Publishers, distributors, creators and fans of sequential art have all been looking for the nexus point where analog and digital comics meet. It’s been fascinating to see opinions from all sides of the so-called “digital divide.”
We here at the Isotope aren’t format snobs, we’ll stock the comics people want no matter what they’re printed on or how they’re distributed. And we’ve been providing customers from the four corners of the map with their digital fix for many months now. We’ve tailored the experience to be truly “more Isotope” and have been providing our virtual customers the kind of curation and personalized recommendations you simply can’t get anywhere else. Or for those folks who just want to jump right in, we invite you all to feel free to poke around our virtual longboxes and see what else we’re stocking.
Our friends over at Marvel have been experimenting with a bunch of different digital funnybook ideas over the past year. As with any innovation, some of their ideas and implementations are pretty cool, some are just really not as cool as they sound, and some of them just kind of suck.
Their latest announcement, made at SXSW just today, sounds like will be in that kinda cool camp. The marketing folks at the company are calling it Marvel ReEvolution (which inspired my Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution poster at left). Using a swanky new Augmented Reality app, which is debuting soon, Marvel’s wants to “build out DVD and Blu-Ray extras into the comic book itself. Whether users buy a print or digital version, they’ll get to check out animated videos, pencils, colors, and primers on past issues in a series.” These new features are coming in the highly anticipated Avengers Vs. X-Men series (you’re signed up for a subscription at the Isotope already right? If not drop us an email.)
Well, nicely done, Marvel! This is so much more interesting than the simple digital shovelware publishers have been doing up until this point and I have to applaud them for it. You can read more about the Marvel ReEvolution app here.
Of course we all know that the Isotope is truly where the worlds of Analog and Digital meet (or at the very least the absolute sexiest nexus point of the two), but it’s great to see Marvel getting in on the action too. We are definitely looking forward to checking their new application out.
UPDATE: Well I have to admit I’m considerably less excited after checking out this video of it in action from SXSW. It will be neat, I suppose, the first time we see a book on the stands. But personally I was bored watching Iron Man move his arms around even before the 33 second video was over. While the program has some very interesting possibilities (which I hope someday we’ll see) right now it’s only marginally less snooze-inducing than the other guy’s talking poster.
