As you’ll have seen from last week’s Pull List, we’re big fans of  QAM Comics‘ Guided View Native digital comic Template. With it’s bleak cyber-punk feel and dystopian action it’s amazing to think this is produced by 4 guys without the resources of the big two publishers. To find out how they do it and what the secret to great indie digital comics are, we contacted Template’s writer Quinton Miles to get the lowdown.

Tell us a bit about the inspiration behind your digital comic Template, where did the ideas for the characters and story come from? Has it been a story you’ve wanted to tell for some time or was it created specifically for launching digitally?

QM: Template originally started off as a five page pitch (aka Alpha’s attack on the Oversight R&D lab from #1) that we took out to a few publishers last summer.  Andres wanted to do something cyberpunk related so that was definitely a factor, but on my side, I’ve always cited three properties as inspirations: Metal Gear Solid, 24, and Nikita. More specifically, The Boss character from the MGS franchise. It’s certainly evolved into its own thing since then, but for me, it essentially started off as “What if The Boss was the subject of the Les Enfants Terribles program instead of her protege, Big Boss?”

Tell us a bit about the formation of QAM Comics? How did the four of you come to work together and what are your background in comics?

QM: QAM Comics was formed out of neccessity, basically. Along with conveniently sharing my initials, it’s also a nod to QAM Modulation and the general idea of creating one strong signal from mulitple signals. That’s the idea and “brand” I want to push across the board, from collaboration to publishing models. Doing it under a unified banner will allow cross-polination on projects in the future and I think they’ll all be better for it.

Andres, MaGnUs and I still wanted to do Template, but there came a point when we knew that wasn’t going to happen through a publisher so we just did it ourselves. Nathan came into the picture a few months later when our original colorist dropped, but now I can’t even picture doing this without him.

Nathan’s the vet of the group by far having already done work for Marvel, DC and Image, and MaGnUs is certainly established in his own right as a letterer having done a bunch of stuff including most of my pitches before Template. Andres and I are complete newcomers, though. This is our first full-fledged comics project.

Template existed as a web comic first, am I right? What do you think are the various pros and cons of publishing for free online compared to trying to get a publishers interested? Did you hope to follow the Thrillbent model of publishing in this respect? 

QM: Template’s webcomic run is actually still ongoing, and will conclude on November 27. We also recently wrapped up a Kickstarter campaign to print what we’re now calling “Season 1” that’ll go out in January to those lucky few backers. We’re going up on ComiXology a little later than I hoped, which is why most people are just being exposed to it now, but future projects are going to be more in sync in terms of publishing strategy.

And for me, personally, the pros of publishing for free outweight the cons by far, especially at this stage of what I’m hoping will be a career. I think the majority of the comics buying audience is smart enough to realize that free isn’t really completely free, and that if they like what we’re doing and want to see us keep doing it, we’ll eventually have to see that they want to support it in the form our sales on ComiXology, Comics Plus and other distribution channels. That said, I don’t ever want price being the driving thought in doing that which is why all of my single digital first issues will always be $0.99.

Regarding Thrillbent,  I’m a big fan of their comics and that model. Monkeybrain as well. Mark Waid is one of my idols for what he’s doing there and, if things go to plan, that’s the road I hope to go down with QAM Comics . At the end of the day, the audience determines the comic’s worth and that’s ultimately how it should be.

Template is part of ComiXology‘s new Guided View Native push, how did you get involved in producing Template for Guided View Native and how important is this partnership with ComiXology for the success of the book?

QM: It looks like it’s going to be a huge boost, no question. Shortly before we were about to launch, they approached me about it and as a fan the Guided View Native format on stuff like Marvel’s Infinite Comics and Batman ’66, I was immediately on board. As a brand new creator, working with the top digital comics distributor in this capacity is obviously, again, huge which definitely played a factor in my decision to do it. It’s another thing that’ll help our titles stand out.

What amends did you have to make to get it making the most of Guided View Native? Will you be tailoring future issues for it and how important do you think creating fancy transitions is for making a digital comic work?

QM: We had already laid out/designed Template to natively fit tablets/smartphones, but when the decision was made to do these in Guided View Native, MaGnUs and myself went back to re-format the issues. It was mainly a time/labor thing since these issues had been done for a while and had just been sitting in their queue, but once we established a shorthand on that it wasn’t a problem at all.

A comparison I like to use on our digital stuff is when developers are making a multi-platform video game. At its core, it’s the exact same story on both platforms (digital and print) but each version will have certain tweaks to take advantage of what that respective platform can do. Our Kickstarter backers will see this when they get their copies, but the graphic novel edition will read like any other comic they have. And digitally, we can take more liberties with the pace and have the cool transitions.

And yes, Template’s entire ComiXology run will be in Guided View Native as well future issues of my other projects.

Finally what are the long term plans for Template, how would you like to see it progress and where would you like it to be in 5 years time?

QM: In terms of production, there are no immediate long term plans on Template. It’s intended to be a standalone storyarc, and when it wraps up we’ll be closely looking at the sales/reception. Whether or not we continue on with it will be directly influenced by that.

Personally speaking? I have a very loose four year outline mapped out of where I envision it heading, but I think this is a universe that has the potential to even go on past that. I definitely hope we’ll be able to do it!

Template #1 can be purchased from ComiXology for £0.69/$0.99 or you can catch up with the latest installment via their website here. For more info follow them on twitter @QAMComics and like them on Facebook.