Idiots Books on Cory Doctorow's Makers

When Tor.com's webproducer, Pablo Defendini, said he wanted to serialize Cory Doctorow’s upcoming novel, Makers, in 81 chapters with 81 pieces of art, I thought he was insane. (He may be, still, but he gets a pass this time.)

After talking through a number of options that never seemed fully satisfactory -- one large image that came together like a jigsaw puzzle would go through too many dull spots, a collaborative back and forth between a number artists is often more fun as a spectator sport than for it’s final outcome, a comic retelling of the story seemed redundant and we didn't have the time or budget to run a parallel story.... While discussing all of these options, Liz Gorinsky turned us on to the insanely creative and inventive peoples at Idiots Books.

Writer Matthew Swanson and illustrator Robbi Behr run a small press publishing books that often redefine how pictures and words can come together to make a story. For Makers they have created an abstract grid of imagery that correlates to each of the episodes but can also be taken apart, rotated, and reconfigured into an endless array of sequences. Along with publishing a new “tile” with every episode we have created the “Makers Tile-Game” that will expand as the weeks go, letting you play with all of the tiles online.

The tile game here and look out for upcoming episodes of Makers and their individual illustrations here.

Please be sure to check out Idiots Books online -- we've spent a lot of time in the office passing their books around and proclaiming favorites (like The Baby is Disappointing, in which they insure, theirs is not.) And the Idiots' blog, The Barnstorming, for process posts and other bloggy things (like adorable children and farm animals.)