Last week
Marvel announced that it would be launching five new online-only series
as part of its digital comics initiative at Marvel.com. The five titles
cover a variety of characters and genres not regularly seen in Marvel’s
print comics, including a modern Western by Jason Aaron, a Halloween
Special, a classic Western featuring Kid Colt, a story about those who
investigate the Marvel Universe in the media, Fin Fang Four, and more.
The new titles join two previous titles, starring Iron Man and the
Hulk, respectively, that spin out of the character’s two movies.
As this is a large step into the world of online comics for Marvel, we
spoke with John Cerilli, Director of Content for the Marvel Digital
Media Group about the scope of the new titles, and what the company
hopes to achieve.
Newsarama: First off John, how long has this been in the works?
Was this something that was on the roadmap at the beginning of Marvel:
DCU, or did it come up after it had started?
John Cerilli: We’ve been thinking about this since last year’s
launch of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited. It’s a natural progression
for the digital product and helps in our primary mission of making a
diverse array of comic books available to the widest audience possible.
We want to appeal to as many different comic book readers and potential
comic book readers as we can and turn them on to what we all
love—reading comics. We look forward to telling great stories for super
hero fans and non-super hero fans alike while continuously adding to
our digital “backlist”—which numbers over 5,000 comics now.
NRAMA: Who is the audience for this? Obviously, the technology
of it seems to suggest you're looking for younger or new readers who
don't mind that they're not on paper, but at the same time, these
aren't your most popular characters that, one would think, could draw
in the widest audience...
JC: It’s simple, actually. The audience for these comics is
everyone who has an interest in reading great stories. Whether you’ve
been reading comics for decades or you’ve come to Marvel.com for the
first time after seeing one of our movies, animated productions or
playing one of our video games—we want everyone to know Marvel comics
offer a wide variety of subject matter and are accessible at the click
of a mouse. We want them to read the comics, get psyched about reading
them and head off to their local comic retailers to read more.
Regarding the character selection, Iron Man and Hulk led off this new
program—between their performances at the box office and the success of
the recent Iron Man DVD release—we think they’ve had a pretty good year appealing to wide audiences.
NRAMA: Let's talk about how the various characters were
selected...these are a somewhat disparate group here. Did you open the
door to pitches, or did you start with a group of characters that you
wanted in the titles, and seek out creators?
JC: Actually it’s a little bit of all of the above. Editors had
ideas. Creators had ideas. We just mixed it all up, decided what would
be best to move forward with and then laid out a schedule. Early on in
this process, we made a very conscious decision to explore genres you
may not have seen in a while from Marvel. In addition to traditional
super hero storytelling, you’ll get westerns, sci-fi, holiday specials
(a personal favorite), humor and lots more. We think this approach of
offering a wider array of genres will attract new readers to comics and
that’s exciting for everyone involved—the readers and our partners in
all of this, the retail shops that will benefit from this new audience
hungry for more.
NRAMA: What do you see as the overall plan of this division of
Marvel? Does the fact that you're not starting with a lineup of
Avengers, X-Men, FF, Wolverine, Wolverine and Wolverine indicate that
this side of Marvel is a little...different?
JC: I think the last answer addresses a lot of our thinking
behind how we’re moving forward with the stories we’re pursuing.
However, I will add, a year ago the very concept of an ever-growing
treasure trove of 5,000 plus Marvel comics available for viewing at a
mouseclick was quite foreign. And now, in addition to all of those
great comics, we’ve evolved Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited to include
unique storytelling. So I wouldn’t pigeonhole the division to one thing
or another or one group of characters over another. We’re going to get
people excited by telling great stories and you’ll see a huge array of
Marvel characters starring in them.
NRAMA: Obviously, there will be those who look at these titles
and attach the stigma of "this was stuff that they knew they couldn't
sell in print..." but let's look at that idea. Are the projects that
come out as part of this initiative as tightly bound by financial
constraints as say, a regular print miniseries? That is, these books
aren't going to be printed on paper, so are considerations that can
prevent some projects from seeing the light of day as much an issue
with these?
JC: Whether digital or paper, there are always financial
constraints. You want to tell the best story you can within the
parameters of the budget that’s allowed to tell the story. That will
never change. Projects bound for digital are under just as rigorous the
scrutiny as projects bound for paper.
