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Me: Hello Tom, or Freematik, thank you for taking the time for this interview. How about you start by telling me a bit about the mastermind behind Dark Moon?

Dark Moon #1

Tom: Hi Jake. Thanks for the opportunity! I have always had a love for music, and have worked in the music industry for about 20 years now as a musician, engineer, producer, and my day job as well is music based, I test music software tools meant for studios at Universal Audio. So my professional background is mostly music. But while I have worked on a lot of my own music projects, I felt that we are entering an era where music by itself is not what I wanted to do, so this is what began the long rabbit hole descent into making a motion comic series, with no previous comic experience!

Me: So this is your first comic book adventure in terms of work, would you call yourself a fan of comics? If so, what was the first comic you remember that got you interested?

Tom: I am a comic fan since I was young, but recently until I started making a comic, my interest in comics had been confined to reading graphic novels in bookstores and watching the comic based movies... so one really nice thing about this whole project for me is now I've really reconnected with comics and love buying them when I can!


The first comics I were into were comics like Batman, Wolverine, Punisher, etc. I also really loved the Transformers comic series, back when Transformers were incredibly hot! Another comic that had just hit the street at the time was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I still remember how different and cool it was! I think I learned something about comic making from that, which was that if you really believe in a concept and have fun with it, people will see the love and care you put into it.

I actually used to be able to draw comic images fairly well, but once I found music I gave up completely on drawing, which is too bad because it would save me a lot of money now haha!

Me: So already having that connection, or like of comics books must have naturally gave you the idea behind this project, but are there any other motivations or inspirations behind Dark Moon and the decision for it to be a motion comic project?

Tom: Yeah it's a strange path that led me to making a motion comic. I would say that the main impetus behind the decision was a love of the combination of sound and art. I had noticed since I was young that there were moments, mostly in movies, where a scene with the right visual imagery, plus the right music, would captivate my imagination completely. For example, the opening scene of the Shining, which is the flyover sequence with some great electronic music by Wendy Carlos, I believe. Also, the opening theme to Twin Peaks is a great example. Plus so many more moments, such as when the demon is closing in on the cabin in Evil Dead 2. That growling low sound with the sped up camera sequence just enthralled me.

Dark Moon #2

So as a musician, I felt I was missing the graphic elements to really do what I wanted. I started experimenting with music videos, and different techniques such as stop motion and many other graph experiments. But eventually I was finding that without a story, I was not going where I wanted to go with the idea, although there were some good moments and happy accidents along the way.

So finally I started considering a comic book, thinking first of a normal print comic, with a CD of music. This was the first concept that eventually became Dark Moon. I found an amazing artist, Benedick Bana, who I found on DeviantArt, just because I loved his work. From there I happened to find out about Madefire, who enable artists to make motion books with art, motion, and sound. At first I was intimidated, since I am an amateur with graphic applications, and I would have to build the motion comic. But once I got the hang of it, and saw what we could do with this technology, I knew it was perfect for us. Plus, they allow developers to use their app for free, which is the right price for our budget haha!

I really fell in love with the motion comic world, which interestingly just happened to be considered "cutting edge", which adds a little to excitement of the process. But I still wanted to try my original concept, which is why Dark Moon #1 is offered as a print version as well as a motion comic.

Me: I can completely agree with your examples, especially the Evil Dead one. I feel like you capture that, particularly on page 9 on issue 2 with the alien creatures overlooking the science team. With yourself being new to this style of project, how long does it take to create an issue of Dark Moon fully?

Tom: Awesome! Yeah I like that scene, and was hoping the music and sound FX weren't too subtle, glad it wasn't!

An episode of Dark Moon takes roughly 4 months! Partially this is due to the complexity of making a motion comic, and the other factor is that we have day jobs and other craziness going on in our lives. I actually wrote a blog post recently about why it takes so long, because I feel like fans of the series have been so patient with us, and wanted to explain in detail about why it takes so long!

I am hoping we can reach out to a publisher soon, because I see a lot of potential in our story and where it is going, and I'm sure with some support we could speed up the process greatly and make other improvements.

Me: Totally understandable, I myself run this blog along side University studies so I can appreciate the juggling between the two haha.

Speaking of support, and your mention earlier of budgets, is a Kickstarter campaign or a gofundme a possibility anytime in Dark Moon;'s future?

Tom: Yeah, I've learned over the years to not complain about things like being too busy, since almost everyone is in the same boat! Modern life can be quite hectic!

We are definitely considering a Kickstarter if it turns out we can't find a publisher that will take Dark Moon where it should be going. I've self funded the comic up until now, but after this final free episode, will have to find another method to keep the comic moving forward. I really wanted to start the comic out the way I did, because I think it gave people a chance to really dive deep into the mythology and feel of our comic, and I really am happy that a large number of people fell in love with our comic because of this. I am not sure we would have reached so many people at first any other way.

But now it could make sense to run a Kickstarter campaign, and the main "product" in my imagination for this, would be a large graphic novel "omnibus" edition, that has our first three comics, two of which have never been in print, along with a long extended fourth chapter, and a custom USB drive with a huge catalog of music to listen to along with the book! I think this would be a really awesome product and worthy of a Kickstarter campaign.

Me: Well that's something you could definitely count me in for! Could you see Dark Moon as a contained storyline or possibly part of something larger?

Tom: I am very open minded about where Dark Moon ends up! The story so far has been just about these few survivors, but a lot about where the story could head next is in the next episode, and I think the possibilities are endless as far as where it could go. I have a rough outline of the complete story, but am open to all sorts of twists along the way!