Spawn Enters NFT Land
gm and welcome back to the House of Thunder’s news at the nexus of NFTs, entertainment, comics and animation put together by @casey_lau.
My NFT 101 Notion is available here for you. This is my recommended reading list and consider it the Official Handbook of the Thndrhs NFT Universe.
Todd McFarlane and Steve Aoki unlock OddKey to sell artist NFT’s
Todd McFarlane: The Toddfather, the creator of Spawn and one of the founders of Image Comics - and to many of us, one of the greatest comics creators of all time - has teamed up with one of the most famous DJ’s in the world to launch a new platform to sell NFT artwork. The news is here and their site is here called ODDKEY.
The kick off project is a SPAWNOKI NFT, limited to (of course) 6,666 and they are using the Solana blockchain meaning if you have been buying them on Opensea, you need to use another wallet called Phantom. It’s like buying only Marvel Comics’ and now you want to start collecting manga books. If that sounds slightly confusing , it isn’t, but if you want a 12-minute YT explainer here you go. It’s a boon to Solana for getting a project like this, as I have yet to use SOL but this is a great reason for me to get into that community.
I’ve been on the OddKey Discord and the community members seem like huge Todd McFalrane and Steve Aoki fans and coming into the NFT space because of them which is great!
I got my Sin City crystal and NFT
I’m sure Todd is getting into NFTs because comics royalty Frank Miller blew away some of the expectations of the value of comic book NFTs with his Sin City collection from Gala Games and Crypto Art House. (See LAST ISSUE New Believers! - Ed.)
The photo above is one of the pieces from the Sin City 30th Anniversary collection. I wanted to get the physical crystal to display during my Zoom calls, and it came with a code for a digital NFT for my Metaverse collection. This is what Thndrhs’ strategy is: to bring classic collectors into this new world mixing digital and physical.
The crystal is super cool and the NFT looks great (will get a digital frame for it). The piece shipped quite quickly and the NFT code is printed on the piece that you redeem on the Galagames website (which I am still waiting to mint but will show to you in the next newsletter).
This was my gateway drug into this world. So I doubt I will ever sell it. Funnily enough, I’ve already been made offers to buy mine on OpenSea 🤯.
What if…Image Comics started as a DAO?
A Decentralized Autonomous Organization is something new and exciting. It’s like a fan club on crack and something that we will be launching at Thndrhs eventually as I think a lot of communities will be harnessing this connection to their fanbases across music, gaming, art, fashion and anything creative.
Imagine something like Image Comics launching today via a DAO into the Metaverse?
The same forces that make Web2 communities so powerful (network effects, organic growth, collective wisdom, etc.) are the reason DAOs will ultimately play such a big role in Web3 discovery, exploration, and creation.
READ THIS great piece on DAO’s by Lisa Xu.
Can you build the next Disney with NFTs?
We are betting: yes, but it will take some work to get there. This is a great post by Adi Robertson on the ins and outs of making that happen.
For believers, NFTs and entertainment IP rights seem like a perfect match — an emerging market with overwhelming possibilities and hype paired with a billion-dollar industry in dire need of disruption.
SuperPlastic is already in on this, building from their vinyl figure world to the Metaverse.
“I think when NFTs first dropped—and we only got into it in February, March, so all this has happened really fast—people saw it as a medium where they’d make a lot of money, just put a picture up,” Budnitz says. “We really see the medium as something you can use functionally, and do really fun and interesting stuff.”
And Disney themselves licensed some NFTs to VeVe so they weren’t left out of all the fun — as well as using it as a marketing gimmick with “The Disney Golden Moments” an NFT collection featuring some of the characters and icons from the franchises featured on Disney+. This is a good step-by-step guide on how you can buy one. And let’s make no mistake, Disney will do their own in the near future once they understand it more. NFTs that allow VIP park access, pre-screenings of films and limited edition physical collectibles. While we are all tyring to build “Neo Disney",” they can literally build their own Metaverse tomorrow.
Tarantino Sued for Trying to Sell Pulp Fiction NFTs
ICYMI, Quentin Tarantino was going to release very specific things for NFTs from his movie Pulp Fiction:
The original, handwritten screenplay of the iconic ‘Royale with Cheese’ scene by Quentin Tarantino will soon be up for sale. For more than 25 years, the original script remained hidden. Alongside the screenplay, the NFT includes a unique recording of Quentin Tarantino, revealing secrets that only exist in the original.
These items all look like they are outside the actual movie but when there are millions of $$$ to be made everyone wants their piece. Seeing as the bid estimates are in the 300-2000 ETH range you can see why Miramax wants a cut. He should do his next and final movie as an NFT and drop the mic on that part of his career. WSJ has the lawsuit story and here is the video of QT in NYC announcing the NFT - you probably have the same questions as he does:
“I’m super excited about…”
You will hear these 4 words on every NFT/Web3/Metaverse Twitter Space followed by some of these words below - so here are some of the good posts I’ve read recently:
Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, and Who Will Build it
TL;DR: I have read Matthew Ball’s series The Metaverse Primer and quoted it many times to others. The best description of the Metaverse is what it is not: It’s not Snow Crash or Ready Player One or Fortnite. But it’s all of these things and more.
Web3: What is Web3 and why are all the Crypto people suddenly talking about it?
TL;DR: The appeal of Web3 is that it is decentralized, so that instead of users accessing the internet through services mediated by the likes of Google, Apple, or Facebook, it’s the individuals themselves who own and control pieces of the internet. Web1 and Web2 are for Boomers (even if you are 30 you are a Boomer already, sorry.)
Podcast of the Week:
NFT Now interviewing Bobby Hundreds from The Hundreds - the famous T-shirt streetwear founder/artist/author talks his long game for NFTs. His Whitepaper aka Road Map for Fashion and the Metaverse is worth a read.
BONUS VIDEO: This documentary series on the history of Cyberpunk - where the Metaverse was born - will make you nostalgic for the “good ol’ days” of the Metaverse when having motherboards glued to your face was cool. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 below:
“I’m super excited about…” any comments and/or questions you might have, so just hit reply.
I’m going to DCentral Miami, so the next issue will feature my findings! #WGMI
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