TechRadar UK have a short interview with PJ where they examine the ratings system on the Apple iTunes App Store that we’re keen on having implemented for content other than games.
TR: Were you shocked that it was banned?
PJH: After we’d seen the other apps that were banned it wasn’t a massive surprise, no. Unfortunately, we were too far ahead in development to stop and start with something new.
TR: Do you think Apple were right to take this decision, given that the comic is, obviously, centred round comic-book violence?
PJH: I think Apple is right to do everything in it’s power to make the iPhone / iPod touch a mass market item, I think they’re wrong in allowing games in the App store to have ratings and not books or comics.
EyeCandy #1 We’re still doing what we can with Murderdrome, in the meantime, we’ve had success with one of our other titles - EyeCandy#1 is a new children’s comic, built using the Infurious Comics Engine - we’ve also added all sorts of cool extra features, you can download it for 99cents at the Applestore LINK
By now, you might have heard that Murderdrome has been banned by Apple. This is due to the part of the sdk that suggests content must NOT offend anyone in ‘apple’s reasonable’ opinion. Here at infurious, we would love to work with Apple to ensure a content rating system can be put in place to allow material that is no more offensive than many of the R rated films available to download on iTunes.
PLEASE leave a comment committing your support to us - we’ll forward ALL of these to Apple, so that we can ensure that not only Murderdrome, but that ANY comic submitted to Apple doesn’t fall foul of the same censorship. Read the rest of this entry »
As I said in the last post, we’re getting some serious interest - we’ve been emailed by creators and publishers alike with the intent of becoming a distribution source for their material. This is because the digital format we’re pioneering (codenamed Kirby while it was in development) will open up comics to a whole new set of readers as well as ushering in new models for distribution.
Q. Why not scan a whole page and use the pinch-zoom feature?
A. Pinch-zoom-scroll-scroll-scroll down and back and left-scroll-scroll-scroll-repeat ad nauseum.
Quietly, these guys are leading a revolution in the distribution of anglophone comics. This may not seem like such big news now, but in a few years time, when we all get our comics from iTunes, it might be “hey, remember that little comic by those two 2000AD guys that started all this?”
With the possibilties on display in the video, this could be a great app for reading comic books on your iPhone, as well as for creating rich and unique comic book content especially for the iPhone. As a cartoonist and a comic book lover (and a rabid iPhone user), I’m pretty excited about this one!
Take a look at this video. It is staggering. It is Apple Insanely-Great staggering. It is an absolute breakthrough in the field of electronic comic books. I can’t say enough about how radical and breakthrough this is. Look!!!
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They’ve gone beyond anything I could have imagined. I salute you! You have taken my breath away! You will change the world!
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It is a work of genius, seriously. It is revolutionary. And like I said in a msg to Blue Pilot, I wish this had been around in the 1970s and Jack Kirby’s Fourth World was on it. I would have been able to peel away Frank Giacoia’s terrible inks from Kirby’s wonderful pencils (thank God Mike Royer came in!).
Gotta admit, I’m really proud of homeboy P.J. Holden: he may just have created a revolutionary way for comics to be distributed. All these years writing about how we need an iTunes for comics, and it turns out to be iTunes itself (basically).
One of the early demos was this insert on Warren Ellis’ forum, whitechapel.
This then led to Ed Kaye’s Hypergeek.ca which gave a pretty accurate description of the business model and comparison with the traditional print model as well as the sort of numbers seen on other digital distribution formats.
They look to have this just right for an iPod screen, as it it isn’t overly heavy on the text, so it is easily readable, and they’ve gone nice and clean and bright on he art i.e. there isn’t a tonne of background detail etc, which might make things look cluttered on the iPod screen.
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Well, I love the art, love the story, and very much dig the concept. I’m always pleased to see people doing new things with comics. Any new format that will get new readers into the medium has got to be a good thing. I love the idea of being able to go down to the inks, then the pencils, what a cool idea! It really takes advantage of the format, something you definitely couldn’t do with PDF distribution, or some other such.
We’re breaking new ground with material specifically designed not just for the screen, but for a digital comic that you actually thumb your way through.
This is the original thread from panel and pixel that sort of kicked us off here. We’d not been intending to release anything for a couple of weeks but - well - excitement got the better of us and there were more and more people who had seen the application ‘in the flesh’ and were talking about it!
“If I had an iPhone already, I’d definitley buy this from you!”
“I’m very interested in the iPhone as a comics platform. Very, very interested.”
The first Youtube demo of Murderdrome which in only three days has garnered nearly a thousand views.
In the demo you can see some of the major features of the application, why it appeals to the casual comic reader, the dedicated comic fan and also someone looking to get started in the comic industry.
Some comments:
So now I have to buy an iphone
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Looks fantastic! I’m really looking forward to this comic and this iPhone app ^_^
