Writing for Publishers’ Weekly, Laura Hudson looks at Marvel’s viral marketing for Secret Invasion, including the recent MySpace videos:

Although the majority of the responses to Kinsey were still from men, “a large number of girls around that age really related to her and her problems,” said Walker. “We’ve had a fairly strong female response,” Pascuillo agreed, a phrase rarely heard in superhero comics, where the typical readership is overwhelmingly male. Much like the mainstream media efforts to reach a broader readership, the Kinsey videos reached out to a demographic that typical comics marketing campaigns rarely address.

“We weren’t sure if it was going to be hit or miss, because it’s something we’ve never done in the comic industry,” said Pascuillo. But with over a quarter of a million views on the videos, they’ve been such a hit that Marvel now plans to make a webcomic about the continuing adventures of Kinsey.

Marvel will also be reaching out to fans in more physical ways at the upcoming New York Comic Con. The company will distribute Skrull masks at the show and encourage fans to take pictures of themselves and upload them to Marvel.com as “evidence” of the Skrull infiltration. This is intended not only to create user-generated content in support of the series, but also to draw readers into the storyline.

Well that’s just great.

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