Following the recent unveiling of an unexplained “Share Your Universe” logo tied to its digital comics codes, Marvel Comics has now formalized the announcement of the program and what it means for the spread of comics amongst readers.
Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley, VP of Television and Animation Jeph Loeb, Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada and VP of Animation Development & Production Cort Lane joined to explain what exactly Marvel: Share Your Universe would be and how it would get into the hands of fans.
The first wave of free product will be free episodes of the incoming “Avengers Assemble” cartoon show up on XBox 360 and Windows 8 Asked what they looked to for inspiration, Buckley said that Marvel really looked internally at the free sampling they’ve already done on their Kids site as well as the idea long held in the comics community that people will go out and try and attract new readers themselves.
“We can go to our core advocates and our core fans” and let them know how to answer the question of “Where to start?” in comics. “We wanted to do something that was very unique and took advantage of the very unique network of fans we have through social media and through comic shops,” the Publisher said. “We don’t think we were doing an easy enough job making this material available for our core fans.”
The ethos will extend to comics, animation, digital media and beyond. “To me, this gets down to the core of what got me into the Marvel Universe to start,” Quesada said, recalling being given comics by his father and older peers. “That was in a day when my dad wasn’t really into Marvel, but he knew of Marvel” as compared to today when die-hard Marvel fans are looking to share their love of the characters with their children.
Lane said that a big component of this program was recruiting kids into the Marvel Universe beyond their interest in the animated series on Disney XD. “We realized we had a lot of content and opportunities being developed, but there wasn’t a lot of way to share this content.” Loeb added that there is an extraordinary amount of content going out to people between television and film, and that this program is meant to turn fans of that material back to the comics from which all those ideas springs.
In terms of goals for the program, Buckley admitted that finding specific results out the gate will be very hard. There are general internet metrics for traffic and “Likes” on social media, but over the months ahead, Marvel will be taking the initiative out to conventions on kids days and other public events.
“Our fanbase has never been shy,” Loeb laughed. “They let us know when we’re doing right things and wrong things, but one thing they’re known for is their love of Marvel…I think this becomes a success if we have one kid introduced to our world because this is an opportunity for us to say to that incredibly active Marvel fanbase ‘Come along with us.'” Loeb added that if the program works well, fans will get a lot of out sharing content with their friends and family outside of whatever benefits Marvel sees as a company.
