Marketing boys never stop. In the US, they’ve tried to flog you multiple copies of comics by using different, “exclusive”, covers, while in France they typically add limited edition prints and ex-librises to them, or whip together a “dossier” to go along with the album. And sometimes they actually succeed in creating something nice, like the sketchbook that was added to the first Monsieur Jean (by Dupuy and Berbérian) that was published by Dupuis.
And now they want to get you hooked on digital comics no matter what. France has really been hit by a digital BD frenzy, with every publisher trying to trump the other’s projects by new and “exclusive” features. The newest one, presented by Les Editions Soleil and electronic publisher Digibidi, clearly was inspired by the extra audio commentary tracks that you find on almost any DVD film these days.
(gorgeous splash panel from issue 2 of Le Bleu du Ciel by and (c) Kara, published Editions Soleil)
As BoDoï reports, for the digital version of the second issue of the series Le Bleu du Ciel, artist Kara had the idea to add audio commentary to specific panels on each of the pages, shedding some light on particular techniques that he used, or on a specific problem that he had to overcome in visualising a scene. The commentary is integrated in the digital comic environment that Digibid created, and shows how long each of the tracks last. And if you have a real blabbermouth like Kara, that means you quickly get no less than two and a half hours of commentary for a single, 48 page comic!
Soleil is already planning follow-ups to this experiment. During the festival at Angoulême, they were planning to hold public interview sessions, during which artists like Didier Crisse, Nicolas Keramidas, Ludo Lullabi, Christophe Alliel and Jean-Charles Gaudin would comment on their own work, the result of which will end up in similar, digital-comics-with-extras further down the line.
(those pesky werewolves get everywhere; panels from Le Bleu du Ciel by and (c) Kara)
The audio commentaries are offered for free with each purchase of a digital comic (4.90 EUR), and until March 1st you can test the concept on the first nine pages of the comic for free. I tried it, and I was surpised at how quickly I got hooked. It’s a concept that really works. It all depends on the creators that you can get on board, but I can just imagine what an annotated version of From Hell, Blankets, The New Frontier or Wormdye (to name but a few), could sound like.
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I love this idea – in fact about three years ago (gah!) I recorded an audio commentary for The Rainbow Orchid online. I was rambling too much so never used it, but with a bit of organisation it’s an excellent extra.