Hipster Outreach: Marvel Announces Free Digital Comics, Music For Comics At SXSW

We are not currently at South By Southwest, partly because we have already pissed our meager convention budget on preparations for San Diego Comic-Con in July, and partially because I learned during a visit in 1998 that Austin’s motto of “Keep Austin Weird” does not constitute a legal defense. Let’s just say that, somewhere in a computer in Austin Police Headquarters, there is an active arrest warrant for “Batroc Z. Leaper” that I wouldn’t want compared to my current driver’s license photo.

However, Marvel Comics is at SXSW, and earlier today that ran a panel that included a few announcements, including whatever the hell they were talking about last week with that whole “#1” teaser poster.Turns out they were talking about some free first issues.

Digitally, anyway.

For a little while.

Yeah, from now through this coming Tuesday, March 12th, you can get copies of the first issues of 22 different Marvel Now titles, plus some classic titles like Avengers and Fantastic Four, along with something like 700 issues in total… although I’d wait a little while. Marvel made the announcement around 1 p.m., and apparently the demand is high enough that, while taking that screen grab, Comixology crashed about three times on me. But no matter how you feel about digital comics, that’s a lot of free stuff, and a lot of it is very, very good indeed. I imagine I’ll be spending some time downloading later on this evening myself. Just don’t tell the owner of my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that there is no sense of triumph in successfully buying digital comics in my underpants.

But that was not the only announcement Marvel had in store. In addition to the free comics, they announced that they will be ramping up their Infinite Comics digital offerings, which began with Nova at the start of last year’s Avengers Vs. X-Men event. Marvel claims they will be releasing a new original digital comic every week for a year, starting on July 9th with Wolverine: Japan’s Most Wanted by by Jason Latour, Jason Aaron and Paco Diaz. I imagine that Marvel is doing this to tie into the movie release of The Wolverine on July 26th… and which is based on the 1984 Wolverine miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, which one would think would be a slightly better way to promote the movie (The first issue of that miniseries is one of the first issues you can grab for free this week).

And Marvel must be feeling confident about the whole Infinite Comics project, because earlier today they released this video to promote it…

…because it takes real confidence to show acting of that calibre to the attendees of SXSW and expect them to watch it with a straight face. Confidence that they have been using designer amphetamines. “Just swipe” indeed; most of them will be “just swiping” each other in Port-O-Sans for the remainder of the afternoon. But I digress.

Marvel further announced, as part of their digital comics initiative, Project Gamma…

…yet another innovation from the House of Ideas That Nobody Wanted! In a nutshell, Project Gamma seems to be a soundtrack for your comics, that will somehow be tied into the app you’re using to read digital comics and will automatically change the music based on what panel you’re reading. And, as someone with no urge to hear any particular music while reading comics, I ask you: who will download this app just to see what it does while perusing your collection of pornography? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

And finally, Marvel announced that they will be starting a new Web-based show, Earth’s Mightiest Show, starring former Attack of The Show personality (and former stand-up comedian) Blair Butler. And while the last thing we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives needs is competition from someone who can get people at Marvel to actually, you know, talk to them, Butler was the best part of Attack of The Show (we’re old school fans of The Screen Savers here), and it’s good that she’s found somewhere to land with the closing of that show late last year.

And that’s pretty much it for the Marvel announcements at SXSW. Tune in in July when, in the interest of similar media cross-synergy announcements, we find Ecstasy enthusiasts sucking pacifiers beneath their handlebar moustaches outside of Hall H at Comic-Con, hoping to run into members of Florence and The Machine.

(via Bleeding Cool)