Spider-Man Helps Fight New York City Unemployment

November 18, 2010 Patrick Hickey Jr. Books & Comics 0

New York’s job market is so hard to navigate today that even Spider-Man is having trouble making ends meet.

Over his nearly 50 years in comics, Spider-Man’s alter-ego, Peter Parker has had trouble earning a living. He’s even been close to homeless at times when not working as a freelance photographer and a part-time professor.

Finding himself out-of-work once again, Parker has come to an unlikely place for help, the City of New York.

Teaming up with the New York Daily News, Bloomberg and City Officials, Spider-Man- or someone dressed to look like him- joined Marvel CEO Joe Quesada at Midtown Comics on 64 Fulton Street yesterday as a new limited-edition comic book, “Spider-Man, You’re Hired!” was unveiled. In conjunction with the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and The Department of Small Business Services, the comic hopes to connect over 775,000 unemployed New Yorkers with the various free job assistance programs in the city.

A Department of Labor Statistics report from this past July showed that only 50 percent of Americans ages 16-24 are working. While there are no publicly available demographics to present the average comic book reader, the city believes this limited edition comic book will do the trick with the unemployed 20-something crowd.

“This is a creative and engaging way to promote the work of the city agencies,” said Katherine Oliver, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. “We’re getting to a new audience in order to tell the city about our services.”

Looking for a job in the comic, Parker, in between foiling the evil-doings of various baddies, meets with Mayor Bloomberg, who tells him about several of the city agencies that could help him find a job.

“The comic did a great job of capturing my rugged good looks,” Bloomberg said.

While Bloomberg comes to the aid of Parker in the comics, in reality, these agencies may in fact be the real super powers at work.

According to the mayor’s office, The Department of Small Business Services and Workforce1 Career Centers went from finding 500 New Yorkers work in 2004 to over 25,000 last year.

With the help of Marvel, they feel that number is sure to rise.

“Seven years ago, the mayor ended up eliminating The Department of Employment and merging it with Small Business Services and he told us to get to work,” said Small Business Services Commissioner Robert W. Walsh. “I didn’t realize seven years later I’d be getting help from Spider-Man. This year, we’re on pace to get over 30,000 New Yorkers jobs. Maybe the year after that, we can take on the Green Goblin or Doctor Doom.”

The comic was also available in yesterday’s Daily News and is on NYC.gov and as an app for I-Phone and I-Pad.

Photo by Patrick Hickey Jr.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14263 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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