Digital studio Madefire (with its Motion Book platform) is a force to be reckoned with, and its impressive lineup of participating publishers seems to be ever expanding. This morning, Madefire announced the addition of four new comic book publishers to join the Motion Book experience.
Seraphim, Archie Comics, Lion Forge, and Arcana will be joining an already incredible group of top publishers, including DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, and Top Cow. For full details on the new partnerships and the titles to be added to the Motion Book experience, please see Madefire’s official press release below.
SAN FRANCISCO – May 28, 2014 –Madefire, a digital storytelling and technology company that provides a platform to artists, writers and publishers to create a new reading experience called Motion Books, today announced the signing of top-tier comic publishers to include Seraphim, Archie Comics, Lion Forge and Arcana. These partnerships will expand the growth of the Madefire Motion Books Marketplace within its free app and through the exclusive Motion Books network within thedeviantART website. The truly revolutionary reading experience, powered by Madefire’s Motion Book Tool, will now include famous comic titles such as Afterlife With Archie, Knight Rider, The Instrinsic and Clive Barker’s Books Of Blood. These titles join an already impressive catalogue of Motion Books from top publishers including DC Comics, IDW, Dark Horse and Top Cow and their biggest titles Batman, Injustice, Transformers, My Little Pony, Hellboy and The Darkness.
“As the world moves to digital consumption, we built Motion Booksfrom the ground up to deliver a benchmark digital reading experience,” stated Ben Wolstenholme, CEO/Co-Founder at Madefire. “We’re thrilled to have Seraphim, Archie, Lion Forge and Arcana join us in pioneering the digital space – putting their world-class stories into peoples hands in ways never imagined before.”
Designed for reading on a screen, Madefire has built an end-to-end publishing platform called Motion Books that immerse the reader in an interactive experience with sound, motion, and depth. Their web-reading partner is social network and creative giant deviantART, the largest creative community in the world and host to the exclusive Motion Book category on the web. Madefire Motion Books is a free comic app that delivers the most innovative reading experience for iOS devices as it pioneers the next chapter in storytelling; it has been 5-star rated since launch, and was awarded an App Store’s “Best of 2012”.
“We are honored to be a part of the Madefire team,” said Archie Comics Co-CEO/Publisher Jon Goldwater. “As a company, we have prided ourselves on being at the forefront of digital comics, something we see happening with Madefire through their unique marketplace, app and their visionary storytelling experience. This partnership will provide a unique and compelling way of sharing the Archie story with fans around the world.”
Legendary creator and visionary Clive Barker commented, “Never before have I seen anything like this. Madefire, has created a radical way in which to read comics and I’m excited beyond words to be a part of the revolution.” With similar horror titles like Houses of the Holy on the Motion Book platform, classic horror themes incorporating sound with anticipation and suspense can all be leveraged to create the perfect atmosphere for a bone-chilling story.
“Seeing our books in a new medium is always exciting and Madefire’s unique technology brings these books to life. Working with new technologies is fantastic, but as we all know it’s about the stories we love. It is so exciting for us to be working with this technology focusing on storytelling”, commented Founder/CEO of Arcana, Sean Patrick O’Reilly
The digital space is slowly maturing but settling in as a major medium for the industry as readers shift toward reading on screens such as tablets and mobile. With the recent purchase of Comixology by Amazon, this puts Madefire as a leader in the independent digital marketplace for comics. Madefire continues to take a digital first approach to storytelling, including assuring content is immediately available to people on device with in-app purchasing.
About Madefire
Founded in 2011 by Ben Wolstenholme, Liam Sharp and Eugene Walden, Madefire is a media and technology company. Madefire has built the Motion Books publishing platform that provides artists, writers and publishers tools for creating a new reading format called Motion Books. Madefire is backed by Toni Schneider at True Ventures, The recent CEO of Automattic, makers of WordPress, as well as Bill Woodward (Anthem Ventures, former Chairman of Macromedia). The Advisory Board also includes industry leaders Mike McCue, CEO and Founder of Flipboard, angel investor Sina Tamaddon, former Senior Vice President of Applications for Apple Inc, 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 or the Madefire Facebookand Twitter pages.
About Archie Comics
Archie Comics is the leading mass market comic book publisher in the world and the home to a wide array of the most popular humor, action-adventure and superhero characters in entertainment, including Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica, Reggie, Kevin Keller, Josie and the Pussycats, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Afterlife With Archie, The Fox, The New Crusaders, The Shield, Li’l Jinx and many more. Archie Comics have sold 2 billion comics worldwide and are published around the world in a number of languages. In addition to comics, Archie characters have been featured prominently in animation, television, film and music.
About Seraphim
For more than twenty years, Seraphim has brought Clive Barker’s work to global audiences through multiple media outlets including film, television, novels, comics, poetry, theatre, photography, painting, and now motion books.
Alongside its role as the public face of Barker’s creative output, Seraphim has also long been a home for fledgling writers and directors. Seraphim has nurtured many talents (Including Bill Condon, The Wachowskis, Steve Niles, and many others) into their roles as the next generation of filmmakers and artists, and continues creating unique opportunities to garner vital industry experience.
About Lion Forge Comics
Lion Forge is a St. Louis-based transmedia studio with a focus on digital publishing. With both original and licensed titles, Lion Forge brings together the brightest talent to acquire and develop content and character franchises within the comic book, television, film and interactive gaming industries. Lion Forge applies cinematic elements to each property to create compelling, story-driven experiences from start to finish, bringing unique entertainment experiences to both traditional and digital marketplaces. For more information, please visit www.lionforge.com or the Lion Forge Facebook andTwitter pages.
About Arcana
Arcana owns one of the world’s largest libraries of graphic novels and comics, with over 250 original intellectual properties, hundreds of graphic novels and a treasure trove of thousands of characters. Arcana’s high quality branded entertainment is filled with characters and stories that transcend gender age, cultural and geographic boundaries. Arcana is in production of the animated feature film Pixies and just finished production of the episodic television series Kagagi: The Raven. Taking a transmedia approach to brand building and intellectual properties, Arcana’s stories can live successfully on traditional and new media platforms. Arcana Studio Inc. remains independent of major entertainment studio affiliation.
