Digital take-off

I know there was some other big news this week... wasn't there? ;) but didn't want to miss out on telling everybody about us launching on Graphic.ly. Got an iPhone? Or an iPad? Or an Android mobile? Want to sample the cool streamlined viewing of Adobe AIR for PC/Mac? Or even just plain ol' web? There's an app to fit your device of choice, and Mirabilis #1 and #2 are hanging ripe 'n' luscious on those digital branches just waiting to be picked right now for free, with six more issues coming up on Graphic.ly and Comics+ too over the next six weeks.

What I really like about digital comics is that it's like coming down off the stage and mingling with the audience. Traditional publishing is thud, there's your comic, and unless you really want to plunge in to a life of fandom, the stream of community tends to pass you by. But digital platforms like Graphic.ly and Comics+ are really making comics collecting and reading into an easy participatory experience. Nothing very new in this (it's what Stan Lee did with Marvel, ably imitated in this country by Alf & Cos and later, of course, the Mighty Tharg) but digital comics make it so sweet. More on this here.

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!

A clever widget

We've been playing around with promo sites like BookBuzzr as a way of spreading the word about the Mirabilis app (still available here - once you've bought your iPad that is).

On BookBuzzr you can set up a look inside view of your comic, and you get a widget like the one above that you can put on your blog or website. All absolutely free too, so a perfect fit for advertising budgets like ours.

And it seems to work. This week Mirabilis is #1 in BookBuzzr's charts for Young Adult, #1 in Sci-Fi & Fantasy, and #1 in Comics & Graphic Novels! I don't yet know whether this translates into real sales, but any of you guys who have a book or comic out there ought to give it a go.

Incidentally this particular sneak peek is an extra freebie that even the iPad customers don't get, as it's the first few pages of Mirabilis issue 2, which on iPad is one of the in-app purchases. This episode originally appeared as "The Wrong Side of Bedlam" in DFC number 34. Can you believe that was two years ago? Incredible.

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.

Mirabilis hits No.17 in the Top Free Book iPad charts in just 24hrs!

Yesterday our iPad app, Mirabilis, finally made it into the light onto iTunes. It's a free app developed by Simon Cook that contains a super smooth reader and store front. You get the first 25 page issue free with the next 7 issues, totalling a whopping 200 pages, available to buy from within the app.

Mirabilis, with it's beautiful, rich colours by Nikos Koutsis, looks fantastic on iPad. Was Mirabilis made for iPad, or iPad for Mirabilis? Neither, but it's marriage made in heaven! We are really thrilled and excited to get our work out there and being downloaded so quickly. I know, you may say "free", is the way to get the numbers up, but I just looked and we are 117 in the Top Grossing iPad Books chart, so the paid for issues must be selling! We're doing this all ourselves, Dave, Nikos and me. Please help us by spreading the word! 

On iTunes
Mirabilis website

The wow factor

Just had to share with y'all the most exciting thing ever. Never mind holding your firstborn in your hands. Nothing compares to the thrill of reading a comic on an iPad. It is so gorgeous, so absolutely dripping with lush colours, that I even managed to enjoy an entire Thor comic that I'm sure would seem dreadfully ponderous and turgid on the printed page.

In the photo there, of course, I'm just using Safari, but the comics reader apps that are available are incredibly impressive, and the experience on iPad is on a whole other level than iPhone. And no, I don't have shares in Apple :)