CBR is all over the coverage on today’s big announcement from Marvel at the South by Southwest digital media festival in Austin, as they announced their next major steps in digital comics via Marvel Infinite Comics and their “ReEvolution.” The latter is the overall digital concept, in which the first steps are going to be integrating augmented reality technology and digital only comics (the aforementioned Infinite Comics branch) for the upcoming “Avengers vs. X-Men” crossover.
The Infinite Comics idea stems, in a lot of ways, from a digital comic that Yves Bigerel crafted and put on his DeviantArt page. It found two big fans in Joe Quesada, the Marvel Comics CCO and Infinite Comics proponent, and digital comics maven/comic writer Mark Waid, who will be writing the initial offerings for IC. These comics will be only digital (at least at first, according to Quesada), and will look to push the medium forward by using digital technology to positively impact storytelling timing and delivery.
The first story will revolve around new Nova Sam Alexander as he rushes back to Earth to warn everyone about the return of the Phoenix, and will be written by Waid with art from Stuart Immonen (an artist noted for his experimental nature). Not only that, but an additional chapter will come with art from Bigerel himself.
My take on all of this? On one hand, I’m a little underwhelmed. Fellow MC writer Brandon Burpee casually suggested to be me that the much hyped Infinite Comics was going to be a subscription service for Marvel Comics a la Spotify, an idea which I found quite exciting. What we actually get is also exciting, especially with talented people like Waid, Immonen and Bigerel involved as well as the passionate support of all of Marvel’s higher-ups. This could be the first step in a major transition in the acceptance of digital comics, and it is a pretty bold one by Marvel, although I must say I’m curious as to what retailer reaction to this story is.
As for the other announced aspect, the augmented reality features that are going to be included with AvX, I could honestly care less. Augmented Reality is one of those ideas that is hot right now in digital media for the theoretical applications it could have, but I have yet to see anything that actually impresses me in terms of true execution (outside of the theoretical execution Greg Pak and RB Silva showed in Vision Machine). It feels like one of those ideas that a company puts together to show that they’re forward thinking and hip and fresh, but realistically, it’s a lot more hype than its worth.
There’s assuredly a lot more to come on this, but if you want more details, make sure to check CBR for their talks with Quesada and Waid on the subject.
