Comics
Marvel Reveals “Unprecedented” Marketing and Promotion for All-New Marvel NOW!
Marvel is one of the best in any entertainment business when it comes to marketing their creative material. They treat readers with respect and always stand behind their work. For the most part, with the exception of a few questionable legal debacles over the years, they manage to stay away from bad press.
With the launch of All-New Marvel NOW! set to begin in 2014, Marvel has plans to increase their promotional means as a way to harvest more potential readers. This includes incentives for retailers, digital copies with physical purchase of every first issue, and a big online marketing campaign. See all the details below.
Official Press Release:
“It’s important that our fans and retailers know that this a brand-new project worth getting excited about. This isn’t some extension or continuation. All-New Marvel Now! is a thrilling new entity that’s bringing unmatched energy and focus to our already-robust line of titles.”—Axel Alonso, Marvel Entertainment Editor-in-Chief
New York, NY—December 6th, 2013— All-New Marvel NOW! ushers in 2014 with exciting new ongoing series and must-read .NOW entry issues and today, Marvel is proud to announce the company-wide initiative will reach unprecedented levels of marketing and promotion, exceeding that of the original Marvel NOW! and any other promotional campaign in Marvel’s comic book history.
Once again leading the way in how comics reach larger audiences – Marvel plans to embark on its most ambitious and exciting marketing campaign yet in 2014. Exceeding the investment of the original Marvel NOW! initiative, the massive media blitz for All-New Marvel NOW! is estimated to reach 100 million prospective readers – both new and existing!
“We’re extremely proud of each and every one of these accessible new series,” said David Gabriel, SVP of Sales, Print & Digital Publishing. “So we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure hundreds of millions of people, the world over know, that All-New Marvel NOW! is the best place to jump in to the best comics on the market.”
“Whether you’ve never read a Marvel comic before, or you read them all,” Gabriel continued. “These bold new titles provide something exciting for everyone.”
Already featured everywhere from USA Today, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, LA Times, Huffington Post, The Nerdist, and Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report and more, All-New Marvel NOW! is set to reach entirely new audiences in 2014 with everything from vast social media outreach, new levels of targeted web and video advertising, and massive television, streaming and radio campaigns estimated to touch over 100 million consumers.
Joe Taraborrelli, Marvel’s Senior Communications Manager, emphasizes, “2014 is the year where Marvel is going to be at the forefront of pop-culture. From promotional initiatives spanning movies, television, radio, digital, streaming and print, Marvel is once again going to be changing the game about how the comic book genre is seen and absorbed.”
Taraborrelli continues, “Marvel is producing some of the most eclectic and entertaining stories the world has ever seen and we are ready to bring the Marvel Universe to audiences, new and old, through all new captivating channels.”
But that’s not all – In addition to new marketing strategies, Marvel is proud to announce exciting programs to aid comic shops and retailers in promoting All-New Marvel NOW!. Marvel will be providing participating retailers with marketing collateral, in-store trailers, FREE All-New Marvel NOW! Previews samplers, and more.
Plus, every FIRST ISSUE bearing the All New Marvel NOW! branding includes a code for a free digital copy of that same comic on the Marvel Comics app for iOS and Android devices. But that’s not all! Select .NOW! titles will also come with a digital code for the entire first collection of that series ABSOLUTELY FREE!
In addition to the Marvel Comic app, Marvel Unlimited is our member subscription service that gives members unlimited access to over 15,000 issues of Marvel’s classic and newer titles, delivered digitally through your desktop web browser and the Marvel Unlimited mobile app. More classic and newer issues are added every week — as soon as 6 months after they hit stores!
Once again, the biggest creators bring you the biggest characters in the biggest stories…and it’s happening NOW!
For more on All-New Marvel NOW!, please visit www.marvel.com and join the conversation on Twitter with #MarvelNOW.
Comics
[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream
Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.
“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”
Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.
Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.
Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.
Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.
Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.
Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.
Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.
Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion.
Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.
‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.
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