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."

Comments

But... Didn't that already happen?

[VortexCortex]

'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?

Re:But... Didn't that already happen?

[VortexCortex]

Crap. Forgive the self reply. I've no idea how I let Dark Horse Motion Comics slip my mind.

Re:But... Didn't that already happen?

[Ghostworks]

I remember when Marvel did stuff like this in '90s. Does this company do it better? Maybe. But it's still not that novel an approach, and I doubt the reason these motion comics failed to take off before was because of a lack of good tools. There comes a time when you either want a comic, or a cartoon, but not something that's an awkward combination of the two. When you get right down to it, wants the difference here between the Flash cartoons that have been around for ages (Aside from starting with prettier cutouts drawn by professional illustrators)?

The main problem with comics on a screen (any screen) these days is that humans can focus in close on a printed page fairly easily, but readers suck at zooming and moving around a large image. So you can either see the page art then zoom in to actually read the text (repeated), or you can read panels at a time (zooming in to see, say, 1/6th of the page) and miss the full impact of the occasional full-page or two-page spread. There's still some room for technology to move in and help the issue -- maybe allow publishers to tag pages as "shock spread" so you see the full art first, no matter what, before returning the reader to a close-in panel view -- but screen resolution is a limit to the experience.

Left to right?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm totally used to right to left from manga these days. You know - the comics with actually good stories :-p

Re:Left to right?!?

[flimflammer]

Manga doesn't mean child rape porn.

Everybody does that.

[eggstasy]

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/

Amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I came up with a great name for this amazing new invention: "cartoons".

Re:Amazing!

[VendettaMF]

More like "Powerpoint" really.

Mediafire

[slazzy]

Did anyone else think that said "mediafire" or was that just me?

availability

[iroll]

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.