Daniel Corey is not just any comic artist. He is experimenting with adapting his comic works into virtual and augmented reality — something which I’m sure readers at Dev Diner will find incredibly exciting to hear, as I did. I just had to have an interview with this guy to find out more.
Daniel Corey and his MORIARTY VR comic book
Bring us to the time and place where the lightbulb moment hit and you decided to create a VR comic. Where were you? How did the idea come about?
I was working on my new comic series, BLOODWORTH, which deals with an FBI squad in the future that can enter people’s minds to solve mysteries. The idea came to me as I was thinking about that, how entering someone’s mind would be the ultimate Virtual Reality experience.
My primary job is writing and producing comic books, but I always think of myself first and foremost as a creator of IP. My stories always start as comics, but I’m always thinking about where else they can go. BLOODWORTH got me running down rabbit trails of abstract thought, thinking about what I could do to bring my stories off the printed page and into the room around you. Hence, the idea of VR comics was born.
I did some work to create AR with BLOODWORTH using the Blippar app, which turned out pretty nice. Then, when I met the guys from Transmedia Entertainment (a great fit–their name says it all) at VRLA earlier this year, we brainstormed on how to bring my MORIARTY comic into a VR environment. Joseph Narai, James Murchison and Tim Grant did a great job of putting together a prototype of the MORIARTY VR app so that I could demo it at the WonderCon comic convention here in Los Angeles.
What’s the comic book about?
MORIARTY is a comic about Professor James Moriarty, the arch-nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. I started working on MORIARTY with artist Anthony Diecidue back in 2009, and then we started releasing the title through Image Comics in 2011. We were just in time for the Sherlock Holmes explosion, and we were fortunate enough to have the first-ever comic series starring Professor Moriarty as the leading man and title character. In over century of countless Holmes adaptations, Anthony, Image Comics and I were first to market on this.
We’ve done several storylines about Moriarty, but the basic premise deals with Moriarty trying to find new meaning in life after the loss of Holmes. With Holmes gone, Moriarty loses everything, until World War I breaks out, and he gets tangled up in a web of espionage, murder, and intrigue. In his quest to find new meaning in life, Moriarty must make a comeback, find new enemies to face, and become the world’s greatest criminal all over again.
We did a special one-shot story titled MORIARTY: ENDGAME, which takes Moriarty into the future, where he and Holmes lead mechanized armies into battle across the landscape of a tech-laden, post-apocalyptic future. ENDGAME is the first story that Transmedia Entertainment and I are translating into VR.
How does the VR comic book work? Give us the lowdown of how we’d experience it.
The environment of the scene is created in 3D, and then the art of the comic is placed into the scene, wherever the action would be taking place in the room. The reader will explore each room, find the comic art and read the dialogue, then click the “Next” button to advance ahead. In essence, when you read the MORIARTY comic in VR, you’re immersed in individual comic book panels, and you’re clicking your way from one panel to the next.
A sneak peek at the Moriarty VR experience
How does creating a VR comic differ from planning, creating and releasing a regular comic book?
At the moment, we’re adapting existing material. For future projects, I don’t think I’ll be planning the comics to adapt in any particular way; I’d hate to think that I’d have to place any limitations on the stories just to make any adaptations easier.
There are small things you could do, such as create the pages in layers in Photoshop, so that the art separates out easier. Production considerations like that. But no limits on the story.
That said, adapting comic strips to VR would be fun. Titles like “Garfield” and “Peanuts” take place in such simple settings, one could reuse environments and art elements over and over, making production quick and easy.
How did you choose a VR agency to work with? Do you have any tips for other artists who are considering getting into new mediums like VR?
I did what worked for me when I was first seeking publishing deals for my comics: I attended trade shows and talked to developers. In the last few years, I’ve been to GDC, E3 and VRLA, which were all new experiences for me.
