thoughts on motion comics

Something else on my mind. I've recently run across the concept of the "motion comic." This is a new thing. It is like a comic, but electronic. It includes graphics, but also some "limited" animation, plus voice and music.

The big names, as you would expect, in motion comics are the major comic book companies -- Marvel for example. Though, I suppose that could change. New players always coming into the world.

What confuses me, though, is that motion comics are being sold as a completely new medium -- not cartoons, not graphic novels, but something alien and new,

Yet, when I look at them (and there are a bunch on the web), I'm struck by the fact that their "limited" animation looks pretty unlimited to me. Yes, they don't move all the time, but they boast at least as much animation as a lot of the TV cartoons I watched in my long lost boyhood. They have at least as much some of the Hanna-Barbera productions (take a look at Space Ghost) and a 'ell of a lot more than, say, "Space Angel."

If you haven't seen Space Angel, by the way, it is worth a glance, if only for the sheer weirdness of it (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Angelf). The Angel is sort of an interstellar policeman and secret agent who's always rushing about saving the universe.

A product of Cambria Productions, the show was a mix of cartooning and live action. So, for example, rather than drawing a moving mouth when a character spoke, the animators filmed an actor's lips and then pasted those on the face of the cartoon.

It was truly bizarre, and in retrospect, one of the creepier things I've ever watched on TV. Yet, I'm embarrassed to say I was a big fan at the time. Of course, I was four years old, but, still…

Anyway, my point is that I wonder if motion comics are really a separate art form, or merely the first step toward animation. Meaning that, eventually, the graphic novel and the comic, per se, will ultimately merge completely with full motion cartoons.


motion comics at Marvel

Space Angel on Youtube