Right now, Marvel is making the magic happen at their South by Southwest panel “House of Ideas”, unveiling what’s next for their digital subscription service, Marvel Unlimited. Last year, they brought the house down with an array of announcements – a ton of free downloads, Project Gamma, Infinite Comics weekly – and this year they’re trying to top that. I’ll be updating this post as the panel goes along, so keep your ears peeled.
– Project Gamma is going away, and will now be incorporated into Marvel Unlimited as “Adaptive Audio”, which will have music match the place in the story you’re at as you read to match the tone. The first to see that adaptation will be – fittingly – Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s “Winter Soldier” arc on “Captain America”.
– Marvel AR content will now be seamlessly integrated into Marvel Unlimited, with users now able to watch behind-the-scenes content about the book they are reading as they read it. This, to me, is a much more natural fit than the way AR is currently used, and almost acts as commentary tracks to the digital comic experience.
– Now this is rad: Marvel’s going to be launching a new kid friendly Ultimate Comics Spider-Man series with a kid-centric app that is…wait for it…free. Now how cool is that? That is a bold move, and I love that as a way to bring kids in.
According to Bleeding Cool, creators will include “TV show writer Eugene Son, Matt Kindt, Cullen Bunn, Tim Seeley, JL Mast, Geoffrey Beulieu, Luciano Vecchio and Soutchey Leimetry.” Quite the list.
– Not really sure what this is, but Marvel is launching an original, live-action documentary series called “Tales to Astonish”, which I can only assume will develop the stories behind the stories we love? Why do I assume that? It looks like the first story is a 13 minute episode developed around “Civil War”. According to SXSW saint Moisés Chiullan, Joss Whedon, Clark Gregg, Stan Lee and more will be involved, and the director will be a vet of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series.
– There’s a “Captain America Experience” app that is coming that will be able to use AR to interact with “Winter Soldier” posters to deliver unique and exclusive content. Probably not something I use, but cool outside the box thinking by Marvel.
It seems the panel has now wrapped. A lot of cool news coming from SXSW that continues to show that Marvel is a publisher at the forefront of digital comics. Good for them, and I hope they keep trying new things like the Ultimate Spider-Man app. That’s a great way to bring in new, young readers in my opinion.