As I mentioned earlier, I met Sydney-based Transmedia Entertainment at VRLA. It was a good fit. I liked what they were doing with their Drop-In VR platform — bringing VR production to the masses — and they were interested in my IP and ideas.
For anyone interested in making the leap to VR or any form of new media, I’d suggest visiting conventions, joining networking groups, getting to know as many people as you can. Build and maintain relationships, read trade publications, and keep practicing your craft. Create as much as you can in your field, and have a body of work ready when opportunity comes knocking.
From the other perspective, do you have any tips for developers looking for artists to work with to build VR comic books?
Look for good comic book artists. You can find artists at comic conventions and trade groups, and you can also do a lot of legwork online. Check out Instagram, DeviantArt, sites like that. You need to be sure that the artist has a strong portfolio of sequential art. There are a lot of great illustrators that can do covers and pinups, but creating action that flows from panel to panel is what’s essential to creating comics. So make sure you see sequential samples before hiring someone.
Tell us more about BLOODWORTH, the comic book you adapted into AR.
I created an AR project using the Blippar app: the user can scan the cover of the BLOODWORTH print book, which creates a “pop-up book” effect with the cover on your phone screen, presenting the user with a menu of extras, like a DVD menu. You can bring up a PDF of the comic in English or French, watch a music video trailer, and link to my other comics online.
What’s the general reaction from the public when you say you’ve got a VR comic book? Does it take much explaining?
The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and is similar to what I encountered when the MORIARTY comic debuted: “Why hasn’t anybody done this yet?” I don’t know if we have the first VR comic, but I feel safe in saying that we have one of the first.
When I demonstrated the MORIARTY: ENDGAME VR at WonderCon, everyone loved it. For so many people there, it was their first time looking at VR. And it had the effect that I was hoping for: users loved the idea of living inside of a comic panel. Pretty sure we were the only vendor at that show that had VR.
Do you have any tips for developers getting into VR? Tips on making a good VR experience? Ways to avoid not-so-good experiences and design?
You’ll have to ask Transmedia’s Joseph Narai about that!
A wild Joseph Narai appears! (Disclaimer: yes, PatCat, the editor here, has been playing Pokemon GO…)
Joe: Once the Drop In VR services go live, I’d recommend using that as a fast way of developing and publishing VR apps. The toolset was used to create Moriarty: Endgame and we are putting some great features into it that make it super simple to use yet powerful enough to make some really engaging experiences.
Otherwise, if you are a programmer, Unity has support for all of the VR headsets, so there’s no excuse not to jump in and give it a go!
Tips for good VR experiences:
Make sure you don’t move the person in VR space with out them initiating it. Unless of course you deliberately want to make them motion sick!
Be aware of where you are positioning UI elements in VR space, relative to the other objects in your scene. Otherwise, you can get eye fatigue easily with your focus shifting between objects.
Performance, performance, performance — frame rate is king. You need to keep your scene singing along at at least 60Hz on mobile and 90Hz on desktop. The faster the better!
Joseph disappears back into his VR forest! Thanks Joe!
Any final words?
I’m very blessed to be able to play in such rarified sandboxes. I want to encourage any budding content creators out there: only about 1 percent of people in the world actually put the time and effort in to create something. Writing and producing comic books is a Herculean task, which is why so few people do it. If you can do it, and do it well, you can make an impact on culture. Just you and your product, you have the ability to give thousands of people something they haven’t seen before.
Anthony and I created the first MORIARTY comic book. Transmedia and I created the first (or one of the first) VR comic books. The secret is that we all sat down, rolled up our sleeves, and did the work.
A massive thank you to Daniel for sharing his transmedia comic book creation experiences (and for Joe’s guest appearance)! Makes me want to make a Dev Diner VR comic… You can find more about Daniel’s VR comic over on Daniel Corey’s website or follow along with his adventures on his Twitter at @dangerkatt.
The post Daniel Corey on making MORIARTY, his virtual reality comic appeared first on Dev Diner.