The latest episode of Haden Blackman and Gary Erskine’s The Irons: Hybrids was released Wednesday and we immediately pick up where #3 ended: Leto in hot pursuit of Multon with all manner of questions firing through her (and the reader’s) mind—Who is he? What’s his connection to The Hijacker? Can she save his latest victims? Detective Leto is ready for this whole nightmare to be over. It’s amazing how far this title has come in a mere four episodes!

And speaking of amazing, next month is Madefire’s one year anniversary on iPad and it’s been remarkable to watch the evolution of the “grammar” of Motion Book storytelling in that short span of time. Some artists have worked in Tool and many haven’t—but they’ve all adapted to this new medium.

Gary’s work on The Irons is a terrific example.

Gary Erskine has been a name synonymous with print for over 20 years and when he began working on The Irons there wasn’t a large number of polished Motion Books to reference as the medium was literally evolving from day-to-day. Since Episode 1, Gary has been producing art to deliver the best Motion Book possible, but only over the last episode or two has he begun providing serious direction on the “camera” work to best execute the story flow. In the beginning he would turn in the final pages (as colored by the extraordinary Yel Zamor) in a traditional fashion like so:

After getting several episodes under his belt and seeing how the stories were being constructed, Gary’s thinking evolved into more complex guides of how he would like the story to go:

This is a shot of Ingress taken from episode 4. It is the station that processes new immigrants to The Irons. Between all the people, graffiti, robots, and police kiosks, soaking in all of the information on a stationary screen is almost impossible. Gary took great pains to provide notes and arrows to convey exactly where to zoom and pan.
BONUS: Can you spot the hidden Madefire logo in the image?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that with Gary taking a step in this direction that the best episode yet of The Irons was delivered. And it’s not just Gary getting in on the art direction—other artists are starting to do the same…we’ll show Jimmy Broxton’s process in an upcoming blog post and others have found more elaborate ways to get their vision across.

And the day we release the Motion Book Tool to the public is coming—so give some thought to how you’d like your motion book to work someday. How will you communicate your ideas and dreams into this next generation platform? Are you the kind of person who wants to add notations on the images like Gary or a will you create your own style? The future of storytelling is literally up to you!

When one door closes, another one opens, right?

So, as I was saying, I’m Susie the Intern and I live here in the Bay Area. I relocated here from Nebraska about five years ago, and I have zero desire to move back–I went “California” very quickly. I no longer mix well with snow or humidity! I’m a pretty average 24 year-old-girl who loves to shop, get my nails done, play video games and have an obsession with mermaids. And I also love comic books.

For the last few years, I have worked at Flying Colors Comics, a legendary comic shop in Concord—and that’s how I got into both comics AND Madefire. You see, when I moved here, I had never read a comic in my life. Friendless and living in a foreign city, I happened to be driving one day and spotted Flying Colors. Immediately pulling my car over to investigate, nearly causing an accident, I’m sure. I stopped into the shop and walked out with Fables v.1 and WE3. I haven’t stopped loving comics since that day. And by a terrific twist of fortune, I met Joe ‘Otis’ Costello, the production manager at Madefire (and 20+ year patron of Flying Colors), and Liam Sharp through the store.

Again, I’m so thrilled to be a part of Madefire. I love that I get to work within a medium that I care so much about and I joined the team at a great time. What with all the amazing things that are happening with deviantART and all of the titles that are on the way (including more Treatment titles!), I am so lucky to be here. I reread all of Treatment: Tokyo on Wednesday, and though I’m sad to see it go, I can’t wait to see what the future will hold for the series and the main character, Kaidan.

One last thing: Wednesday was Kinman Chan’s birthday! Kinman is the artistic genius behind Treatment: Tokyo, so as a birthday gift to him and a “Welcome to the Studio” gift to me, you really should download Treatment: Tokyo 3. Trust me, I think you’ll like it.

If you see me around at the studio, Story Night, San Diego Comic Con or even Flying Colors, say hi!

Susie

Whats your background as an artist?

I was a muralist at 2 yrs old, hookin’ my folks up with crayon drawings on their living room walls.  Twenty-one years later, I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in digital arts in 2010 from a little hippie college in Lake Tahoe, Sierra Nevada College.

Since then I’ve worked as a freelance illustrator/animator, producing animated shorts for television and illustrations/designs featured on online publications like Mashable.com, Huffington post, and NY Daily news.

