How com­ic books con­quered the world

It’s wild to think how much com­ic books have impact­ed on the cul­tur­al land­scape, from movies and episod­ic TV, to lit­er­a­ture, art, fash­ion and beyond. Inno­va­tions in how to lever­age people’s undy­ing pas­sion for comics have tak­en a new twist, epit­o­mised by the new part­ner­ship between the dig­i­tal col­lec­tables plat­form Ter­ra Vir­tua, and the indie com­ic pub­lish­er Dyna­mite, whose estimable out­put includes The BOYS, Vam­pirella, Red Sonya and lots more. There are now more ways for fans to be able to immerse them­selves in these fan­ta­sy worlds that, once again, tran­scend the lim­its of the print­ed page.

In short, we’re real­ly liv­ing in a big, big moment for comics as an artis­tic medi­um: Nick Bar­ruc­ci, founder and CEO of com­ic book pub­lish­er Dyna­mite Enter­tain­ment says, ​“Since their intro­duc­tion, comics have enjoyed peri­ods of incred­i­ble pop­u­lar­i­ty and the mate­r­i­al they offer, via adap­ta­tion, has served as a back­bone to pop­u­lar cul­ture. Nev­er more so than now, though. The explo­sion is unprece­dent­ed and the source mate­r­i­al remains vibrant and ripe for dis­cov­ery and collecting.”

Yet if you look back into the last cen­tu­ry, com­ic books have always been there as part of our col­lec­tive cul­tur­al DNA. In the 1940s, pop­u­lar com­ic book adap­ta­tions would play as ​“one reel­er” seri­als along­side the A‑picture and a news­reel, so audi­ences would’ve been able to see real live ver­sions of their favourite super­heroes such as Con­go Bill, Hop Har­ring­ton and The Vig­i­lante. Much like the com­ic books them­selves, these 15 minute seg­ments func­tioned as a way to pull pun­ters back into the cin­e­ma each week by end­ing on a minia­ture cliffhang­er and tempt­ing cus­tomers to find out what hap­pens next.

Fast-for­ward to the present day, past all the Mar­vel Comics Uni­verse, count­less indie label movie adap­ta­tions and almost full sat­u­ra­tion of con­tem­po­rary cul­ture, and there are still new ways being devel­oped for fans to be able to engage with – and wor­ship at the alter of – com­ic books and com­ic art.

One such exam­ple is dig­i­tal col­lectibles plat­form Ter­ra Vir­tua, who, in part­ner­ship with Dyna­mite Enter­tain­ment, has launched its first major non-fun­gi­ble token (NFT) com­ic col­lec­tion on its new Poly­gon blockchain plat­form. The part­ner­ship with Dyna­mite Enter­tain­ment launched a lim­it­ed-edi­tion range of fan-favourite com­ic fran­chis­es, start­ing with the cov­et­ed lith­o­graph col­lec­tion and its ground-break­ing series, The BOYS.

This expan­sion into NFT comics and graph­ic nov­els will be fol­lowed by Red Son­ja, Vam­pirella, John Carter and Dejah Tho­ris, fea­tur­ing the work of infa­mous enter­tain­ment cre­ators includ­ing the leg­endary Christo­pher Priest, Garth Ennis, Dar­ick Robert­son. Gail Simone, Alex Ross. It does seem like a giant leap for the world of com­ic books, and only time will tell if this is yet anoth­er moment where a giant, era-defin­ing mono­lith appears on the landscape.

Ter­ra Vir­tua are also pio­neer­ing in devel­op­ing a bespoke read­er to be able to view this exclu­sive NFT con­tent, which is called ​‘VPLAY’. In doing so, they are enhanc­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of fan engage­ment and nar­row­ing the chasm between cre­ators and audi­ences. And to add to that, Ter­ra Vir­tua recent­ly switched its plat­form from the Ethereum blockchain to Poly­gon in a dri­ve to be more sus­tain­able. By mak­ing the change, the NFT pio­neer has reduced its ener­gy usage in mint­ing NFTs by over 99 per cent.

Gary Bracey, Ter­ra Vir­tua CEO says, ​“We are priv­i­leged to part­ner with Dyna­mite Enter­tain­ment for this ground­break­ing ven­ture as we kick off a new era with Poly­gon. Being mas­sive com­ic fans our­selves, this is a per­fect match as we respect not only their demo­c­ra­t­ic atti­tude towards the cre­ative tal­ent but also the incred­i­ble diver­si­ty of pub­lished con­tent from icon­ic series like The BOYS through to Vam­pirella, Red Son­ja, John Carter, Dejah Tho­ris and many more. We can­not wait for fans to see the inno­v­a­tive NFTs we are col­lab­o­rat­ing on through sus­tain­able means!”

Check out Ter­ra Virtua’s Dyna­mite Comics col­lec­tion at ter​ravir​tua​.io