Interview with Matt Johnston, iPhone developer from Infurious Comics

This is the first installment of an ongoing series of interviews with iPhone developers and the people whose hard work make the iPhone and iPod touch so enjoyable for the rest of us.

Our first developer interview is with Matt Johnston from Infurious Comics, creators of an innovative comic reading platform for the iPhone. Last week we told you about EyeCandy, the first monthly comic release from Infurious now available in the App Store. Recently, Infurious made iPhone headlines when its first comic release, Murderdrome, was banned from the App Store by Apple because of content issues.

Today, we chat with Matt about Infurious. He sheds light on Murderdrome, EyeCandy, and the direction of his new company that not only develops iPhone software, but creates interactive entertainment for it. Continue reading to see the interview in its entirety.

[TT]: Please tell us a little bit about Infurious, how you started as a company, and how you got into comics.

[MJ]: Infurious Comics is three people - Matt Johnston (me), Philip Orr and PJ Holden. Infurious Comics has a funny start - back at the start of the year, PJ showed me some sketches for user interface ideas for digital comics on the iPhone which used Mobile Safari on the iPhone to present a web interface. In July, after the release of the iPhone SDK, he’d refined the idea and almost written a paper on how it would work as a native application. As serendipity would have it, I got married in August and put PJ and a friend of mine, Philip (who was a excellent programmer) sitting at the same table at the wedding reception. I disappear off on my honeymoon for two weeks and when I get back, found that the two of them had been working day and night and built the first prototype of MURDERDROME.

The video demo is based off that prototype:

That shows what talent, plus a great set of frameworks, can achieve.

It was released under the Blue Pilot Software label, which is Phil’s imprint for ’software for kids’ whereas Infurious is really more about a slightly older age group. After Murderdrome was rejected by Apple due to content concerns, we turned our eye to content which wouldn’t flag alarms within Apple and took dead tree magazines for kids as our inspiration :- they’re usually full colour, made from cheap paper and much too large for young kids to manipulate easily. In contrast our kids, from age 3 up are all able to navigate their way around the iPhone and iPod touch without previous instruction. The inclusion of the toy from the front of the magazine is another detail of Phil and PJ’s genius. And that’s EyeCandy.

Note: PJ Holden is an established and well respected comic artist with a long list of credits (see PJ Holden in Wikipedia).

[TT]: What attracted you to the iPhone to build your comic reading platform?

[MJ]: The initial thing was the size and resolution of the screen. At 160 dpi in full colour it has a similar clarity to print - and this was something that was not present in other phones. On top of that, with the release of the SDK it was apparent that Apple had done the unthinkable - they’d compressed an entire computer into a phone. We had the wealth of the innovative Cocoa frameworks to build upon and what’s more, the barrier to entry was incredibly low - the SDK was free to download and a deployment certificate only $99. When you compare to the number of handsets and the cost of development kits for other phones and PDAs, the iPhone and iPod touch were an obvious choice. Add to that the App Store for immediate deployment to apparently 16 million iPhones and an unknown number of iPod touch units.

We also knew that with the SDK we could build something really special that wasn’t just a comic compressed into a 3.5″ screen. With EyeCandy, we really aced that. There isn’t anything like it on the App Store.

[TT]: What do you like or dislike about being an iPhone developer and using the SDK?

[MJ]: The SDK is an amazing feat and the fact it used the Cocoa frameworks means that anyone with a previous investment on the Mac gets an immediate advantage. This is good because there’s a lot of very talented developers already on the platform.

The negative side of the SDK is all to do with teething troubles. The simulator lacks some features which means to test an app, you really need to deploy to hardware which means buying a certificate and then wrangling with the deployment process. Deployment to hardware can be slow which delays testing. Much of these issues vanished with the OS2.1 update.

The best thing though is that we’re still in uncharted waters. Every week you will see something new, innovative and exciting. And more importantly, inspiring.

It’s been a long time since there was a platform like that in the hands of consumers.

[TT]: Your first release, Murderdrome, was banned from the App Store. Can you tell us what it was like to deal with Apple during that ordeal?

[MJ]: When Slasher.app was rejected, we had a niggling feeling that we might not get on the store but we were so far along in development and release that we had to release anyway.