How does that translate into what you are doing with Madefire as a builder?

As a freelance artist, I work with a variety of clients looking to get across different types of messages through all sorts of art styles.  I can put countless hours and tons of effort into illustrations and animations, but the work will only be successful if the audience understands the message.  With comics and motion books, that message, whatever it may be, is conveyed through the story. Through my experience, I’ve learned techniques for guiding the viewer through the story.

With the Madefire tool, we now have more control over the tone and development of a story through our desired timing of each panel entry and ‘next panel’ tap points. With traditional format comics and graphic novels, all the art is displayed at once.  As you’re frantically reading through to see the outcome, you can’t help but notice, a page over, the final scene, where everyone dies!  Not to knock on that format, which I still very much enjoy, but Madefire offers a new reading experience where you control when the story unfolds… surprising you when everyone dies!

When you get the script and art, how do you go about interpreting the story?

I review the entire script and art pages before building.  I even try to play background music, including sound effects in my head while reading to get an idea for the sound.  I then try to visualize how each panel will enter onto the page stage and what camera pans, focus pulls, or scene navigation would compliment the story.  Though you’re still reading in 2D, the camera movements can mimic a 3D-scape, which allows the reader to immerse him or herself into the story.  My favorite example of this, animated by a fellow builder, is in Mono: The Old Curiosity Shop Episode 2, Page 5.  Mono is sneaking behind soldiers, and suddenly takes a giant leap from one building to another.  The viewer gets to follow Mono through the sky as he flies between buildings.

As I mentioned previously, story is most important, so I try my best to interpret the Author’s and Artist’s story telling.  Sometimes we get Author/Artist notes, but a lot of the time we are given creative licensure.  And then sound is just the icing on the digital triple layer cake.

Having done adventure, horror, and literary genres, what do you find to be the most satisfying genre to work in?

Most of my builds have been in the horror genre – Houses of the Holy series, Severing the Curse, and another even darker one that is currently in the works.  Despite it being on the complete opposite spectrum from my personal colorful, happy illustrations, it’s a blast working with darker, creepier stories.  They offer a lot of room to incorporate special effects and dramatic reveals.  I love the anticipation Severing the Curse provided.  We were really able to pump it up with character reveals and sudden action shots.

Do you have aspirations to do your own motion book some day?

Oh yeaaaah.  I haven’t come up with a story yet, but would like to create a few books, from sci-fi stories to something funny.  I entered a graduate school program for a short time in education, and felt inspired to create an educational children’s book. I’d like to carry that idea over to the Madefire tool now.  It only makes sense – digital content is becoming ever more popular, especially with the younger crowd.

In a fair fight, who would win: Mono or Caption Stone – and why?    

Captain Stone – have you seen those biceps?!

GA: It’s so tempting to give an extremely rude answer, to paint a picture of Broxton as a wild, intolerable scribble-monkey who lives off crayons and the meat from virgin’s thighs. It would be easy too because that’s what he is, a monster. An inhuman thing. But, you know, I love him. Being paired up with Jimmy has been the best creative experiences of my career so far.

I had always shied away from collaboration in prose. I’d be a tricky bastard to work with, I’m too disorganised and I’m terrible in expressing what’s in my head until I’ve actually set it onto paper. This is different though, this is two people coming at a story from different directions, coming together in the middle to make something that’s more than just the sum of its parts. I know people always say sycophantic things when asked questions like this but I genuinely mean it, Jimmy’s great.

JB: Well, I’m blushing to hear Guy say such nice things about me, well, mostly nice things….but honestly, comics is all about story, telling the story, and without a good story to try and tell, you are lost in a mire of pointless and endless illustration, fortunately, Guy is way ahead of me on that, so with him as my guide, I can find my way in the dark, and hopefully shine a light of my own on the proceedings, h’mmm, must be a few more metaphors I can mix and use to make me sound clever, like he does? No? OK, I’ll stick to me crayons…..

MF: Guy, we understand you met our CCO Liam Sharp at a literary convention and forged bonds over beer. Can you elaborate on the story?

GA: He got drunk and I could tell he was a little in love with me. He kept touching my knee and trying to hold eye contact. Even when he was lying in the gutter talking about beards.

That’s all a lie.

