Slashdot Mirror
How Madefire Is Changing the Visual Grammar of Comics
waderoush writes "When you read a comic book or graphic novel on your tablet device, you're usually looking at a static reproduction of a print page, not a 'born digital' creation with serious interactivity. Madefire, a new startup in Emeryville, CA, is working to change that with the release today of its new iPad reader and comic-book authoring tool. Featuring seven original titles at launch — including one from Watchmen creator Dave Gibbons — the Madefire platform largely abandons traditional panel layouts in favor of 'sequences' in which the action progresses through the addition of image layers, as well as sound effects and music. 'We want to make people look at the fabric of storytelling—left to right, top to bottom—and break that fabric,' says Madefire founder Ben Wolstenholme. The company is also avoiding well-known superhero titles in favor of new characters and storylines. 'This century needs its new creations and its new myths and legacies,' says chief creative officer Liam Sharp, a veteran of X-Men, Spider-Man, Spawn, and other well-known traditional series."
'We want to make people look at the fabric of storytelling—left to right, top to bottom—and break that fabric,' says Madefire founder Ben Wolstenholme.
Ah, so he wants to make manga?
I'm totally used to right to left from manga these days. You know - the comics with actually good stories :-p
Japan's had this down for probably decades.
Computer games have done that since the dawn of time. *grabs cane*
Why, back in MY day, being able to watch VIDEO on your computer was HUGE!
We didn't have animations. Overlaying things and doing transitions was the norm.
So yes. A lot of what you youngsters call "cutscenes" was made with static images, not video or 3D data.
One of my favorite games still does that: http://defendersquest.com/
I came up with a great name for this amazing new invention: "cartoons".
Haven't seen this thing, but to me it seems like they're basically adapting comics to computers and imo there's huge amount of prior art in games already.
Remember Flash animation cartoons?
"The God and Devil Show", from Mondo Media.
After watching it I thought the novel format would be the future of graphic novels. Some 10 years later these guys are just starting to get somewhere with multimedia comics.
... Japan has had stuff like this since forever in a day. It's basically getting pretty close to full on animated series like you see in Japan where they take comics (manga) and adapt them for television and theaters.
I didn't know that slashdot was taking paid advertisements. Well this one is excellent a blend of interesting tech fact, geek interest, and in your face sales (our product is better than the competitors).
Well I have some bio-gas generating land in Florida for sale. I will write a scholarly article about how a grid of microbial fuel cells could power a server farm and the water abundant environment can be used for green cooling. Get in before Oracle buys it all up.
Madefire, a new startup in Emeryville, CA, is working to change that with the release today of its new iPad reader and comic-book authoring tool.
I could swear I heard of this before ... Oh wait, I have.
Well, to be fair, this is for the iPad which makes it COMPLETELY different and a whole NEW paradigm as opposed the software that I linked to - that 's for the PC and therefore is completely different.
*Sorry, my tech hype is a bit dated from the 90's. I just haven't really felt the need to keep up with all the buzzwords and hoopla to sell old concepts again as being new.
Did anyone else think that said "mediafire" or was that just me?
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
= Movies
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
No android
Why have an article about how revolutionary the 'visual grammar' of the layout is, if you aren't going to show any examples of how it's different?
Ryan Fenton
By concentrating on sound effects, music, and visual effects, they're doing exactly what Hollywood has been doing for years: flashy crap triumphing over the substance of good writing.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Yay! It's available for iPhone and iPad and... that's it. Congratulations, you've made something that I won't ever use.
I mean, I'm typing this on a MacBook and I can't even check out a preview of one of their fancy e-motion-2.0-books, so I bet you can imagine how excited I am to buy one. Really, you can't make a browser app so that I can at least try it out?
For all its warts, these guys should take a cue from Spotify: it's available on all platforms, and damned if I don't have it running on an android phone, a MacBook, an assortment of Windows (XP, Vista, 7) computers at work and home, and a Debian box.
And I couldn't be happier giving them my money.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Too bad you need an iPad (or install iTunes??) to even see what the article is talking about. Nope.
Oh, hey look. It's crappy.
Futurama had comic + motion + sound effects* in Fry's Delivery-Boy Man.
* (well, not "good" sound effects)
So... Americans finally figured out what anime is?
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
Can anyone chime in on why a front facing camera is needed at all? Big #fail or too resource hungry and it was their way of stripping my ages old first gen iPad?
Pick one and do it well. Primitive animation can be funny or cute, but it needs to be designed with that in mind - as a low budget animation, something which will be shown on screen rather than in print. This can work on a small screen quite well. If you want to make a comic though, tacking on a few sound effects and screen wipes really adds very little, and is more likely to disrupt the experience.
Watchmen ARTIST Dave Gibbons, not creator.
Seriously, flash/gif-based webcomics like Homestuck have been doing this for a while.
get off it.
seriously.
So, in other words, they're visual novels.
These are called visual novels, VN. There are enough of them to have their own database. I guess they are becoming the next Japanese thing to catch on. The majority are essentially choose your own adventure books with images depicting setting and characters with simple animations. Some have fancier animations, some have voice acting, some have actual gameplay attached to them like 'Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors' for DS. In my opinion the best games of the last 5 years have actually been VNs. Sengoku Rance is an amazing strategy game, Alchemy Master is a great RPG. The focus on story creates a huge amount of empathy for the characters which makes the gameplay enjoyable. Also because they don't originate in the west they aren't dumbed down to get the PG13 market.
There is a database of them here:
http://vndb.org/
And yet ANOTHER attempt (more then likely successful) to take an industry that is slowly being taken over by individual cartoonists/artists and lock them out by introducing restrictive technology. Sure, the technology might make for an incrementally better product, but at the cost of precluding many artists from participating simply because of the levels of complexity, ie sound management, file format issues, COST, etc. etc.
With the Internet as it is today, one can acquire perfectly professional comics directly from the artists. There is no need to further monetize.
This guy is comparing some random app for Apple with the masterpiece that is the first Star Wars trilogy?
This sounds a lot like flash animations and gifs, especially as seen in Homestuck, but also occasionally seen elsewhere (Questionable Content, DrMcNinja, for example).
Basically, people who work in a medium on the internet understand that they have fewer limitations than print artists. Then when they end up getting their things printed, they have to somehow work around the animations and/or differently shaped panels.
This sounds like nothing new at all, just a restricted way to have people view comics that could happily be on the internet.
(OMG!) If this is real, than this (bang, pow!) would be amazing! Paul
"Madefire, a new startup in Emeryville, CA, is working to change that with the release today of its new iPad reader and comic-book authoring tool"
Translation: this is a well-executed publicity piece masquerading as news.
"This century needs its new creations and its new myths and legacies,' says chief creative officer Liam Sharp"
Translation: we couldn't afford any licenses.
Didn't Showtime have something like this about a campy nerd girl jumping around being all super heroine like?
http://comics.cyberneticevilstudios.com/
choose flash-comic-page-select in the top-menu and choose "first page" to get started.
Really nice comic, sad that the author is no longer making new comics.