Courtesy of Entertainmentrundown.com

By Sherri L. Smith, BlackWeb20.com

Singer, actor, and active twitterer Tyrese Gibson has long been a comic book aficionado. On August 5th, he paid tribute to the comic gods with the debut release of Mayhem, a three-book series. The collaboration between Gibson and Image Comics is enjoying enormous success with over ten thousand copies of charter issue Mayhem #1 being sold before the book’s release. And while it’s exciting to see a comic starring an African American character do so well, that’s not why you’re reading this post.

Gibson has made the shrewd business decision to team up with Apple and have his comic be the first digital book to be sold on iTunes 9. But don’t expect the usual scroll and read you get from other e-books. Marketed as an LP, Mayhem comes packaged with an exclusive new track from Tyrese, a making of video, storyboards, alternate covers, and two free comic books. Fanboys and girls also have the option of purchasing the $1.99 e-book with or without narration (you might want to get the narration version since it also includes sound effects for a more immersive experience.)

Mayhem maybe the next step in e-books. Created by Sam Herz, an Apple user interface engineers for  iTunes and Barry Munsterteiger, creative director for rich media and Internet technologies, the Mayhem LP has a design that would lend itself well to an iPhone format or even better, a touch-sensitive tablet.  So while Steve Jobs has publicly poo-pooed the idea of Apple e-books, don’t be surprised to see them coming to an iProduct near you.

In the meantime, please be sure to support Tyrese’s newest venture. Black superheroes and heroines are few and far between in comic book universe, and it’s always good to have to someone that looks like us fighting the good fight.

BlackWeb20.com covers website and application launches; culturally relevant Internet industry news; and mainstream Internet industry news from an African-American perspective.  They also analyze emerging web trends and how they apply to web properties that target African-Americans or African-American culture.