By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : Richard Branson's Virgin Comics and MySpace have teamed up to launch Coalition Comix, a new online comic book platform that allows readers to work with leading comic book creators in developing new characters and stories.
Coalition Comix will open up the role of comic book writer to the world at large allowing participants to provide artistic direction to the comic by voting on the plot twists and turns at each step of the way, according to Virgin Comics.
Virgin Comics is an entertainment company founded by Sir Richard Branson, new age author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur.
MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is a lifestyle portal integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail and the like to create a connected community.
Coalition Comix will commission some of the comic book industry's leading creators to collaborate with users as virtual "Story Masters". Leading creators will guide participants to collectively craft new story properties for comics and subsequent development into film, games and animations.
"Coalition Comix will allow readers to collaborate artistically with both a leading comics professional as well as thousands of like-minded MySpace users all over the world," said Sharad Devarajan, CEO of Virgin Comics.
"It opens the door to a new world of interactions and collaborations, taking an exciting step into the creative possibilities of the Internet, and a new form of collaborative art without borders, barriers, or limits."
"MySpace is about self-expression and the interactive format of Coalition Comix will allow the MySpace community to make themselves part of the story," said Shawn Gold, senior vice president of marketing for MySpace.
Each digital issue will have a real time creation period of two weeks, with sketches, artwork and scripts continuously uploaded for interactivity with the community. The first comic planned will be guided by leading comic book author, Mike Carey (Voodoo Child, X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four).
Carey will hold a dialogue with readers and guide the development of the plot at each step by reviewing feedback from readers, and posing questions with five or six choices for the Coalition Comix community to choose from.
During this time the Story Master will evaluate progress at timed intervals to give feedback to the community. Their ideas and votes will determine the final plot, generating a final work of sequential art that was created and influenced by hundreds or even thousands of contributors.
Gotham Chopra, Virgin Comic's Chief Creative Officer, added: "Creativity and innovation are the core ingredients to everything we try and do at Virgin Comics. So when we decided we wanted to experiment online and do something different, there was only one partner that made sense to work with – MySpace.
"What are we gonna create together? No one knows, but it will be cool. That's the point."