Veronica Mars, Free Marvel Comics and the Overwhelming Support of Fans

If there's one thing we've learned in the last five days or so, it's that when you give people on the Internet what they want, you're going to drive a ton of traffic. On Sunday, Marvel Comics crashed popular online comics retailer ComiXology after offering hundreds of free comic books for such a short window, fans all felt that they had to be the first in line. Today, Party Down showrunner Rob Thomas launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a feature film adaptation of his long-cancelled TV series Veronica Mars--which exploded the Internet and was successfully funded to the tune of $2,123,016 as of this writing. This writing, by the way, comes about eleven hours and ten minutes after the Kickstarter was launched, meaning they've been fundraising about $190,000 per hour since it began. That's remarkable by any standard, but Kickstarter campaigns tend to slow down for one of two reasons--either the funding goal is met and the sense of urgency is lost, or the first few days are over and the energy and enthusiasm that courses through the fan base and Kickstarter in general has petered out. In the case of Veronica Mars, both are likely happening right around now. That isn't to say this campaign won't raise a remarkable sum of money by next month when it wraps--but $100,000 or more per hour is probably not plausible.

These two things shared a sense of urgency--Marvel's because of the limited timeline and Thomas's because he and the film's star laid it out quite clearly: this was likely the only chance Warner Bros. would ever give them to adapt the property. The studio wasn't particularly convinced that there would be enough fan support to make it a worthwhile endeavor, and crowdfunding was a Hail Mary. In both cases, the results were arguably more overwhelming than any sane person could have expected. Marvel outgrew their infrastructure, and didn't even get a chance to finish their promotion. Reports were that they would resume the free #1 campaign when ComiXology could figure out a way to do so that wouldn't collapse the system, but there's been no further word from the retailer. This is problematic because even Marvel's own store relies on ComiXology for its backend, meaning that Marvel put so much burden on one of their business partners that the partner in question was able to unilaterally make a decision that impacts Marvel's promotion and their standing in the fan community. The first reaction from fans was "Man, why can't DC do something like this?", but within hours it became clear why Marvel, DC or anyone else hadn't ever done it. Veronica Mars, so far, has been fairly immune to serious criticism, outside of a few articles taking the kind of "couldn't somebody give this money to a better cause?" position that's bound to happen whenever something as frivolous as entertainment is massively successful. Kickstarter, though, didn't crash and has generally been unaffected by the campaign, as far as anybody can tell. There's a lot of talk about how the Veronica Mars Kickstarter is likely to impact the rest of the media, with people saying either hopefully or cynically that projects like Firefly and The X-Files could take to the crowdfunding site, using Veronica Mars's success as an example of why "it can be done." That's probably preposterously optimistic in most cases. Shows like Firefly and Chuck might have similarly passionate fan bases, for instance, but they cost substantially more to do well, and the actors involved would demand more. Veronica Mars is really a kind of perfect storm of a group of actors and creators willing to work cheap and generally not overburdened with a lot of other job offers they would have to turn down in order to do so. There are other examples of similar behavior--when Gail Simone was fired from, and then rehired onto Batgirl, for example--that seem to prove we're in a new era in terms of the way fans engage with their entertainment, the creators of that entertainment and the content itself. Yes, even the content--in spite of the fact that every digital comics article on this site is accompanied by social media comments about how "I'll never read a digital comic! If it's not paper in my hands, it's not a real comic," ComiXology has expanded rapidly since the launch of DC's New 52 publishing initiative and now had so many thousands of people trying to take advantage of the Marvel deal that their whole system broke down. Veronica Mars fans will get digital goodies for their donation, as well, including but not limited to Flixster digital copies of the film and PDF copies of the screenplay to be released alongside the theatrical release of the movie, so that backers can watch the film within hours or days of the first screenings. And, yes, we're in an era where fans can speak with a louder and more unified voice than ever before. Whether the content providers are listening is often a whole other story...but when they do, the results can be rather astounding.