Did you always intend to produce it as a digital comic and how did you get involved with Top Shelf. Did you pitch the idea to them or did they come to you?

CS: No. I hadn’t planned on doing MS as a digital comic. I had considered Kickstarting it, but that was the extent of it. As I said, I wanted something to show the Top Shelf guys, especially based on having come to the idea from working in Brett/Chris’ sketch book. But it was something that I thought was a few months away from being ready.

But when Chris asked, I jumped at the chance. I was a bit hesitant to change the format, as I originally wanted to do the book as a big magazine size printed comic, with old news print and shabby covers.

I had also done too many projects that didn’t turn out that were digital only, non-paying gigs. I wanted a REAL COMIC!

Something printed. Something I could hold.

But the more I thought and the more I looked, the more into Digital I was. I wasn’t aware of what ComiXology was doing. And the format, with the Guided View, seemed to give you the chance to do something very different.

When it came to trying that I was all for stepping away from the ‘ONLY magazine size printed ‘ version.

You’ve made the most of ComiXology’s Guided View functionality for Motorcycle Samurai, what did you find were the particular challenges to creating a digital comic compared to a print title? And did you look at any other titles for inspiration/advice?

CS: Thanks! I found it incredibly freeing taking on Guided View. I have a film background, and this was letting me do a lot with timing, pace, and movement. There is a language to printed comics, and the eye can just buzzsaw through so much. Especially in panels without dialog. I knew I wanted to explore silence and mood in the story. And this allowed for great use of cut-aways, reactions and insert shots.

The basic language of comics is still there. There was just a different way to deal with it. I’d tinkered with motion comics, and there was something a little off about it. Too much like cheap animation, at least in my own work.

But Guided View gave amazing results. (Like the Hornets’ intro scene below — Alex)

I looked at everything they had done before in the Guided View format on ComiXology. The folks at ComiXology were fantastic about reaching out and being open to answering any questions about the process.

Mark Waid’s stuff in particular stood out. I don’t know if it was in the script, but setting the panels against black really was striking. It was different then anything I had done before and gave the work a lot more weight then I had experienced before.