As promised, it’s time for our first Transmedia Case Study (TCS). In this bi-weekly series, I’ll be digging into a recognizable Big Media property – a major film, broadcast TV show, published book series, AAA videogame, popular comic book, indy/cult hit, or even a beloved consumer brand – and evaluating the effectiveness of its transmedia campaign. To get things rolling, let’s start with an example of transmedia done right. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…GAME OF THRONES.

It’s a property close to my heart. I read the first book in the early 90’s, and George R.R Martin’s fascinating tale of political intrigue, medieval warfare, and ‘mature fantasy’ captured me in its singular gravity. Sadly, ‘life’ got in the way (as it so often does), and with no widespread Internets to keep abreast of series developments, A Song of Ice and Fire fell off the narrative radar. But my time in Westeros would not be forgotten…

Flash-forward nearly 20 years.

I caught wind of the show going into development at HBO in 2007. My biggest concern – you know, aside from the obvious ‘How the Hell are they going to pull off the sheer scope on TV???’ – was with audience awareness. Sure, the books were best-sellers – and ‘fantasy’ had gotten a much-needed boost thanks to Tolkien going mainstream – but what about the masses? How were they going to reach the kind of audience numbers that would keep a show like this on the air, justify the hefty per-episode budgets, and make it must-see appointment television?

A SPANDEX SOAPBOX

It should be common knowledge by now, but I’ll say it again for the flat-Earthers who still have hairy-knuckled fingers in their collective ears: Geek is in. Genre properties are no longer the embarrassing indulgences of pasty-faced basement dwellers wielding 20-sided dice and polybagged variant covers; sci-fi, fantasy, comic book, and cult IP have seen massive growth in public mindshare in the past decade. There’s much debate as to what lit the fuse on this pop-cultural explosion; did Star Wars/Star Trek nerds, now in positions of power and respect, shape the modern media landscape? Were The Matrix and Lord of the Rings trilogies effectively uniting the once-disparate scifi and fantasy sub-cultures? Did female-embraced cult hits like Twin Peaks, Buffy, and The X-Files pave the way for broader acceptance? Were the Muggles amongst becoming a minority? Were seismic cultural shifts making it so vampires and zombies could finally step out from the blood-soaked shadows..?

There’s no right or wrong answer. But when did the questioning itself reach critical mass? In what arena did genre IPs slay the competition and claim the box-office/TV-rating/best-selling crown? What did established media properties like Lord of the Rings, Batman, Iron Man, and Harry Potter have in common with unknown upstarts like Heroes, Fringe, LOST, 30 Days of Night, and The Walking Dead?

COMIC-CON.