We’d been in touch for a while, swapping emails and chatting. That night in Derby was the first time we’d actually had a chance to raise a glass and talk properly, face to face.

I think a major part of our ‘bonding’ was chasing around Derby, late on a Sunday, trying to find tobacco. Both of us were supposed to be cutting back or laying off smoking but the beer had struck and our need was heavy.

We went for a curry, which is traditional at these sorts of things, and talked music, movies, books and, obviously comics. He knew that I was a fan of the medium and I’d been asking his advice about how I might try and break into it. I think that was interesting in itself really… he wanted to do more prose work, I wanted to do comics… we were looking at the grass on either side of each other’s fence and fancying a good old graze. He talked about Madefire a little, it sounded brilliant and a few months later I was asked if i wanted to be involved. Naturally I bit his hand off.

Liam’s a gent. In a recent interview I described him as ‘that gargantuan side of tattooed beef in a flat cap’. Which is fairly accurate but also misses out his most defining quality: he’s just lovely.

MF: Jimmy – you’ve known many of the Madefire creators for a long while. Does this have any bearing on your decision to join them at the outset?

JB: Well, thing is, Liam asked me, and that is enough to be honest, no one has more drive, determination and natural storytelling ability than that man, even on a bold and ground breaking venture like this, there are some people who, when they sound the bell, you come running, Liam is one of those people, and his team of collaborators and contributors is truly world class, I’m honoured and humbled to be counted amongst them. It was a no brainer….I didn’t go for curry though, it was fish and chips, in Liam’s old local in Derby.

MF: What aspects of The Engine really appeal to you guys, and can you give us a hint of where the story is leading?

GA: I love the iconic quality of The Engine itself. Liam and Christina came up with the idea, this relic of a robot who would provide a lifeline to these trapped criminals. I could immediately picture this massive  thing, silent and impenetrable. He’s a living statue, something that other people bend to suit their politics and beliefs. He’s something different to everybody. That interests me. We do it all the time, pick up a handful of newspapers and see how every one views the world in its own, subjective way. He’s that brought to hissing, steaming life.

I also love an epic journey and this will be one hell of an epic journey.

They might think that getting out of the mine will solve their problems but it only adds a new one! This is a story that’s going to be extremely varied, high action, fast-paced Hollywood stuff, combined with gentler, subtler stories. It’s going to be a real mixture.

JB: I have no idea where the story is going, that’s up to Guy and Madefire, but I do know it will be a hell of a ride….as for the Engine himself, I have become very fond of him, I see a nobility, and a child like purity in him (which I try and capture in the art, I usually fail, but hey, I have to try). I also love to play around with the graphic possibilities that he offers, Liam gave me free reign to design him in a way that I was happy with (with input of course), I wanted to create something simple, but iconic and memorable, that way I can depict him in a very illustrative way, a photographic way and of course in a stylised graphic design led way, as you will have seen in the growing number of Soviet inspired propaganda style posters we continue to create for series. I also want action figures…are you listening Madfire? ACTION FIGURES!!!!!

MF: The characters are very broadly painted – both in the writing and the art – and are, to a man, unlikeable. Yet you’ve somehow managed to create a motley crew that have soul, and that we find ourselves rooting for and caring about as readers. Was this a conscious aim?

GA: I quite like a few of them! But then I’ve always had funny taste in people (cf. Adams’ thoughts on broth Broxton and Sharp).

I think they’re a symptom of the process in many ways, having been given a brilliant framework for a story, The Engine itself, I devoted most of my thoughts to the miners themselves. I needed to be sure I could spend a lot of time with them, otherwise writing the story was going to be hell. I wanted them to be volatile, to serve the story but most of all they had to be people I could take the long walk with.

Everyone is complex in this world, we’re all a mixture of Angel and arsehole, some of us just lean more in one direction than the other.

JB: I Like them all, in a strange way, they seem real to me, not just cyphers or comic book creations, sure, they have their demons, but that is what makes people interesting, as for drawing them broadly, not sure, I just wanted to make them all instantly recognisable, in many respects Engine is an ensemble piece, Guy created a great cast of characters, visually I try and reflect that.

MF: We’ve noticed that the dumb tattooed thug of the piece somewhat resembles our CCO… Is there something you’re not telling us?

GA: I suggested to Jimmy that, as we needed someone that looked like he could chew bricks and shit grit, Liam was our man. It was also a way of thanking him for the opportunity. I look forward to killinh him violently in a future episode.

