Marvel VP offers advice on dealing with digital age

By Baek Byung-yeul

C.B. Cebulski, vice president of Creator & Content Development at American entertainment company Marvel Entertainment says storytelling is the most important factor in today’s digital era.

“Marvel has always prided itself on storytelling. Great characters, great creators and great technologies equal great stories,” Cebulski said at the International Content Conference DICON at the Coex Convention Center in southern Seoul, Wednesday.

Organized by state-run Korea Creative Content Agency, this year’s DICON, which was held from Tuesday and Wednesday, invited 54 international experts in creating film, comics, drama, music and video game from nine countries. The conference focused on on four key themes ― big data, wearables, streaming and transmedia storytelling.

In his keynote speech, the vice president explained their global success came from “reflecting the real world.”

“If you look at DC Comics, our rival, stories are set in Gotham City (fictional American city appearing in comic books of the DC Comics) and main characters are gods or come from other planets. They are not related (to our life). Stories from our comics are fantasies, but set in the real world,” Cebulski said.

Best known for their own imaginary super heroes, the entertainment powerhouse began publishing their comics in 1939, and is now servicing their contents through different kinds of formats including film, television drama, digital comics in addition to the conventional version.

Referring to their famous characters like Captain America, Spider Man and Iron Man, Cebulski emphasized that their heroes are all set in the real world so that the readers can connect with them.

Cebulski said their company has been counteracting wisely, using two-track policy to deal with the challenges of the digital age.

“Here the ‘webtoon’ (terminology calling online comics in Korea) are usually offered free. In the United States, however, every digital comics have same price as the printed version. We encourage people to buy more printed version by giving free digital code in the back page. If they put that code into our web page, they get the free digital comics. So a lot of people buy the printed version, and read more on online and then share their printed version with friends. So it is a great way for our comics to get handled with more people,” Cebulski added.