Revolutionizing the Comic Industry with Madefire

True portfolio company Madefire launched in the iTunes App Store this morning to much buzz and fanfare—well-deserved attention given the originality, creativity and potential of this inspiring company and their product. Madefire is revolutionizing the comic and graphic novel industry with their entirely new concept of “Motion Books”—original stories, each providing a unique and immersive experience, written and drawn specifically for the iPad.

Comic publishing is a multi-billion dollar industry, and while existing comic publishers have brought their comics into the digital age, they have only come as far as scanning existing content into digital platforms. Madefire is disrupting this model by creating digital-first comics specifically optimized to take full advantage of iPad features and functionality, including the gyroscope, accelerometer and retina display. Perhaps even more exciting for the industry is the amazing lineup of talent Madefire has tapped to create seven original comic and graphic novel titles, including Co-Founder Liam Sharp’s project, “Captain Stone is Missing,” as well as a new series called “Treatment,” written and drawn by Dave Gibbons, co-creator of “Watchmen,” the bestselling graphic novel of all time.

True first invested in Madefire in October 2011, and while they were still developing their platform, the depth of talent and determination shown by Co-Founders Ben Wolstenholme and Liam Sharp blew us away. I met Ben and Liam through Mark Hall, Founder of True company Showyou—Ben’s previous company, Moving Brands, did the visual identity work for Showyou. Ben and Liam have the kind of history and relationship that we love to see among co-founders—they were neighbors growing up and were both Art Scholars at St. Andrews prep school and Eastbourne College. Ben and Liam both have deep experience in the comic arts and media—Ben founded Moving Brands, a branding company with creative studios in London, Zurich, Tokyo and San Francisco, and Liam drew the bestselling Marvel UK title ever, “Death’s Head II,” and in 2004 established MamTor Publishing. Last fall, I introduced Ben and Liam to Eugene Walden, who is an award-winning UI designer, as well as Co-Founder and CEO of 4delite, a cloud-based media-publishing platform. Eugene joined Ben and Liam in September 2011 as Co-Founder and CTO, completing a triple-threat of a team that we knew was poised for wild success.

Madefire is one of those companies that truly falls within our sweet spot at True—a disruptive, game-changing product, a strong team, and an overwhelming dedication to bring something of substance and beauty to the world. And, they are generous— their publishing tools will be available, for free, to anyone who wants to create their own original comics or graphic novels in the Motion Book format. As CEO of Automattic, I especially appreciate the open outreach, which inspires innovation and allows more people to create. We are truly honored to partner with Ben, Liam and Eugene, and we look forward to watching Madefire change the face of digital comic and graphic novel publishing.

Congratulations, Madefire team!

Read Wade Roush’s awesome story about Madefire on Xconomy and Anthony Ha’s story on TechCrunch. Get the App.