Marvel partners with NFT company for new digital comics platform to rival Amazon's digital comics market

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Marvel Entertainment has partnered with the prominent NFT company VeVe to be the first major client of an all-new digital comics reading platform coming to market just as Amazon's once-massive digital comics services continues to falter.

VeVe Comics is both an app (available now on Apple iOS and Google Android devices) where users can buy individual Marvel comics, as well as various 'digital collectibles' similiar to NFTs that use blockchain to help maintain their collectability in a digital world.

The VeVe Comics app and webstore "fills a current gap in the industry" according to a spokesperson, with plans for it to partner with other publishers in addition to Marvel in the coming months. Although VeVe hasn't announced which publishers it is targeting, through its NFT program it has pre-existing relationships with DC and Todd McFarlane (owner of Spawn, and co-owner of Image Comics).

At its launches this week, the VeVe Comics app has over 300 new Marvel comics, with plans to add new comics each week simultaneously as when they're available in print and on services such as Amazon's ComiXology and Kindle. The VeVe Comics app will also be added select comics from Marvel's massive library over the coming months.

What makes VeVe Comics different from comiXology and other digital comics apps?

Unlike digital comics on ComiXology or other services however, the VeVe Comics app will include heavy application of NFTs and blockchains to do what the VeVe spokesperson says is "[building] the bridge between digital and physical collecting worlds..." How? Artificial scarcity of certain limited edition digital comics, that will be available to buy and sell, and re-sell to others on the VeVe Comics marketplace.

What led Marvel to partner with an NFT companny for a digital comics app?

Marvel had long partnered with the Amazon-owned digital comics platform ComiXology as the exclusive home of its digital comics outside of its paid members-only service Marvel Unlimited since 2012. However, with major changes affecting comiXology in the past 12 to 18 months, Marvel's relationship with Amazon changed in 2023 - with the two dissolving a long-term partnership which had comiXology run Marvel's digital comics app, as well as ending Marvel's exclusivity with Amazon's digital services.

That opened the door for Marvel to partner with VeVe, who has been in business with Marvel (and parent company Disney) since 2021 and partnered on the first-ever official Spider-Man NFT in 2021.

One upcoming Marvel comic which won't be on the VeVe Comics app is the Blood Hunt red-band editions, as Marvel publisher Dan Buckley has stated the company is not making that ages 15 & up seres available digitally or to bookstores - by default an exclusive to comic stores.