A few months ago, we brought you the first look at the "Astonishing X-Men" motion comic based on Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's celebrated run on the Marvel comic book series. Now, with the motion comic's October 28 debut on iTunes looming, Wolverine, Cyclops and the rest of the mutant superteam will celebrate their debut in the developing medium with a big premiere this week—three stories big, in fact.
Billed as the first-ever "MarvelFest," the publisher will screen Episode #1 of the "Astonishing X-Men" motion comic on a massive screen in New York City's Union Square this Wednesday (October 28). Along with the screening, Marvel will hold a costume contest and various other Marvel-themed events offering attendees the chance to win some cool swag and, according to the official press release, the chance to be featured in a Marvel comic book.
In an exclusive interview with MTV News, Marvel president and publisher Dan Buckley shared his thoughts on the origins and intent of the event, whether it's connected to the recent deal with Disney, and if it's a sign of things to come for the publisher.
"We’ve been kind of wrestling with developing a motion comics product for the last several years," Buckley told MTV News. "Vestiges of it were even done when [Bill] Jemas was here with the 'Ultimate Spider-Man' piece, but it wasn’t quite what we wanted."
"We started running into more and more people who thought it could be done really creatively and cost effectively. And to be quite honest with you, with the advent of the iPhone, it became an item where we felt we could get a lot more mass-market distribution," he explained. "We started really investigating the possibilities and met with some vendors, including Continuity—out of Neil Adams' studio here in New York."
No stranger to the X-Men universe, the award-winning artist is also co-founder of the graphic design studio that eventually landed the deal to translate Whedon and Cassaday's print series into animated form. Along with his work illustrating the adventures of Marvel's mutant team, Adams is also know for providing the art on some of the most popular stories involving DC characters Batman, Green Lantern and Deadman.
"[Continuity] showed us some stuff they were developing, and we got very excited about it," said Buckley. "We decided to start with 'Astonishing X-Men' because the mix of Joss’ writing with Cassaday's art style is very open and lends itself to adapting."
According to Buckley, the decision to adapt the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator's run on the series was as much a function of his built-in fanbase as it was the story itself—specifically, the more mainstream audience the story was written for.
"[Whedon's run] is four arcs, but as we started seeing more and more of the product, we got more and more excited of what this could be and how it could expand our fanbase for our core storytelling and the older, adolescent-male interpretations that we do in our comics," he explained. "We took a more mass-market, aggressive approach with 'Astonishing X-Men' because it has Wolverine and it involves Joss Whedon."
As regular readers know, this isn't Marvel's first foray into the world of motion comics. We spoke to Brian Bendis back in August about the original "Spider-Woman" motion comic he created in tandem with the print series. Despite its focus on a relatively lesser-known character in the Marvel Universe, the series consistently ranked among the top motion comic titles in the iTunes library.
Buckley said the two motion comics occupy very different spaces in Marvel's plans for the medium, with very different approaches to the development and marketing of the two projects.
"Brian Bendis has also been very bullish in the [motion comic] space, and we developed 'Spider-Woman'—which was a very different process where we’re making the comic and the motion comic at the exact same time," said Buckley. "We decided to take a more hobby market approach with 'Spider-Woman' because the story is very much embedded in our comic book continuity."
As for MarvelFest, Buckley said the event was spawned through a remarkably fortunate convergence of events, goals and—to some degree—lucky timing.
"At first we said, 'Let’s have an event outside, someplace with a lot of traffic where people could experience it and say, 'Hey, you could get that right now,'" he explained. "Then we started diving into doing an event in the city ... and thought a three-story-high projection of the show in Union Square would get us a lot of buzz and a lot of excitement. And then we said, 'Hey, we are two days away from Halloween, too.'"
"This is a holiday that is important to us," he continued. "We go to any convention and we have hundreds of people showing up in their costumes. It all kind of melted together as people started brainstorming in the room. ... We're doing Marvelfest for the first time in New York City because the city is very much a character in our books, and it all kind of pulled together—much to the dismay of many of our marketing people who have to manage these things."
However, Buckley said the origins of MarvelFest have nothing to do with the Walt Disney Company's looming purchase of Marvel Entertainment.
"I can't speak to Disney for a variety of reasons—mainly because we're not closed on that [deal]," he explained. "We haven’t had conversations with them about this or [similar events]."
The Marvel chief did say that the "NYC" designation in "MarvelFest NYC 2009" is worth noting, and if this week's event is successful, more could follow for other notable project premieres—possibly in different locations.
"If it’s successful and we generate a lot of excitement and revenue—revenue’s always big—then yes. That's part of the reason it’s called MarvelFest NYC," he laughed. "But you know, we’ll see how it goes. We'll see if it generates the results we’re looking for."
Even so, Buckley hopes that organizing an event of this size and scope sends a message to fans.
"If we just released ['Astonishing X-Men'] and did a house ad at Marvel Comics, I don’t think people would think we were taking it seriously," he said. "I think if you’re saying, 'We’re going to show this to the world, and put it in the middle of New York,' it shows that we are committed and we’re excited about it. We want to show it off."
MarvelFest NYC 2009 kicks off Wednesday, October 28, with afternoon signings, then a costume contest and, finally, a screening of the first episode of the "Astonishing X-Men" motion comic. For full details and a schedule of events/locations, head over to Marvel.com/fest09.