Entertainment Stan Lee's Original Webisodes to be Auctioned as NFTs | CBR

[Crystal]

The pilot episode of comic icon Stan Lee's first web series is being auctioned off as a non-fungible token (NFT).

MakersPlace.com is currently conducting an auction themed around pieces of high-concept digital superhero art from the last two decades. The featured piece of the collection is the pilot for Lee's animated series The 7th Portal, which is credited as being the first series to coin the term "webisode."

RELATED: Marvel and DC Crack Down on NFTs Featuring Their Characters

"Webisode 1 - Let The Game Begin" will be sold in its entirety as a single-edition NFT, with limited edition animated and still NFTs featuring the series' heroes and villains also available to bid on. Shirrel Rhoades has curated the collection for an NFT release. Rhoades formerly served as the Executive Vice President of Marvel Comics in addition to being a personal associate of Stan Lee, succeeding him as the publisher of the company.

NFTs are a form of cryptocurrency where each unit is accompanied by artwork or a video clip. Therefore, the buyer is effectually purchasing an original work by an artist in digital rather than tangible form. The purchasing of an NFT grants the buyer the full non-commercial rights to the artwork, with the piece existing in the buyer's "digital wallet".

Though Lee was in his late 70s during The 7th Portal's development, the technical complexities of the medium did not deter him from creating. "I find that the internet isn’t a matter of age, it’s a matter of the exciting possibilities that it offers . . . . And I don’t think it has anything to do with what generation you’re in, it’s just the excitement of telling stories," Lee said in 1999. "They’ll be like little miniature movies. I think that if I was 200 years old I would be excited about doing this." Lee created several web series during his life, including the recent Superhero Kindergarten, which was one of his final projects before his passing in 2018.

RELATED: Rob Liefeld Nixes NFT Drop Over Environmental Concerns

The 7th Portal -- developed in collaboration with over 100 comic artists and hosted by Macromedia Shockwave -- was launched on Feb. 29, 2000, and generated enough day-one traffic to crash Macromedia's servers. Despite this, the launch received praise from media outlets for its use of flash animation to sidestep the then-prevalent issue of low bandwidth modems. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Dotcom Bubble in the early 2000s bankrupted the Stan Lee Media production company, effectively canceling The 7th Portal.

A decade later, a collector acquired Stan Lee Media's intellectual properties/creative assets and is now selling them anonymously via blockchain technology courtesy of MakersPlace.

KEEP READING: Kevin Smith Says NFTs Are More Than Just a Fad in Heavy Metal #306 (Exclusive)

Source: MakersPlace

Continue reading...