducing Spider-Man as a weekly half page insert.
NEW YORK News America Marketing and Marvel Entertainment are teaming up to distribute collectible editions of “Amazing Spider-Man” in Sunday papers beginning in late summer 2006.
The re-issue of the series will start with the original first comic book published in 1963.
Personally, I can think of two ways why this is a good thing: Firstly, a series like Spider man needs more space to capture the action of a super-hero and hopefully the artists use the space effectively and not stick it in a bunch of squares and rectangles. Secondly, if this proves successful, perhaps it will show newspapers that if they give the cartoonists space to actually do some real artwork, it might generate something to attract readers (especially younger readers).
Hope this works.