1st Post: THE AWAKENING OF THE COMICS IN MOVIE INDUSTRY

From Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope to the movie theatres, from black and white films to colour films, motion pictures have greatly evolved while embodying new technological attributes in terms of quality of image, sound, light, pragmatism, illustrations, impression and montage, thus captivating the attention of the audience. Emerging at the end of the 19th century, this new art form became one of the most popular and influential media of the 20th century and beyond (Stephenson, Manvell, Murphy, Sklar & Andrew, 2020). Movies of Marvel such as Iron Man (2008), The Avengers (2012)), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avenger: Infinity War (2018), Venom (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2018) and Spiderman: Far From Home (2019) and panoply of others attracted critical plaudits, recorded often significant box office business and circulated in global popular culture with the kind of intensity and buzz (King, Molloy & Tzioumakis, 2013).

A pure masterpiece and appeasement when watching a Marvel movie and the intro comes on. This announces the opening of a spectacular movie.

The Marvel World has changed immensely since Stan Lee joined and now embraces 11 films, 7 TV series and a list of movies planned until 2022 (Savage, 2015). Each superhero in any Marvel movie has a unique aura of energy and personality, for example, Bruce Banner is different from Iron Man, who is completely the opposite of Spider-man. What Stan Lee did for the world of superheroes cannot be downplayed: the American comic book writer was known to be the best for his work with Marvel. Among the thousand characters and squads he helped in creating are the Avengers, Black Widow, Venom, X-Men, Hulk and Professor X. A distinctive feature of Lee’s comic-book heroes is that they combine superhuman powers with human insecurities and emotions ("Daredevil | Creators, Stories, & Origins", 2020). For instance, Hulk may be an angry, strong and reckless monster which destroy everything he sees on his way but when transforms back to Bruce Banner, he is a quiet and introvert scientist. Stan- Lee made all his characters in a way that they have a touch of humanity in them, taking the movie Venom (2018) as example, the symbiote Venom who was brought to the planet earth for experiments, came in fact to conquer Earth but then plans to stay in his human host Eddie Brock to save the planet from his leader Riot.

Marvel superheroes have greatly impacted on their fans which resulted to Comic Cons around the world once every year. The Comic Con in other countries are specific themed compared to those in Mauritius. We do not have an Avengers Comic Con or even a DC Comic Con but rather an AnimeNext where anyone can cosplay as any character they want. There was a one-time event: The Orientation Week at Curtin Mauritius whereby the Ambassadors were disguised as Marvel characters. Students were talking about it for weeks and that made me think about organizing an event where people will enter a world where superheroes are around them making them feel like they are part of the Marvel Family. To organize a Marvel Comic Con where fans can dress up as Thor, Venom, Deadpool, Iron Man, Black Widow and even Hulk. There will be Avengers posters, notepads and comic books sold at a reasonable price. A video will be shoot by a professional to be then uploaded on YouTube so that the public can viewed it and react on it and even give their opinion on the first Marvel Event in Mauritius. I want to make each fan feel like a superhero for at least one day. There will be Marvel movies viewing, animators using the Chekhov acting technique to make the audience feel like they are in the movie itself and even the securities disguising into Marvel characters watching over the sector to prevent any threats or fights.

I will be posting pictures of the Orientation Week in the next posts.

Reference list:

Daredevil | Creators, Stories, & Origins. (2020). Retrieved 19 April 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daredevil-comic-book-superhero

King, G., Molloy, C., & Tzioumakis, Y. (2013). American Independent Cinema(pp. 3-5). Oxon: Routledge.

Savage, M. (2015). Marvel Avenged: From financial ruin to the biggest film franchise in history. Retrieved 19 April 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32379661

Stephenson, R., Manvell, R., Murphy, A., Sklar, R., & Andrew, D. (2020). Motion picture. Retrieved 19 April 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/art/motion-picture