Digital studio Madefire is in the comic book industry headlines again this morning, as it has partnered with Dark Horse Comics to bring the popular Hellboy title to life in motion book format.
For more details on the recent partnership, please see Madefire’s full press release below.
Dark Horse Comics brings Hellboy in Hell to Madefire’s Motion Book Platform
San Francisco, California – December 10, 2013 – Hellboy, the award-winning and best-selling creation of legendary creator Mike Mignola, is a character that really needs no introduction. Having starred on the big screen (twice), in animation, video games, and in a series of comic books and novels spanning 20 years — it’s no surprise that he’s now coming to Motion Books.
Dark Horse Comics has long been an innovator in the publishing world. Their approach to digital has been just as forward thinking as they are the only top 5 print publisher that’s created their own proprietary reading software and marketplace around their content — a way to bring the printed editions to a wider audience. Now Dark Horse is remastering Hellboy as Motion Books — a digital-first reading experience.
“Dark Horse prides itself on providing a top notch reading experience for our books digitally,” said Dark Horse president and publisher, Mike Richardson. “This partnership with Madefire gives us a chance to again push the envelope and deliver a benchmark reading experience for the screen.”
Madefire has built an end-to-end publishing platform that delivers a benchmark reading experience called Motion Books. Designed for reading on a screen, Motion Books utilize movement, sound and depth all in service of the story and are available on iOS devices and the web. Their web-reading partner is social network and creative giant deviantART.com, the largest creative community in the world and the Madefire app has been 5-star rated since launch, and was awarded an App Store’s “Best of 2012”.
“The industry is really starting to face a digital-first approach. We’re thrilled to have Dark Horse join IDW, Boom!, ITV, and Top Cow in making Motion Books,” said Ben Wolstenholme, CEO of Madefire. “Mike Mignola and Dark Horse bringing Hellboy onboard is extremely exciting. With more Motion Books debuting every week, there’s no better time to familiarize oneself with the new grammar of digital storytelling!”
About Madefire
Founded in 2011 by Ben Wolstenholme, Liam Sharp and Eugene Walden, Madefire provides artists and writers a publishing solution for iOS and web reading allowing them to build their stories in an exciting new format called Motion Books. Madefire is backed by Toni Schneider at True Ventures, The CEO of Automattic makers of WordPress, with angel investors including Sina Tamaddon, former Senior Vice President of Applications for Apple Inc–both of whom are on Madefire’s Board of Advisors. The Advisory Board also includes industry leaders Mike McCue, CEO and Founder of Flipboard, Dave Gibbons, co-creator of Watchmen, the bestselling graphic novel of all time, and Bill Sienkiewicz, widely recognized as one of the greatest innovators of sequential art. For more information go to madefire.com.