JB: Yes he did, and of course I couldn’t resist…….so we did…

MF: How have you found the process of working with a new medium and helping to evolve a new way of telling stories? Has it been inspiring?

GA: It has been inspiring yes, because you’re always looking to find the balance I think. It’s about that perfect point where words, art and technology blend seamlessly. If you’re too drawn to any one of them I think you’ve slightly missed the mark, they should become one indivisible thing.

In some ways I suppose I had an advantage as I wasn’t always bedded to the traditional comics ‘style’ but we’re still finding new ways to tell this story.

I’m learning so much as I go, I think each episode’s script is an improvement on the last. Luckily Jimmy’s art is so consistently brilliant that readers have survived watching me take my baby steps by concentrating on his stuff!

JB: OH goodness me yes, the Madefire platform has opened up (and continues to open up) so many new storytelling opportunities, I honestly think we have barely scratched the surface, and it is about story, make no mistake, some people will only see the crash, bang and wallop, it’s natural, some will like and some most definitely will not, but the key thing is to set aside your preconceptions about tablet/device driven comics/visual storytelling and concentrate on STORY…..I honestly believe, that in an increasingly complex and confusing market, with so many digital formats vying for attention that the real job is often overshadowed. Our job is to tell stories, the best stories we can, in an interesting and imaginative a way as possible, right now, Madefire are at the forefront of this brave new world, I’m incredibly lucky to be a part of what they are doing, and of course to be working with Guy and Liam.

MF: Have you guys got anything else in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?

GA: Our main drive at the moment is another book we’re doing together (because I hate it when Jimmy sleeps). It’s called Goldtiger and it’s a sixties newspaper strip that never was and we recently got it funded on Kickstarter!

JB: What he said…….

Illustration by deviantART creator/member Artgerm, featuring characters from Madefire and the dA mascot.

When digital comics were first imagined we just had the web. It was a blank canvas, of course, and it was crying out to be scribbled all over, desperate to burst open the long-slumbering narrative modes we had all taken for granted and formed habits around.

The questions were multiple:

- How long will it take to kick old habits? (To paraphrase Douglas Adams, when will people really stop mistaking the food for the plate?)

- What will these new mediums look like? What will the grammar be? Will we be participants, or passive watchers?

- How will we build them? Flash? After-effects? What?

- How do we stop the pirates if it’s a basic PDF reader?

- How will we reach people, and how will it make any money?

- Can we do it like Spotify or Pandora, and have it supported by advertising, giving everybody the content for free?

These were things Ben Wolstenholme and I were wrestling with when we first started talking about Madefire several years ago. Other pioneers had faced boldly into these issues as much as a decade earlier, producing visionary, but clunky work. The answers were not as clear or simple as they seemed. It was a quandary, but it was so enticing we just persisted – indomitable will and dogged determination was required. We kept chewing on the bone.

And then – iPad!

Here was a device that was smarter than paper. It was near enough comic-sized. It glowed. It knew where it was, which way was up. It had a powerful memory. It was instantly covetable. The kids loved it. Nobody knew for sure if it would catch on – it was a giant iPhone! – but we all thought it was pretty cool. This would be where we set-up base camp.

And so – Madefire!

It was perfect, and it worked. The audience began to trust digital, we found the grammar, we made a tool that built the new medium, and we created something far more sophisticated than a PDF reader. We reached people.

And yet… The web.

We owed the web something. It had changed everything after all. It changed all aspects of life, from how we communicated, to how we shopped, to how we learned, and sought out entertainment. But computer screens were sadly lacking the kinetic beauty of a Kinman Chan Treatment episode, the majestic sweep of a MONO panorama, the slow-burn saga of Captain Stone is Missing… all of which could be read and experienced (for free!) on Madefire—but only via the iOS app.

Until now!

Madefire has come full-circle, right back to the place that we started, and the virtual environment that spawned the original concept. We have managed to replicate the Madefire experience for the web, making it available to everybody with a home PC for the very first time within the world’s biggest creative environment – deviantART. We haven’t sacrificed any of the interactivity. It’s still reading, not watching. You control the stories on the web just as you did on the app.

