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Madefire Motion Book Tool offers digital comic creators new vistas

By John Freeman on August 9, 2014

With abject apologies to my old friend, artist Liam Sharp who is integral part of the project team (it’s been a busy old month), the launch of the Madefire Motion Book Tool to create digital comics with added animation and sound completely passed me by last month. My abject apologies!

The Madefire Motion Book Tool is now completely open for access to anyone with a creative spark and web connection, enabling you to upload your work to the Madefire cloud and build from anywhere without downloading gigs of software. Upload static PDF’s or get nasty with some Motion Book madness and add sound, motion and depth to your story.

Directly dialed into the deviantART community, you can now publish your comic as-is, or bring it to life on Madefire’s cloud-based platform — adding elements of atmosphere and depth to your visual narrative.

“It’s really exciting to see all the amazing things that people are creating with the Madefire tool,” says Liam. “Animations, parallax images, simple comics, manga, books… so many new and unique uses!”

For the simplistic – if you already have a comic or graphic novel done – using the Motion Book Tool has never been easier. Simply upload the PDF’s to the cloud, drag them into a project and publish. Your comic will be up on the web within minutes — ready to be shared with the world.

For the ones who want to take it a step further – break away from the static page and upload your assets in layers and get started thinking outside the box. Customize a soundtrack, add sound effects, play with focal points, add smoke/fire, pan in, zoom out, pace out your narrative — want to sit inside the book? Create a full 360 Pano. There are no boundaries. You the creator control the pace of the elements… the reader controls the pace of the story.

• Go to www.madefire.com/motion-book-tool-open-access and sign up for free cloud-based access to the tool. There are two videos on YouTube outlining how to us the tool here (Introducing the Motion Book Tool) and here (Create and distribute your comic with the Motion Book Tool)

• Check out some of the books published so far by the deviantART community here

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.