This is the reason why Disney bought Marvel.

[Touchdown]

iTunes LP, formerly "Project Cocktail" introduces it's first interactive comic book... something the Kindle's black and white screen can't handle.

Take a look at the Mayhem comic iTunes LP ($1.99), and it’s easy to see the potential of book or magazine sales over Apple’s digital store. For starters, Apple has amazing reach – there are more than 100 million iTunes accounts connected to credit cards, which is a sizable audience. In the Mayhem iTunes LP itself there is a beautiful flow to the action; new panels zoom into the foreground as others fade away.

And it’s not just text and images; both audio and video come along with the package. The interface is designed so that it would obviously work nearly as well on a touch-sensitive tablet – or even on an iPhone – as it does on a full-fledged PC.

Perhaps that’s because Apple itself had a hand in designing this digital version. While hanging out with Gibson, I also briefly spoke with the two creators of the Mayhem iTunes LP, Sam Herz, one of Apple’s user interface engineers for the iTunes Store, and Barry Munsterteiger, creative director for rich media and Internet technologies.

The pair said that while working on Mayhem, they created some tools based on standard web technologies like HTML, Javascript and CSS that others might be able to use to create iTunes LPs. But they’ve since turned over their work to higher-ups at Apple, and they’re not sure what will happen to their work.

Apple and Disney have a close relationship. Steve Jobs is on Dinsey's board. They get Pixar films on iTunes a couple of days before the DVD is out. Purchasing Marvel to go digital and interactive would be a perfect match. It also bodes well for this, so far, rumored device...