Arcane Wonders, Spin Master to publish Marvel comics collecting board game after Tom Vasel recommendation

Arcane Wonders has teamed with toy major Spin Master to publish a board game about collecting Marvel comics, after Dice Tower creator Tom Vasel brought it to them as a recommendation.

Comic Book Hunters, which sees up to four players compete to build the best collection of Marvel comic book covers, is set for a release in Fall this year, BoardGameWire can reveal.

The game is an English language localisation of 2020’s Comic Hunters, which was originally released by Brazilian board game specialists Bocaneiros Jogos and MeepleBR.

Robert Geistlinger, president and COO at Arcane Wonders, told BoardGameWire that Vasel brought the game to Arcane Wonders for consideration as a Dice Tower Essentials game – a line of games representing titles Vasel “personally loves and believes should be an essential part of any gamer’s collection”.

He said, ” In the case of Comic Hunters both Tom and AW agreed this was a perfect fit and a great game and so we here at AW approached the original publisher in Brazil and licensed the game to bring into the DTE line.”

Geistlinger said that Arcane Wonders had not worked with Disney or Marvel before, and was not able to make any headway on the project when it first approached them.

He said a meeting at Essen 2022 changed all that, however. Canadian toy major Spin Master has a history of working with Marvel across action figures and board games including Marvel United and 5-Minute Marvel, and two companies began to discuss a potential collaboration.

Geistlinger said, “Arcane Wonders had been looking at ways we could keep the Marvel comics attached to the game. While we believed the game was excellent and could be redone with other comics, we also loved the Marvel comics and were fans.

“…this gave us the idea to look into partnering with another publisher who already had a relationship with them, leading us to Spin Master, who we knew had worked this way with other publishers successfully.

“Additionally Spin Master could open the game other to a wider audience than Arcane Wonders could on our own and we were very excited about that.”

Spin Master senior brand manager Molly Zito added that the new game would feature the same art as the 2020 original, sporting actual Marvel comic covers from throughout its history.

She said distribution would begin in North American specialty markets, and will branch out into global markets in 2025 and beyond. Bucaneiros Jogos will retain distribution rights in Brazil, she added.