You know, it’s not many people who can claim that they made a publishing house as big as Vertigo to change the name of one of its series, but that’s actually the marketing strategy of beActive. beActive are the publishers of the graphic novel “Collider”. You might remember them as the publisher that made Vertigo’s “Collider” to change title to “Federal Bureau Of Physics.
Some may say that marketing your graphic novel entirely based on the fact that a larger, more well known publishing house coincidentally published a similarly titled series just after you and you legally made them change it is kind of bragging, but not me. As they say, any publicity is good publicity as evidenced by the fact that I’m actually talking about the graphic novel. Which means that I should probably talk about the graphic novel, right?
According to beActive, “Collider” ‘tells the story of six people mysteriously transported to a post-apocalyptic future’ as they wake up in the destroyed campus of CERN in the year 2018. Subsequently, they much piece together the puzzle of what brought them there. “Collider” is written by Mike Garley and has a whopping twelve credited artists who worked on the book.
And that’s the story of “Collider”, the little graphic novel from Ireland who believed that one day could win a legal battle with Vertigo and did. For more information on the book, check out beActive’s press release down below.
beActive Press Release
beActive, a Dublin-based TV, Film and Digital studio specialized in multiplatform entertainment, has recently won a battle against DC Comics/Vertigo, forcing the American comic-book publisher to change the name of its new series of comic books COLLIDER to Federal Bureau of Physics.
The Irish company published the COLLIDER comic book series worldwide in 2012, therefore claiming ownership of the brand. In January 2013, COLLIDER even made the TOP 5 on Comics Plus, the largest online comic book store in the U.S.
Originally published on the influential website Bleeding Cool, the news has been disclosed to the international community of comics with the title The Graphic Novel That Got The Vertigo Series To Change Its Name, increasing awareness of the Irish comic book series. beActive’s surprising victory coincides with the announcement of the theatrical release of COLLIDER (a movie shot in Dublin and based on the comic book series) in Portugal in November 2013 and in the UK and Ireland in January 2014.
COLLIDER tells the story of six people mysteriously transported to a post-apocalyptic future. Peter, Alisha, Carlos, Fiona, Luke and Lucia wake up in an abandoned hotel in the year 2018, at the campus of CERN, which holds the largest particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider. Without realizing how they got there, these six strangers must find a way to return to the present in a persistent struggle for survival.
Twelve artists were involved in the graphic design and production of this comic book for a period of 10 months. A first series of motion comics was posted on YouTube in the fall of 2012, gathering more than 250,000 views. These motion comics were recently screened at the International Film Festival in Galway, Ireland.
The COLLIDER comic book was written by Mike Garley and it’s based on the characters, story and universe, created by producer and storyteller Nuno Bernardo. Mike is a writer of comics, games, screenplays, among other interesting work in this area. He has also worked with renowned publisher Titan Publishing and developed game stories for game developers Wickedy Splits and Masters of Pie.
