Hey, remember last year, when DC decided to go day-and-date digital, and wound up largely sucking back in former DC readers who just couldn’t get to a comics shop anymore? It may not have launched DC into the mainstream, but it was good enough to put them over Marvel.
Now Marvel is hitting back with…augmented reality comics! Finally, you can use your smartphone to see an OK-looking CGI Iron Man come out of a comics cover!
While not quite as ridiculous as X-O Manowar’s talking cover, the technology is still pretty gimmicky. It’s undeniably neat to point your smartphone or tablet and, say, see a page of art go from rough sketch to inked art to the finished page. At the same time, though, it’s also kind of inside-baseball: how is this supposed to interest anybody who doesn’t care that much about comics? And does Marvel really expect us to trundle off to the comics shop more often for what amounts to DVD extras?
Oh, they also have “Marvel Infinite” Comics, roughly translated as “Give us a buck for ten pages of comics.” How about you include the ten pages of comics with the actual issues, and sell ’em digitally day-and-date, guys? Maybe then we’d be more charitably inclined to that four buck price point.
[ via CNet.com ]
image courtesy Marvel Comics