NRAMA: While we're talking about print, is Marvel looking at these titles as strictly digital-only, that is, never shall these art and words touch paper, or will they be collected and printed someday?
JC: Much like we convert paper comics to digital for Marvel
Digital Comics Unlimited, you will see these stories on comic shop
shelves in a paper format after they’ve debuted in Marvel Digital
Comics Unlimited exclusively. In fact, our Iron Man and Hulk movie
continuity stories will be collected and will appear in paper form
later this year—with an extra story being developed separately to add
to that paper collection! Read more about it here.
NRAMA: We've gotten pretty far into this without really talking about you. What is your role in all of this?
JC: I am the Director of Content for the Marvel Digital Media
Group. In terms of the Digital Comics program, my team works directly
with the editors and creators to formulate and choose projects for
Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and we’re ultimately responsible for
publishing them on time so the world can read them.
NRAMA: That said, where are these books born and grow up? Do you
do all the editing on all the titles being published online, or is the
workload spread out over some other folks?
JC: The hands-on editing occurs with the editor(s) responsible
for the approved individual title—much like it happens with any paper
comic. These comics are “born and grow up” through a very collaborative
process that’s ultimately orchestrated through my office. Marvel
editorial is a rather collaborative bunch in general so this is no
different than what normally goes on up here.
NRAMA: From what we've seen with DCU and the samples of Frank
Tieri's book, it looks as if these will be comic page format...is that
in order to keep things printable? Why not go all Scott McCloud-y and
bust out of the frame?
JC: We’re Marvel comics. We make comic books that tell great
stories and feature mind-blowing art. The digital space is simply
another delivery method to get people excited about comic books.
Anything that doesn’t look like a comic book is, by nature, something
different than a comic book. We like publishing comic books. However,
with that said, because we publish comic books digitally—this does not
preclude us from experimenting with new and different methods of
comic-style storytelling in the digital space and the Marvel Digital
Media Group will be doing just that. As we’re apt to say, stay
tuned—there’s a lot more coming. Believe me on this one, there is.
NRAMA: Why Wednesday for release of new material? Obviously,
there’s the tradition with print, but why stick with that day when
you're not dependent upon it due to shipping? Why not, say, Tuesday,
when DVDs and CDs are released, something that would pull comics closer
to the larger "entertainment" market?
JC: Great question. And you answered it as well. It’s tradition.
Wednesday is comic book day and these comics deserve to be a part of
that long-standing sense of excitement comic fans feel every Wednesday.
NRAMA: What are you looking at with your frequency? How many titles each week?
JC: Right now, we’re promising at least three releases per
month. But I can tell you that our schedule has filled in quite nicely
and fans can probably expect at least one new comic every
Wednesday—that’s what we’re shooting for. Down the road, there may very
well be more than one issued every Wednesday. As long as people enjoy
them, we attract new readers and keep getting these new people into
comic book shops for more Marvel product, we’ll be very happy with the
model we’ve set up.
NRAMA: How many pages will the installments be?
JC: There’s actually no set amount of pages. It will vary by
project and, simply, by what we feel is appropriate to tell the story
we need to tell. You’ll see anything from six-page issues up to,
potentially, 22-pagers. In fact, Secret Invasion: Home Invasion, an entirely free serialized comic that began with the commencement of the Secret Invasion (read it here),
gets published at the rate of one page every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday. Once it’s done, it will end up being well over 100 pages.
NRAMA: In closing, any teases you can give of what's to come?
And by the way, how many pitches are you getting? Every creator has
that character or story in their back pocket...
JC: I’ll tell you, it’s really exciting. As word spreads though
the creative community, we’re getting more and more pitches. In fact, I
was just inundated today with more than 20 different ideas for this
year’s Marvel Holiday Special. As for a tease for what’s to come? How about this very specific one…In part two of the all-new Marvels Channel: Monsters, Myths And Marvels,
currently scheduled for release on Wednesday, November 5—keep on the
lookout for one character’s particularly amusing interpretation of who
the Illuminati might be. As for future Exclusive Digital Comics outside
of what we released today, we’ll let the world know all about them as
they get approved. You won’t be disappointed.