Soon you’ll be able to build and read your own Madefire books all on one platform. Fan/ artist/ publisher – the same. And also within one domain. We don’t know where this next stage will take us – we’re pioneers! Nobody has seen these mountains before, let alone what’s on the other side of them! – But we DO know it’s one hell of an exciting endeavor to be undertaking.

And also – It’s great to be home!

- Liam

To be honest, my process for working on comics is a little shoddy anyway and I would like to say it was different for Soldiers of God…but…it wasn’t.

Basically I decided I would take a more “animated” workflow to producing these pages than a comic one. Unfortunately this was based on how I thought animation worked rather than any real understanding of how animation works. First thing I did was get myself to a rather well known Japanese store that starts with an M and ends in uji and bought myself some of their lovely plain and graph paper. This stuff holds ink exceptionally well and is relatively thin and so can be seen through (I can’t recommend this stuff enough people…it’s great).

Madefire works on a “sequence/panel” type basis for the sake of scripts and ease of understanding workloads, so I laid out the entire strip like a regular comic, while also considering the functionality of a more interactive panel. From there I went back and looked at my panels and decided what would need layering, best way to add motion and how to go about it.

So far so good–sounds pretty organised right? Well that’s about when the organisation stopped for me, sadly. Now, don’t get me wrong, the guys and myself were really happy with the work and I feel the end result is some of my nicest work to date and it’s the end result that matter right? (Yes is the answer to that by the way!)

But, from there, as I have learnt, the best way to do it would be like this…Take each panel, draw the background you need, including any extra you may need for a pan.

Then overlay a sheet and draw the characters in their final positions or, at the largest size they will appear in the panel.

Then you have a background, and the figure in the correct size for its largest appearance in a panel; also you can add additional overlays for things like moving arms or scenery. You then scan the work, and either lay each panel as a levered Photoshop document for the colourist and builder. Or supply each panel as a folder with all the necessary components with an image showing a start of panel and where you saw the final shot. Then each panel just needs a brief description of what you were thinking.

Tada…Personally, that is how I think this work should be approached…It’s easy for the artist, easy for the colourist, easy for the builder.

Unfortunately, I learnt that due to not doing that…at all. I on the other hand launched in to characters, drawing them in lush detail, at a huge almost A4 size per character at times, slaving over the tiny details, making sure as groups of character they worked together by overlaying their sheets. But not taking in to account how large–or small–they would be seen on screen. This meant I ended up drawing figures for panels that would only be seen at an inch or two high, at the same size and level of detail usually needed for a splash page.

As I say, the end result is lovely, I’m very proud of the work and think both Len and Cody have done an incredible job bringing it too life, I just ended up making far more work for myself, and most likely the two of them than was needed.

But hey, as with anything new, we learn from our mistakes–on future projects for the guys I will know better and it will all go far smoother for myself and anyone unfortunate enough to work with me. And yes, there will be future projects for the guys and girls at Madefire.

Hope you enjoyed my little waffle, and the book…am looking forward to my next piece with them.

Neil Googe

For the sharp-eyed fan, I’m Madefire’s Editorial Director and I’ve been with the company for exactly six months. It just so happened that my first week or two I was chatting with our resident creative genius/guru Liam Sharp about the Treatment universe and was noting how interesting it would be to commission a tale about how this ultra-violent television series was influencing the youth of the world. With violence in entertainment such a hot button issue these days Liam was definitely intrigued and responded positively to the idea. From that point we began discussing the idea further, fleshing out the concept and characters and developing a vision for what the story would be. Ultimately, Liam suggested we should just produce the finished concept ourselves and had the brilliant idea of setting it in Mexico City (which was a popular 2-part story we released right around my hiring—download it if you haven’t yet—amazing stuff). From there, Liam worked his magic with the script and produced a powerful, emotionally-charged 2 episode motion book. Dream had become reality, just like that!

A parallel discussion on both our parts was being had with sensational artist Neil Googe, whom Liam and I both knew, and how to get him working for Madefire. For my part, I’d know Neil since he first transitioned into the US comic market from Britain as I helped land him his first gig at WildStorm with Majestic (and I later worked with him on WildCats and Welcome to Tranquilty). Neil had just finished a World of Warcraft graphic novel for DC and was looking for something smaller and creatively challenging while recharging his batteries. His style is uniquely perfect to illustrate children and this seemed like a good fit. Liam produced some character descriptions and Neil sent us this:

Yep, this was going to be a perfect fit. Neil had done some recent work in the UK for a company creating Flash-animated educational stories so took to the Madefire process like a veteran (in fact, he might have gone a little overboard at some points in his enthusiasm).

