At the South by Southwest conference, Marvel Comics has announced Infinite Comics as a new extension of their digital comics initiative. These comics will be produced specifically to be read on tablet devices, experimenting with opportunities the digital format affords.
Infinite Comics iis set to be spearheaded by Mark Waid and Stuart Immonen and begin as a series of three tie-ins to Marvel’s upcoming Avengers Vs. X-Men event. The first installment will star Nova as he races to Earth to warn the Avengers about the Phoenix Force.
Both Joe Quesada and Mark Waid seem aware of previous attempts at digital comics and their shortcomings. Readers in general were put off by the gimmicky and intrusive nature of past digital comics. Waid acknowledged this problem by saying digital comics need to be done in a way that lets readers still feel like they are in control of reading the comic. This will be something kept in mind as they experiment with ways in which captions and speech bubbles appear in panels and how panels are focused on.
An important note is that the Nova who will be starring in the first Infinite Comic will not be Rich Rider and instead be the new Nova created by Jeph Loeb, first appearing in Marvel’s Point One oneshot. Quesada noted this as being a major part of the big plans he has been hinting at for two years when fans asked about the future of Marvel’s cosmic franchise.
In return, it should probably be noted that many of these fans were not asking for a new Nova when expressing their interest in Marvel’s cosmic cast. Sorry, Nova fans.
