Because this is going to be breaking news, I’m just going to be live-blogging and updating all the cool announcements from Marvel.
1:07 p.m.
Even before the panel started, you’ll notice if you’re obsessive about updating your apps that Marvel’s Digital Unlimited app has a huge new update, featuring comics with enhanced audio!!! Unvelled last year at SXSW as Project Gamma, this has just been pushed out. I already downloaded “The Winter Soldier” and it is fan-tastic!!!
Go get it!!
Remember, now through the end of SXSW (March 14) you can get Marvel Unlimited for just 99 cents! Use code SXSW99 to get it.
Panel starts in 7 minutes.
1:20
We’re getting getting Cap Winter Soldier footage!
And Axel Alonso admits Austin has the best tacos.
VP Kristen Vincent also went through their digital offerings. And here comes their announcement about Project Gamma, now known simply as “Adaptive Audio”! A video!
You need to go download all of this– the update for Marvel Unlimited also includes optimization for each device. That’s right– optimized for your iPad, iPhone, Galaxy SIII, Moto X, etc.
They’ve started with Brubaker’s entire Winter Soldier arc to get prepared for the film coming out. Axel Alonso and Arune Singh compare the addition of audio to the addition of color– it just takes it to the next level.
Everyone can download Winter Soldier #1 — that means you. Members who have signed up for Unlimited can get all 6 issues in the arc.
Also, we’re getting video con tent added to the app.
1:34 p.m.
The first six issues of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run are being paired with this new video content, which includes creator content about the creative progress, interviews with celebrities (including wrestlers! OneDirection! Stan Lee!!)
There are 20 videos overall paired with these six issues, with over 1,400 added soon. The first issue of Avengers is also free to download for everyone, and the rest for everyone else.
1:45
Announcement! Ultimate Spider-Man (based on the cartoon) will have his own Infinite Comics series later this year, as well as a kid-friendly UI. And, it will be at a kid-friendly price-point: FREE.
We’re also going to be getting a new video series, Tales to Astonish. It will marry the real world implications and issues in Marvel Comics, starting with the Civil War. It will feature everyone from Stan Lee (yay!), Clark Gregg (yay!), Stan Lee (yay!), and Tucker Carlson (boooooooooo). The first one will be 14 minutes and is in the pilot stage.
We’ll also be seeing more content from Marvel “What The?!?” We got a new video featuring The Punisher, Deadpool, Black Widow, and Elektra. Very funny stuff. Check out Marvel.com for more of this.
And now Cap footage!
1:58
This is from the first 3 minutes of the movie, featuring Batroc and the trailer footage we’ve seen of Cap jumping out of the plane sans parachute, Black Widow using her Widow’s Bite on some guy’s neck, etc. This is mind-blowingly awesome. I can’t wait for these to come out.
And finally– announcing the Captain America Experience! Available on Android and iOS, you can scan any Captain America poster and it will create an awesome AR image. The one Ryan Penagos and Arune Singh demonstrated had Cap busting through a plate glass window through the poster into the real world. It looks amazing! Oh, and you can totes capture that and share it. Like you want to.
Another SXSW, another awesome Marvel panel. Stay tuned for updates right here as I try to pry more details out of some of these Marvel folks, who are currently busy giving away free variants of the Winter Soldier: The Bitter March #1 to lucky SXSW attendees.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW CONTENT AHEAD!
After the panel, I got a chance to talk to most of the Marvel folks 1:1. Axel Alonso was talking up his son’s (undefeated) basketball team that had just won a big game while he was on stage. Ryan Penagos gave me a rundown of all of the good food he’d had in Austin.
But the best conversation I had was with Kristin Vincent, VP for Digital Products. We talked Ultimate Spider-Man Infinite Comics and adaptive audio, as well as future plans for SXSW in 2015.
I asked what took them a year to go from the concept they showed at SXSW last year to actually deploying it. As with most things from Marvel, it came back to a simple concept: story first. “It was really just trying to figure out how to integrate it into storytelling as opposed to just making it gimmicky.”
Behind the scenes with the technology, they also spent a lot of time making sure the audio was correct, from having the composer work with editorial staff at Marvel — Joe Quesada, Tom Breevort, Axel Alonso, among others — to understand the story beats and tone, to making sure the technology worked with the existing architecture. “The goal is that we wanted to make sure we got it right.”
This is altogether incredibly encouraging. First, from the perspective that they looked at story first, but also making sure they got the tech right. Too often, we see things rushed out based on a deadline rather than when it’s ready, and the product itself suffers. I can think of a handful of video games from last year that would’ve done better to delay their release by a month or two.
“We’re still trying to figure out where to take it. We’re huge into watching how fans react, so I know all of us will be on Twitter… watching for the next few days and weeks… and then really figure out how to expand it. We want to see what resonates.” So, kids, get on teh Twitterz and tell them what you like!
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The final verdict, after both of these panels and interacting with folks, is Marvel is always about their fans and their stories and characters first. Whatever technology changes, or innovations we might get, they want to hear from us and sincerely listen to our input.
Go to it, True Believers!