Digital Comics Creator Spotlight: Ivan Brandon
The writer of SECRET INVASION: HOME INVASION discusses the eight-month journey of Marvel.com's first exclusive digitial comic
Posted: 2008-12-16 Updated: 2008-12-18 11:15:22
Every week, we'll tap one creator to browse Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and pick some of their favorite work from the expansive catalog. This week: SECRET INVASION: HOME INVASION writer Ivan Brandon on the recently-concluded Marvel Digital Comics exclusive!
"This was a pretty unique experience from a couple different angles. It was Marvel's first extended digital content, so being the first guy to play in that particular sandbox is both an honor of sorts and a weird and scary unpaved road that lacks any precedent as a guide. Over 200,000 people watched the
videos that fed into our comic, which added the pressure of a big stage and the chance to speak to a lot of potential readers who don't normally read comics. The need for expansion of the current audience is a topic I beat to death to anyone who'll listen, so when those new eyes got sent my way I took it seriously.
"So I had to figure out ways to work the war-torn Marvel Universe organically into the path of Kinsey, this very human 18-year-old high school senior who'd essentially been oblivious to any of it up 'til that point. And all of that in single page increments that had to stand alone and bring the reader back every couple days for more.
"That meant that where most of my comics require me to come up with five to seven big moments that the other pages in the book lead in and out of, this digital serial format meant something important had to happen on every single page, which is harder than it sounds at over 100 pages of content that all take place in just about one day of real time and don't read like an epileptic fit.
"It helped to have [editor] John Barber and [assistant editor] Mike Horwitz as a support system. John and I went pretty meticulously over our goals and our options and revisited the trail as many times as needed to make sure it all worked and all mattered.
"It also helped to have
Nick Fury in the book. Nick Fury writes himself."
SECRET INVASION: HOME INVASION ships in trade paperback this February.
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