You might have heard that Mark Waid got serious about digital comics. He started blogging regularly at markwaid.com, and started up Thrillbent.com, with producer John Rogers. Previously, Waid debuted Luther, and today sees the first issue of the Waid written Insufferable, a comic drawn and co-created by Peter Krause, Waid’s Irredeemable artist.
For all intents and purposes, it’s a mainstream superhero comic-meets-webcomic. They’ve added pageturns to the webcomic, and broken up the rigid page format of your traditional comics. It’s not new, but it is new. Dig? It’s about costumed crimefighters, and the production looks very much like the comics you’ve read many times. Of course, this is free, and available for your consumption right now.
The way this works now, is that you go read it.
Will it succeed? Well, what does that even mean? You can put all sorts of neat tricks into your comic book presentation, and “reinvent” the format, but when it’s all said and done, the story has to be intriguing. The writing and art has to be good, or at least resonate with a fanbase. Mark Waid is enjoying a heck of a ride right now in comics, from one end of the spectrum to the other, with his critically acclaimed Daredevil run, as well as this web based departure in creator-owned comics. Let’s watch what happens.
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How can I put this on my pull list?
You can’t.
By remembering what day it comes out, then reading the damn thing?
nice. i’m really looking forward to Waid’s experiments into digital. The future is now people…we need to try and support this stuff.
Makes me wonder what’s next in Mark Waid’s “In-” series. But seriously, I’m looking forward to this. Waid is a master of the craft.
I enjoyed this. I’m a fan of Irredeemable, so I definitely want to follow this. I read it on my Kindle Fire (horizontally) . It wasn’t bad, but the page didn’t fit exactly on the screen. I had to move the page up or down to see portions of the top or bottom. Some parts of the panel transitions were pretty cool. Especially the beginning when the villain taps on the screen and the panel switches from blurry to clear. I like how digi comics do that…a panel slightly changes without the reader having to move his / her eyes.
It didn’t fit the iPad perfectly either, but it was really enjoyable. I will be following this series.
will this continue to be free for the current time being?
Pretty nifty. Price range would be the factor for me about “tuning in” on a regular basis. An intriguing start.
I’m really impressed with the presentation here. Both Insufferable and Luthor have really innovative usage of comics in the digital medium. The fact the art is formatted to properly fit a Browser or Tablet screen is also a godsend. And the way its formatted looks to be perfect for future print collections. So the best of both worlds. I’ve very excited to see what Thrillbent brings to the table, and I can’t wait to see what for-pay offerings they plan to offer in the future. I want to give Mark Waid & Co. all my monies.
The initiative is awesome, plain and simple.
That was really great. Looking forward to more. Wadi just seems to be on a roll for ages now.
Loved it. I’d pay money to read more.
Liked it.
This was good stuff, as was “Luther” which is also on the Thrillbent.com.
I’m wondering about how Waid plans to make money. Ads? Merchandise? Selling movie or TV rights? All of the above? Maybe he’s going to follow the Penny-arcade.com model which is “most of the above”.
Good luck to him and I hope he keeps the high quality, free comics coming!
wow this is a good story, and the way he set it up is nice
I enjoyed this & look forward to seeing where it goes. Good luck Mr Waid.
That was pretty cool. I really think this format is the way comics should be heading, at least on the digital stage.
In terms of the story? I liked it. A nice set-up issue, though I guess I wasn’t blown away by it, and i think a lot of that came from the art. I loved Krause on Irredeemable, but it seemed like his art in this seemed to lack urgency. The action was kinda stiff, I guess.
I really want to see more things made in this format. For me, that Infinite Comics: Nova issue was the perfect story to show off this kind of storytelling, again mainly due to Immonen’s fantastic artwork.
The way Waid used the panel transitions to pace the reader and add a sense of time and suspense was fantastic!
i thought this was an interesting experiment, with some transitions more successful than others. Some of the ones where you repeat panels feels like an awkward stutter that confuses my brain for a second. Also in the panels where there are large amounts of white space as you reveal new panels…i dunno i like the idea, but i’m pretty aware that something is missing from that area, as opposed to having designed white space there.
The story, art and characters are pretty fun and well executed. I’m definitely interested in reading more. I would say keep pushing, keep experimenting with this new formatting. Congratulations to Mark Waid for launching this thing.
I will admit I am a bit turned off by the whole Kickstarter thing in this comic. Just as I was by Nova saying he liked dubstep in the AVX Infinite comic. Maybe tone down the pop culture references a bit…