E-comics

Not content with just our iPad comics app, we've just released Mirabilis #1 in EPUB format. I wasn't sure about this at first because having to conform to lots of different screen sizes meant that we couldn't show the entire page layouts as we can on iPad. But when we started chopping the art down to a one-panel-per-page layout, I started to really appreciate the incredible work that Leo, Martin and Nikos put into it. Take this panel, which for me has a touch of Steve Dillon about it. Hard to think of greater praise that that!

Mirabilis: Winter is HOT!

I'm sure everybody knows by now that Mirabilis: Winter, the first 200-page season in our ongoing fantasy epic, launched in the App Store just before Christmas. (You did know that, right? You must've. Even my mum knows.) But what you won't know - because this news is just sizzling minutes old - is that we've rocketed up to #7 in "What's hot!" in book apps. Those Apple guys, they obviously know their onions. Oh, we're sooooo excited. It's like Christmas has gone right around the sun and come straight back!

Mirabilis graphic novel app in Top 100 grossing books

I'm cross-posting this from the Mirabilis blog because we're just too darned excited to keep it under our hats. Mirabilis - Year of Wonders has been in the App Store for four days now, which is pretty fantastic as it is. But the really great news is that we just nudged into the Top 100 grossing ibooks at #99!

You can get the first instalment of the story completely free, then other chapters cost $1.99 each. So it was dizzyingly good news when we rose to #13 in iTunes books, but to actually be in the top-grossing charts too shows that new readers are following through with the story after they've been astounded by the fluid interface, easy in-app issue management, eye-popping zoom and page flip (courtesy of demon coder Simon Cook), magical colors (by wizard of the digital rainbow Nikos Koutsis) and stunning art (by maestro of the Wacom tablet Leo Hartas).

Next stop: the Kindle. And in the meantime, if you haven't got the Mirabilis iPad app yet, you can find it here in the USA and here in the UK. And you can read the first instalment online on BookBuzzr even without an iPad!

Top of the world, ma!

Apologies for the avalanche of Mirabilis news this week, but there's no arguing with the Mighty Apple. And there we are splashed across the top of the "New & Noteworthy" page on iTunes. What can we say? Mr Jobs's guys, they have such good taste. You can pick up your Mirabilis - Year of Wonders graphic novel app here (the reader itself and first chapter are absolutely FREE) and if you haven't got yourself an iPad yet, here is where to find your local Apple Store. (No, we don't get a commission. It's just the coolest thing ever and you HAVE to get one. Trust me.)

Appy families

Last week, Roz and I ventured off over rime-caked roads and fog-blurred distances into Britain’s deep West Country, blanketed then in the icy breath of Fenris the winter-spirit, to spend a few days at a couple of magnificent old manors leased to us by the Landmark Trust. The whiteout pressed right up to the stone-mullioned leaded panes, but inside we were snug as long as there was another bag of logs to toss on the fire.
Our first sojourn was under the shoulder of Dartmoor at Wortham Manor and the second (not quite so remote in the normal course of things) was Gurney Manor near Nether Stowey – whose most famous resident, Mr S T Cumberbatch, was briefly in Elliott’s Light Dragoons and whose career therein inspired the scene in Mirabilis where Jack Ember gets promoted to lieutenant. Oh, but I digress…
One evening, braving the arctic weather, Leo and his family drove over to see us and we all sat down for a massive feast overlooked by 18th century portraits. It was a little bit of a celebratory dinner, in fact, as a few days earlier we finally submitted the Mirabilis comic reader app to Apple for approval. And now that Steve Jobs has given us the nod, and Mirabilis is bumping its way up the App Store book chart, here are a few pictures of Clan Hartas giving it a test-drive.