If you’re an artist, photographer, cosplayer or Rainmeter-obsessed skin modder, chances are that you probably have a deviantART.com account to serve as your digital portfolio. Now, the online artist communities is pushing things further by partnering with Madefire, whose iOS app allows content creators to make “Motion Books” (like more interactive versions of motion comics), to allow deviantART users to create and distribute digital Motion Books via Madefire’s platform. With offerings from comics industry luminaries like Dave Gibbons, Liam Sharp, and Bill Sienkiewicz, the browser-based publishing platform not only has some serious clout behind it, but it will enable aspiring content creators to turn their webcomic into a genuine movin’ picture! Now, how about that?

In a press release, Madefire co-founder Ben Wolstenholme said, “deviantART and Madefire will provide the ultimate story engine, by bringing creators and readers together.” DeviantART CEO Angelo Sotira hammered home the emphasis on putting control in the creator’s hands.  “Madefire and deviantART share in the creator-first mission of empowering artists, writers and visionaries to liberate their narratives,” said Sotira. Indeed, the partnership’s robust offerings are very exciting, as the means of self publishing become increasingly accessible to a larger audience. Using deviantART’s Premium Content Platform, creators will have access to a built-in payment and royalty system to set their own price points and, you know, actually make money off their creations for once. And what better group to hand over a toolkit like this to than a giant assembly of ambitious artists and illustrators?

To kick off the promotion, three titles will be made available for free, and many more are available for ten cents each. Having checked out the first issue of Dave Gibbons’ Treatment, I can attest that it’s an engaging, exciting reading experience in a way that I hadn’t experienced with other motion comics. Want to read ’em and see what all the fuss is about? Head on over to deviantART.com or Madefire.com, or download the Madefire app on your iOS-enabled device. Stay tuned for our interview with deviantART’s Angelo Sotira tomorrow to get the skinny on this brand new initiative and more about the open-source art community.

What do you think? Are you excited by the possibility of Motion Books? Will you be using them? Let us know in the comments below.