Neil had a very specific vision for the finished art and brought in a terrific colorist whom he’d known since his early days in the UK comic scene–Leonard O’Grady. Neil inked the characters but left the backgrounds in pencil creating a nice contrast in the art so when Len worked his magic the final files created a very classic animation feel.

Together, the pair created some of the most eye-catching art to date available on the Madefire platform.

I hope you enjoyed chapter 1 and in two weeks you’ll find the conclusion to the story. Not sure if/when you’ll see my name again grace a cover but for a first time being involved like this, I couldn’t have asked for better coconspirators than Liam, Neil, and Len—gents, I owe you more than a few beers.

Cheers!
Ben

As the weather in the East Bay has been gorgeous of late we opted to invade the nearby home of Engineer Dan Weeks for a special edition of Team Lunch—featuring the BBQ stylings of CTO and master-chef Eugene Walden!

Making a special trip in the morning to the legendary Hog Island, Eugene located 50 of the largest oysters in Marin County and as a group we shucked and prepped the monsters for the grill!

While some amazing locally-sourced sausages and burgers were cooking alongside the oysters, the team opened a few beers and celebrated a great start to 2013.

Working in a start-up is a tricky prospect and critical to success is harmony among the small staff. (Or tolerance, at least!) As a group, they collectively sweat and bleed through the long, sometimes turbulent, hours together and keenly experience the highs and lows of the process. Madefire is a fairly tight-knit group and we have some lofty goals for what’s shaping up to be a remarkably busy year—so it’s good to take the moments we get to appreciate all that we’ve achieved and what comes next.

Thank you for the support everyone has shown us through the process and know that when the first toast rolls around you’re all included in our thoughts.

Cheers!

The Madefire Crew

What’s your background as an artist?

I have two art degrees: a B.F.A. in fine art and a Master’s Degree in traditional illustration. I spent most of my post B.F.A. career as a fine artist. There was a good two or three years where I was consistently part of some gallery exhibition or another, but nothing ever really came of it. I have since switched my focus to illustration and cartooning, which has been slightly more successful. I’ve had a few pieces on IGN.com, created tons of art for online games that have names too embarrassing to mention here, and I was an illustrator for The Darwin Awards website and book series.

How does that translate into what you are doing with Madefire as a builder?

Having a healthy knowledge of Photoshop certainly helps. The most difficult part of creating a build is the prep work, bringing a static image into Photoshop and deconstructing it into something you can later animate. The trick is making it seem like you never disassembled the artwork in the first place. That is where a background in art comes in. When you are dealing with a flat image, once you cut anything out of its surroundings it leaves an empty void in the art. Part of my job is to fill that void, which means I need to mimic the art style of whomever created the drawing in the first place. For instance, when I did a build for an episode last year, there were a handful of times when a character might be cut off at the edge of a panel when the animation required that character to move away from the edge. I often had to draw extra arms, hands, legs—sometimes an entire side of a figure. Nobody ever noticed, so I guess I did my job matching what the artist had drawn.

On the left: The original character art as it was drawn by Gary Erskine. On the Right: The same character expanded to fill in the cropped portions, which were drawn by me.

When you get the script and art how do you go about interpreting the story?

First I panic. It’s a daunting task. Seemingly endless pages of amazing art and story magically appear in my inbox, most likely written or illustrated by someone I’ve admired or emulated for years, and then it’s my turn. After a while, panic kind of turns to excitement and you just dig in.

The original art for Houses of the Holy, Ep. 2, page 6. All elements are on a single layer, which I then needed to separate in Photoshop first by panels, then by individual assets.

Normally I begin going through each page of art while reading the script. At times there are notes by the artist or writer, or both. I follow those as best I can, but you also have to follow your own vision. If you’re doing a book that’s the next in a pre-established series, that presents a special challenge because you need to be sure to match the animation and build style set in place by the previous builder. Cody Garcia, the previous builder on Houses of the Holy, for instance, has a very kinetic style of animation with lots of exaggerated movement and sweeping pans. My books are usually more subtle, but I pushed my own animations further to mesh with his. That was exciting and definitely outside of my comfort zone.

