Recently, I was contacted by GEORGE CHEN, a designer from CHURN LABS, which is a company that makes internet and mobile applications. One of their recent creations is EMANATA, an indie comix reader app for the iPad, and I am happy to say that one of my stories was in the recent launch of the app in the iTunes Store.
EMANATA is sort of digital anthology indie comics MAGAZINE, with each short story linked from a scrolling index of panels that forms the index page. Each story then links to the website of the respective artists. The interface design is very clean and intuitive and the artwork looks very nice on the iPad. I had to re-format my SEPHILINA story, as my artwork was initially designed for a LANDSCAPE aspect-ratio book, but I did not mind doing this because I’d actually planned to do so anyway, when I had enough pages for an album, so this was a nice test-of-concept.
I am very much a person who likes having a REAL book to hold in my hands but, after spending several years on the self-publishing and comic convention exhibiting treadmill, I am very interested in the potential of this NEW venue for comics, especially if it helps them reach people who might not otherwise see them.
If you have an iPad and have any interest at all in comics, indie or otherwise, please go check out EMANATA; the app is FREE.