HAC!BD at Comic Con

A first Comic Con for a folk hero

HAC!BD's most important series is Harap Alb continuă! (HAC!), a comic built on the Romanian fairytale of Harap Alb. The magazines sell individually or as bundles on supererou.ro.

For its first time at Comic Con, HAC!BD wanted a campaign to drive awareness and build a loyal fan base of people who love fairytales and comics. The task: design a landing page for the event and find creative ways to generate leads and awareness.

Questions before pixels

I'd never bought a comics magazine, but I grew up with the story of Harap Alb and Romanian folklore, so I was excited to imagine a campaign around it. After meeting those characters again, drawn as comics, I decided I needed the whole collection.

I started by writing questions to understand the brief and how the campaign could serve HAC!BD's fans in a meaningful way. Who are the competitors? Who is similar? Who is the audience, and why should they care? What emotion should the landing page carry? Then came research into comic books and comic conventions.

Because this was HAC!BD's first Comic Con, I designed for two audiences: people who love comics or fairytales but don't know Harap Alb continuă!, and people who love the series but have never been to Comic Con.

An earthy palette for a humble hero

The palette is earthy: dark greens, burnt sienna and gold, drawn from nature, the forest and organic materials. It stands for Harap Alb's humble origins and his transformation, and it borrows from HAC!BD's own colours and the hero's outfit.

Titles use a gothic, fantasy-style face that points at the series' roots in Romanian folklore and magic, with Gotham Book and Bold doing the reading work.

You can be a superhero too

The hero of Harap Alb continuă! is Ștefan, nicknamed Harap Alb by his arch-nemesis. He starts with no special powers and earns them by surviving everything his journey throws at him. That became the campaign's slogan and hashtag: Și tu poți fi supererou, you can be a superhero too.

Around it

• Sign-ups through play. Gamification and prizes, like t-shirt giveaways.
• Reasons to return. Periodic drops and points-based games on the landing page and in the tablet and mobile app.
• A way in for strangers. A trading card game where Harap Alb measures his powers against heroes from other universes, introducing him to fans who know those heroes better.
• Something useful on the day. A downloadable venue map showing the HAC!BD stand.
• One place for it all. Points saved and viewed in the iOS and Android app, alongside every HAC! issue to read.

A deck that keeps you curious

The HAC! card game already exists as a physical deck. Bringing the same idea online gave a way to collect points and reward the most loyal Harap Alb fans with prizes and personal offers. The goal was an easy, fun way to keep someone's curiosity going. It was also a small excuse to use glassmorphism, subtly.

The number of redeemable points needed for each HAC! bundle.

Encouragement and adventure

That was the mood for the whole landing page, top to bottom.

Beyond the landing page

• Video teasers. A series of short teasers to build curiosity and point people to the landing page.
• Press. Releases to local media outlets and websites.
• Places. Partnerships with bookstores and comics-friendly galleries and venues for flyers and stickers.