Press Release:
Hex Publishers and Random Games Unleash A Six-Part SciFi Comic Book Series Based On the UNIOVERSE Videogame
(May 8, 2023) Hex Publishers and Random Games are partnering to create original comics based on the Unioverse videogame and platform for user-generated creativity. A six-part series of interconnected one-shots will introduce the first five playable Unioverse heroes from the Unioverse videogame. The comics are co-written by Colorado Book Award winner Joshua Viola and Angie Hodapp, with interior art by Ben Matsuya (Cryowulf, Jupiter Jet), and cover art by AJ Nazzaro (Hearthstone, Overwatch). The series launches on May 9th, 2023 with Unioverse: Reyu.
Set in the near future, the Unioverse story centers around a technology discovered on Mars that allows anyone to instantly transport their consciousness across galaxies. A playable alpha sequence from the first Unioverse game, The Proving Grounds, was launched this year by a team of gaming and entertainment industry veterans behind titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Donkey Kong Country and Crackdown. The narrative direction of the Unioverse is led by Brent Friedman, a master storyteller whose previous credits include writing on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Walking Dead, Call of Duty, and Star Trek: Enterprise.
“The Unioverse was designed to be a transportive transmedia experience for fans,” said Brent Friedman. “From day one, the narrative team approached worldbuilding with the expressed intent to create a solid canonical foundation on which countless stories could be told in games, comics, anthologies, movies, and more. Unioverse: Reyu represents the first expression of our vision for storytelling beyond the Unioverse website. I feel like a proud parent!” Continue reading “Breaking News: Hex Publishers and Random Games Release a New Comic Series Unioverse: Reyu”
The price of a comic book jumped 267% during the 1970s, from 15 cents to 40. The pace slowed down by half between 2009 and 2018, from $2.99 to $3.99. It’s that last number I am going to discuss, and I’ll start with Stan Lee.
Most likely you have noticed the shift from static broadcast and cable television and movies to streaming services such as Netflix and DC Universe… to name but two. This stuff is growing like amoebas on steroids. In the relatively few years since this all began, it has knocked the poo out of the free media industries.
The American comic book industry jumped on this concept out of the same cultural-shift that affected these other entertainment industries. Peculiarly, American comic book publishers have not shown much in the way of innovation over the past 86 years; the last huge improvement came when Major Wheeler-Nicholson decided to commission new work instead of relying upon newspaper strip reprints. That happened a mere 84 years ago.
That’s cool. Technology marches on, and the side benefit is that we’re saving a lot of trees, creating more oxygen and using fewer fossil fuels to distribute pretty colors printed on the corpses of saplings. Some people, not all of whom are nostalgia-soaked geriatrics, don’t like this and that is completely understandable. Just wait until they must move their comic book collection to a new abode. With two-terabyte thumb-drives available and heading towards affordability, you can put a copy of every comic book ever published in America on maybe four such drives and drop them in your purse or pocket.
Immediately and quite predictably, the naysayers started screaming nay. “This will kill magazines and newspapers,” they say. Oh, yeah? If you live within a convenient walk of a retailer who offers more than 240 magazines and newspapers, consider yourself very lucky. Most people do not. If you want to choose from a variety of publications, you better be ready to drive out to one of the rapidly-dwindling big box stores such as Barnes and Noble and then pray for the best. This distribution method, pioneered by Apple with iTunes, saved the music industry. Is FYI still around? How about Borders? Ya wanna get this stuff somewhere.
