Some X-Males comics now function a QR code behind the e book that hides a “bonus web page.” These new hidden pages have set off a big debate on-line amongst comedian readers and followers over what counts as bonus content material and comedian preservation.
In the event you look on-line proper now, you’ll discover folks suggesting that Marvel goes to be locking the final web page of all future comics behind a QR code. That’s a fairly wild declare! As such, a few of these tweets have gone semi-viral amongst comedian e book followers, resulting in lots of people assuming that that is the case. Nonetheless, that’s not fairly the complete story right here, even when the reality continues to be a controversial mess that’s led to quite a lot of on-line debate.
Earlier this month, Marvel began doing one thing completely different with a few of its new X-Males-related comics. On the very finish of July 10’s X-Males #1 by Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman, readers encountered a big QR code printed on one of many final pages. In the event you had been to scan this code you’d unlock a bonus comedian web page teasing future occasions or villains. (Within the case of X-Males #1 it revealed extra details about a brand new group of baddies launched within the comedian.) This QR code bonus web page popped up in another latest X-Males comics.
Why Marvel is doing QR-hidden bonus pages in X-Males
In line with Marvel Comics VP Govt Editor Tom Brevoort, this isn’t the comedian firm reducing content material from books, however as an alternative including a bit of additional content material whereas avoiding spoilers, as he defined on his private Substack.
[The QR code page] was a bonus web page to start with, an additional web page—we didn’t cut back the contents of X-Males #1 to be able to do it,” mentioned Brevoort. “And it gave us a web page whose contents we may conceal till the day of launch, thus avoiding any early spoilers.”
The editor additionally confirmed that Marvel was going to be doing comparable QR bonus pages in future X-Males comedian launches as a type of a “modern-day equal of that ‘Issues To Come’ web page that ran within the first concern of the Claremont/Lee X-Males #1.”
So this isn’t a case of Marvel reducing the final web page from a e book and hiding it behind a QR code—as comedian e book writers have confirmed—as an alternative, it’s a bonus web page, one thing further.
Nonetheless, some followers don’t agree. They see these bonus pages as necessary to the general story and as such these “extras” are certainly the final pages of a comic book e book. It doesn’t assist that one in all these QR pages wasn’t out there when the comedian was first bought. I additionally perceive of us not eager to learn comedian pages on their tiny telephone screens once they have spent cash on an precise bodily comedian e book so as to add to their assortment. It’s bizarre and never supreme.
There’s some excellent news. In line with Brevoort, when these points are collated collectively for a later launch—as Marvel all the time does with comics—the bonus pages shall be included and never hidden behind a QR code.
Which means that many years from now, folks gained’t must hope a URL continues to be working to see yet another web page in a bodily comedian e book. The Marvel editor even recommended that in the event that they do a second printing of a comic book with a QR code web page, they could embody that bonus web page within the comedian as an alternative, as at that time spoilers gained’t matter.
That’s all good to listen to and may imply that comedian preservationists gained’t must print off a digital web page from a web site to protect historical past.
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