Once I’ve read the script and gone over the art, I begin to sketch out my page layouts and plan my animations. I do this the old fashioned way, drawing thumbnails with paper and pencil. At this stage I work out what assets I will need to create in Photoshop in order to get the animation and effects I want to achieve. These layouts are normally very rough, and only decipherable by me, but they save me time in the long run.

This is a rough layout for Houses of the Holy #2, Page 6. Each panel of the page has been broken down by order of animation and any transition notes are marked on the thumbnails. Individual layers are numbered to give me an idea of what assets I need to separate during the Photoshop stage.

A close-up detailing the assets needed to animate the Ustrel’s mouth opening. This was one of the more challenging panels to get just right in HOTH.

I then create the individual assets, cutting them from the original art. The Photoshopped elements are converted to PNGs and uploaded to the Madefire server. I will also upload a guide page, which would consist of a full page image that shows me where all of my final pieces fit into the page. Sometimes there are several guide pages for each page. One might show a starting point for an animation, where as another might show where those animations end.

The final assets separated in Photoshop and ready to be placed in tool.

Once a page has been built, complete with animations, text, etc. The last step is adding sound using Madefire’s massive sound database.

Having done adventure, horror, and literary genres, what do you find to be the most satisfying genre to work in?

I would love to do more lighthearted work, something funny or maybe something for children. By far, my favorite build has to be Death and the Myrmidon. It’s the book I think I’m most proud of because the build is 100% me. Everything I wanted to achieve made it onto the page, and there were almost no edits. The art was amazing, and it matched the story perfectly—which was one of Liam’s most lighthearted to date. I’m not really a fan of violence or horror, which surprises people, so working on something so charming really aired out the soul as opposed to maybe something like Metawhal Alpha, which had me on edge days after working on it. Plus the office was gearing up for Christmas break, so it was a perfect storm of cheer, effortlessness, and creativity.

Do you have aspirations to do your own motion book some day?

Absolutely! Although I’ve never pitched anything to the team, and I doubt anybody in the office even knows that it is something I want to do. For the last few months I’ve been secretly developing a few stories I’d hoped to turn into motion books. It’s nothing official, and nothing is in the pipeline, but I do have some stories to tell. I really want to do something for all-ages that shies away from the moodiness of our current line, yet still retain that Madefire edge. I’ve also been obsessed with doing a short story about the dancer Isadora Duncan. It’s a project that has been on my mind for years, but has been given new life recently. I’d also jump at the chance to do a one-shot for one of our existing franchises, maybe a Mono Christmas Special or something. Again, nothing is in the works, so pretend everything I’m talking about here will never happen.

In a fair fight, who would win: Mono or Captain Stone–and why?

Well, let’s break this down.

Mono has ape strength, a prehensile tail, and the ability to be very calm before getting very, very angry. He has been shot a few times, but doesn’t seem to mind all that much. He must have amazing stamina because he can run from Nazis for three issues straight.

Cap Stone is big. He can flip a tank. He has lots of pouches, probably for carrying cash because his dad is loaded. Cap has his own squad of soldiers and a media empire built around his persona. But, no one seems to like him anymore. He’s also missing…that could be a problem.

While it seems the Captain could probably hold his own against Mono physically, Mono just can’t seemed to be stopped! What’s the worst thing Captain Stone could do to Mono, shoot him? “No thanks,” Mono would say, “I got shot for breakfast.” Nope, Cap just doesn’t have enough stopping power to take Mono down.

Mono is the winner.

This episode was a fun one for me, as we finally got to see a bit of the Cap. And I realized what we have done is almost an anti-origin. The story unfolds backwards in a way. He’s been the hero, he’s had the fall from grace, and now he’s gone. Here we learn just what an impact he had on the world, how extensively his celebrity and unique brand of justice spread. How painful, and shockingly underwhelming the truth of his heritage proved – probably his biggest crime. The world could not forgive him for being less in real life – much much less – than they had hoped for, or needed him to be.

Chris and I had fun with this episode too in that it is essentially a news report. We tied Cap to various real-life events, pivotal historic moments and iconic figures of the times. It’s brutal, but it’s also funny – at least that was our aim.

The story is moving now. Gaining impetus. The set-up is coming to a close, and soon the action will begin in earnest. I can quite confidently say I don’t think there’s anything predictable in ‘Captain Stone is Missing…’ We hope you enjoy this episode!

Liam and Chris