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Hasbro Cinematic Universe could arrive as early as 2020

By on October 28, 2017 in Film

In April of 2016 news broke that Hasbro was going to make an effort to leverage several properties into a shared cinematic universe. The properties included G.I. Joe, Visionaries, M.A.S.K., Micronauts, and ROM.

Hasbro Shared Univrse

Art from IDW’s Hasbro Shared Universe which features Transformers, G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., Rom, and others

The toy company brought together a who’s who of storytellers to form a writers room and start figuring out how all of the pieces could interlock. From Variety:

The writers assigned to the room are Lindsey Beer (“Wizard of Oz”), Michael Chabon(“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”), Cheo Coker (“Ray Donovan”), Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”), Joe Robert Cole (“Black Panther”), Nicole Perlman (“Guardians of the Galaxy”), Jeff Pinkner (“The Dark Tower”), Nicole Riegel (“Soldier Girls”), Geneva Robertson (“Tomb Raider”) and Brian K Vaughan (“Lost”).

After that initial announcement, there wasn’t much follow-up on the status of any sort of shared universe.

We do know Akiva Goldsman, who oversaw the writers room as well as the last three Transformers films, has left Hasbro to work with Paramount.

Curious about whether or not we’ll ever see this universe I started to do some digging. The best (and limited) information I could find was in a Hollywood Reporter profile of Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner. Buried at the very end of the June 2017 interview Goldner says:

There are vault brands like Micronauts, MASK, ROM and Visionaries. We had a writers room last summer to develop a suite of stories. My expectation is that by 2020, we should see some major entertainment coming from the development that we’ve undertaken.

That’s it. No follow-up for further explanation. Whether or not Hasbro still plans to combine that suite of stories into a shared universe is still a big question mark. The concept has worked well for IDW who holds the comic licenses for all of those toy brands.

The 10-year-old in me would simply be happy with a G.I. Jor reboot that mirrors the original Marvel comic book series.

How To Live Your Authentic 80s Self This Fall

By on September 26, 2017 in Mixed Media

Scanning through our virtual stack of press releases from the last few weeks we noticed a rad trend: the 80s are back. This Fall the 80s will be all over your streaming services, on your grocery shelves, and in your ears. Here’s a quick guide to how you can live your authentic 80s self this fall.

Eating the 80s

Familiar brands are once again lining grocery shelves in an effort to tap into the 80s nostalgia.

Jolt Cola

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Berkeley’s Madefire releases IDW motion books

By on September 9, 2013 in Bay Area Comic News, Comics by the Bay

madefire-logoIDW comics are on the move. On August 28, the company launched a first wave of motion comics on Madefire’s Motion Books platform. The platform brings new life to comic titles by allowing for partial animation and the inclusion of audio. IDW kicked off their adventure into motion with Transformers, My Little Pony, and Star Trek. IDW issued the following press release:

One of the most-buzzed about announcements the week of the San Diego Comic-Con was Madefire’s partnerships with 3rd party publishers and bringing the Motion Book treatment to their top properties. That day has come for the award winning and top 4 comics publisher IDW as they bring a trio of their most-popular titles-My Little Pony, Star Trek, and Transformers-to Madefire’s groundbreaking experience on August 28th.

“It has been fantastic to see our properties come to life as Motion Books – with just the right amount of animation and audio, it has truly created a new experience,” stated Jeff Webber, IDW’s VP of Digital Publishing. “Additionally, the partnership with deviantART exposes our comics to an incredibly broad network of illustration fans.”

Madefire spent the last year perfecting the Motion Book with their own acclaimed content on iOS mobile devices and the web. Their web-reading partner is social network and creative powerhouse deviantART.com, and the Madefire app has been 5-star rated since launch, even landing on the App Store’s “Best of 2012” list.

“The move to digital reading is about more than just scanning in print – we are at the start of a new grammar for books,” said Ben Wolstenholme, CEO of Madefire. “We are pleased to welcome IDW’s comic book properties to help continue to evolve the medium of Motion Books.”

With more content debuting as Motion Books in the coming months there’s no better time to familiarize yourself with the new grammar of the future of storytelling!

The Berkeley-based company announced the app in June of 2012 with a new comic created by Dave Gibbons. The new title, Treatment, is written specifically to take advantage of the unique style of sequential storytelling made possible by Madefire.

The motion comics are also available through a partnership between Madefire and deviantART. By partnering with deviantART the company gains access to a large community of illustrators who may be interested in applying the motion comics publishing platform to their own work.

IDW will soon be joined on Madefire by BOOM! and Top Cow.

 

 

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