Gamebook store

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Free e-comic

If you have an ebook reader with a decent-sized (preferably color) screen, you can grab yourself a copy of Mirabilis comic book #1 in EPUB format. It's absolutely free and you can send it to a friend. In fact, go on, we want you to - the more the merrier. And meanwhile the BookBuzzr versions of issue #1 and the first five pages of #2 are right here - just scroll down to the bottom of this page. If you look on Amazon you might find a Kindle comics version too, just do a search for "Mirabilis comics". Or read episode one online on the Mirabilis website.

The Mirabilis comics iPad app is still available too, of course, but the difference with the ebook is that you get to see each panel (gloriously rendered by Leo Hartas and Nikos Koutsis) at full-page size. A veritable feast for the eyes - and you'll enjoy the story also, that's if magic-radiating comets, invading alien cabbages, bottled witches and very bad fairies are your thing.

Folks who still prefer books grown with sunshine and water with will be heartened to hear that I have not become exclusively converted to ebooks and apps. Two whopping great hardcover volumes of Mirabilis (the first of eight covering the whole Year of Wonders) are due out in Britain and Ireland from publisher Print Media Productions in the spring. Measuring in at 9 inches by 12 inches, they'll be big enough to whack any size of insect pest. Don't try that with an iPad, obviously.

15 comments:

  1. I take it the entire Mirabilis (2nd attempt, spelt right!) on the Amazon store? I have got 1.1 on my phone, Android, and it is great. I was going to buy the book but postage is too much to NZ. SO when can we expect the next instalment, Ember has just been shot!

    Oh and when can we have the Fabled Lands HD on Android too?

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  2. The answer is just two posts below, Kiwi. I would purchase some sort of PC version of Megara's App, but I personally prefer the print edition myself. They are two halfs of the coin and have their separate quirks, based on my knowledge, although I do not have an Ipad myself.

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  3. Thanks but, iPad and Android are two completely different operating systems, and Windows a another! Fabled lands is only available in the (closed, proprietary and policed) Apple App Store, not as either a (slightly more open) Windows 'App' or a (totally open and the future IMNSHO) Android App. I would love to see the FL App on my Android phone or my Windows slate. :-)
    When Amazon set up a PoD site in NZ I'll get it in hardcopy too, until then postage is rather prohibitive. Although I splashed out for the FL books #1-4, just not Mirabilis.

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  4. Kiwi, you'll be able to get the mini-episodes 1.2 and 1.3 on Kindle in the next day or two. That's the first 30 pages of Mirabilis: Winter - which is a total of nearly 200 pages. We will aim to get the whole story on Kindle but the conversion process (chopping every page to individual frames, resizing, and assembling as a MOBI file) is a wee bit fiddly to say the least. So we'll probably aim for something like one new mini-episode every couple of weeks.

    I would love to get the print editions out in Australia and NZ, but postage of either the TPBs or the upcoming deluxe UK hardcover volumes is likely to be steep. All I can say is that we are looking for a publisher Down Under and as soon as we find one I'll post it here!

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  5. Cheers for the info Dave. Just so I can do some economics, S1.99US per 10 pages = 40$US for the entire Winter if using Kindle comics. So (despite the joy of reading it anywhere on my phone, I love the single panel optimised comics on phone) it may make more sense to buy the softcover.

    Just checked Winter is 2 books, didn't realise, so that is... 40US. You must have been thinking about this ;-)

    So great stuff, keep it coming to us in the colonies. I now seem to have a wee shrine to Dave et al on my gaming shelf, DW (new and old novels sized), FL, ...how about Blood Sword next eh?

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  6. Hi Kiwi - me, think about pricing? Not in this world - it's just luck it works out that way :) Actually, I would've put those opening episodes up for free on Kindle if I could (Mirabilis #1 is free on iPad) but the Kindle Store wouldn't let me for files that big.

    Blood Sword eh? Well, Jamie and I have been thinking about it - either as reissued gamebooks or as "The Sword of Life & the Sword of Death" scenario book for DW (new license owners permitting) or both. Stay tuned.

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  7. Free is always good for getting new customers, I put in the good word on Amazon.

    But Blood Sword? Hell yeah best game books series ever -FL I can't count cos we never got them all, slacker! :-)

    How about gameboooks and DW scenario!?! I think there is a real revival going on now with AFF, LW, DW, FF, FL etc all coming back for us nostalgic old buggers whose Mum's discarded their collections (not DW though for whatever reason) whilst we were of serving HM overseas!

    Well that last bit might be specific but the interest is there IMO.

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  8. So, on a somewhat unrelated note, are the sales of the newly reissued Fabled Lands books high enough to justify the reissuing of the remaining books?

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  9. Gotta take the glass-half-full view, Kiwi - at least your mum didn't chuck out DW!

    Hamza, we're not there yet but sales were better than anyone expected in the first month. I'll know the month 2 figures in a week or so; if they're continuing to hold up, we could get the nod for books 5 and 6, but as far as books 7+ are concerned we'll need to see the sales keep going strong for another six months at least.

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  10. My goodness! "The Sword of Life & the Sword of Death" scenario book for DW would be absolutely magnificent and just what I've been looking for for over twenty years! I sincerely do hope that this comes to fruition and that you manage to collaborate directly with the new DW team on new projects and so forth. This is the most exciting news in roleplaying that I've heard for years!

    I agree with Kiwi that there is a real sense of revival at the moment with a small and hitherto army of long-dormant fans waiting to dust off their ethereal swords and embark once more into the lands of adventure that you created. I really think that with your fresh creative input into new projects supporting re-releases of classic material, that there is a great opportunity of creating a sustainable British roleplaying phenomenon for the 2010s.

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  11. The more I think of it, NP, the bigger I realize that book would have to be. We'd need to have rules for myth levels, the Magi, details of the Ta'ashim lands, Krarth, Wyrd... Sheol too. Not to mention the scenarios themselves. There's a book you wouldn't want to drop on your toe.

    Oliver and I would certainly love to do it - as we would, eventually, like to do "Jewelspider", our long-envisioned rules-lite (or possibly RQ based) sourcebook for Legend. As I've said before, with Oliver kept pretty busy as Publishing Director at Hodder, these are projects that may have to wait for the easeful days of retirement - still a long way off, even for we veterans of gaming's Vieille Garde.

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  12. It's a brilliant idea, though; I can see multiple campaign sourcebooks although I'm not sure of the current trend in RPGs...I remember a time when each system had sourcebooks galore which each fantasy realm gaining it's own weighty tome.

    If the trend is still for multiple books, then I'd certainly be delighted to invest in the full set the moment they are released!

    The only agony would be my quandary between wanting to be the referee of an authentic canon DW campaign and wanting to be a player and resurrect one of my noble knights who has been lying in a gilded sarcophagus for too many years!

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  13. Well best of luck with it all... I really hope all these projects appear :-)

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  14. Thanks guys. Bear in mind I have 600 more pages (25 issues) of Mirabilis to write first!

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