Murderdrome had its uses though - it gave us an opportunity to see what would be accepted and what wouldn’t. We’re still plugging away trying to find out where the boundary of acceptable content is. And we’ll be pushing that boundary. We believe that there’s a huge market of people who would read comics as casual entertainment.

I believe Apple are doing their best with the uncharted territory. They’re pitching the iPod touch as a competitor gaming handheld so we understand their need to monitor content.

[TT]: The Murderdrome experience caused you to advocate a ratings system for the App Store. Was Apple receptive to that idea?

[MJ]: I think Apple will continue to review options in order to refine the experience for their customers. We can see this in the interface changes in the App Store.

[TT]: Do you think we’ll ever see mature comic book content in the App Store?

[MJ]: That depends on your definition of mature. Flying heads and nudity doesn’t make material mature, it makes it adult. I certainly think there’s room for mature content in terms of stories that make you think, make you feel. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to get some mature content from some truly great writers on there. And I think everyone will be amazed at some of the results.

[TT]: After Murderdrome, you bounced right back with EyeCandy, a kids comic book. The content certainly won’t get EyeCandy banned from the App Store, but as far as we can tell, not too many kids own iPhones or iPod touches. So why a kids comic?

[MJ]: You have to look at the entire demographic. I’m a parent in a two iPhone household. My kids are right in the age group EyeCandy is aimed at - and they love it. The only problem is that there aren’t enough iPhones to go round!

The iPhone presents a truly intuitive interface - kids just seem to get the idea of touching icons, swiping to flick through it and they love the discovery inherent in an EyeCandy comic. We expect that a parent will read out the dialogue in a comic to their child (including putting on the accents) and the child will further enjoy the comic by colouring it in, playing with the toy. The pictures can also be taken as screenshots without the speech balloons and printed out for colouring in with pencils and crayons. EyeCandy really is the full package and we’re immensely proud of each issue (#2 is about to hit the virtual newsstands!)

You also have to consider that Nintendo DS units are bought for 6 year old children and the iPod touch is being aimed straight at the DS market. It’s expensive up front but the games for the iPod touch are very cheap. Add in a good rubberised cover and the device becomes very sturdy. EyeCandy is designed so that a parent can enjoy it with their child but the child can also enjoy it by themselves.

So, yes, not many kids have the devices, but they will by Christmas and so will their parents.

[TT]: Right now, Infurious appears to be both a publisher and a creator of comic book content. Do you have any plans to license content from other sources?

[MJ]: Absolutely. The whole point of the Comic Reader application is twofold. Firstly, to do comics really well on a digital device, something that has to date never been done and I think everyone agrees that we’ve pulled it off with EyeCandy. The second thing is to make it possible for comic creators to make a living at making comics. This is something which has been difficult in the past. PJ especially, as an artist, feels very passionately about this.

We will continue to publish comics as long as it makes sense - under our EyeCandy and Infurious brands - but we’re already in talks with several publishers and professional creators all interested in either publishing under our imprint or licensing the software for publishing under their own imprint. This way we’re helping people get published and also opening up the platform to enable others to publish their own material. We’ve got two such projects underway but I don’t want to give the game away before they’re ready for publishing.

As we ramp up production we expect to have several different comic lines coming out, including entire lines which won’t be written or drawn by anyone on staff in Infurious Comics.

[TT]: What advice to you have for indie comic book creators out there that would like to distribute their content on the iPhone using Infurious?

[MJ]: At the moment we’re working one-on-one with creators in order to completely nail any gotchas on the process.

We’ll be releasing submission guidelines very soon but I’d ask anyone interested to consider the dimensions of the screen and prepare your panels for maximum readability. We found the ‘pinch-zoom’ method of reading comics to be highly unsatisfactory - you’re examining the artwork more than reading the comic.

Technical issues aside, consider the story itself. A standard American format comic has 22 pages, which means 88 panels which is a lot when you’re flicking through.

Lastly - do think outside the page. We’ve shown that putting comics on the iPhone isn’t about squeezing the graphics onto the screen. The layers that contain pencils and inks have interest but the real thing we’re doing is providing ‘depth’. We can add video, audio, even pull content down from the ‘net, add links to forums or other sites: stuff you can’t do with the dead tree editions. Want to include a link to a Youtube interview? No problem. Add in a second storyline in the same comic? Sure. The possibilities have barely begin to be realized.

• EyeCandy [app store]
• Infurious Comics [web]

 

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