Semi-animated comics - future of the medium?

Fysh

So after the recent announcement that Invincible will be adapted as a comic/cartoon hybrid for MTV, DC comics announce the Motion Comics project in which people can buy semi-animated versions of comics for viewing on computer or cellphone.

As I've mentioned before, this can be a very effective medium - Broken Saints was a cult hit which started as a freely-shared series of episodes and eventually garnered enough popularity to earn funding for an improved 4-disc DVD release. However, Broken Saints was new material explicitly tailored to the format.

I'm not sure that existing material can necessarily be adapted well, as it depends on the source material in question. Sure, some material will work ok but other material will look awful. And that's before you confront the issue of whether this format will appeal to either the established comics audience or the wider non-comics-reading audience.

I particularly dislike the idea of this being the future of digital comics. I would love to be able to pay say $1 for a digital copy of a given Marvel/DC comic and read it on my PC. I don't want to only be given the choice of physical comic or crummy semi-animated cartoon/comic. The number of pirated comics floating around with zero-day releases show that a lot of people will happily read comics on their computer, so it's a mystery to me why Marvel and DC won't offer paid access to digital versions of their new releases (perhaps with a few weeks delay to ensure that the perceived value of the physical copy isn't tarnished too much).

BlaasForRafa

I used to download scanned versions of comics that I wouldn't normally pay for but its just a pain in the ass really. Reading on a screen is not the same as reading it physically, so it ain't for me really.

I can see the appeal for people though and it would make the companies a few extra quid. Intellectual property holders are very reluctant to make stuff available. Just look at how difficult it is to get legal downloads that are DRM-free.

At the end of the day though I'd hate to see the shops and the retailers disappear and have everybody reduced to huddling around their computers to get their fix. Its the same for e-novels, downloading dosen't have the same feeling as going into town and buying a bunch of books or comics or getting a big package of stuff in the post.

Fysh

I'll be honest, it's only since I moved to London that I've had regular access to a store that I genuinely prefer to online shopping. Where comic shops are decent and have friendly & helpful staff I'd definitely rather they keep going, but I don't see why the notion of digital comics would *have* to be incompatible with comics shops - for example you could have a system where comics shops are approved suppliers of legit digital comics (say, using some form of SD card for transfer). Aside from which, I think the chief area that digital comics would allow Marvel and DC to capitalise on would be the "maybe-customers" - people who're wary of spending $3-$4 on a single issue of a comic on paper, but would be willing to pay, say $1.50 per issue to read, say, most recent 5 issues of Spider-man online and see if they're interested in following it.

I admit that for the comics I follow, I prefer having a physical copy for lots of reasons. But if I'm thinking of giving a series a try, I don't like the idea of buying or 6 issues and then either chucking them out or having them take up space on my shelf. As with any book I've ever bought, I dislike the idea of throwing them away no matter how bad I think they are, but it's harder to give away single issues of comics than it is TPBs - I've found local libraries are quite happy to accept donations of the latter. If I could get digital versions of things like Final Crisis or Secret Invasion I could follow them as they happen (chiefly out of curiosity to see what the big events are like, since I don't read all that many superhero comics) rather than having to rely on scans_daily or wikipedia.

BlaasForRafa

I agree with you on a lot of points there Fysh, you make a lot of sense.

I get most of my stuff through the post actually, the nearest comic shop that does new comics being 100 miles away but its always nice to pop into a couple of shops in dublin and pick up some new single issues or trades now and then. I pretty much get the same amount of comics every month and new series usually replace slots exited by cancelled/finished comics

Anything extra I want I usually wait till its available in Hardcover because getting something oversized on decent paper stock thats going to last is preferable and yes indeed the internet is great for this.

I agree strongly about the "maybe customer" thing, its hard to make a judgement on a comic when pre-ordering sometimes based on a postage-stamp sized picture and text blurb in previews magazine. It could work for non-mainstream publishers as well if they made say the first 20 pages of a trade/graphic novel available for a couple of dollars and link to amazon or whatever for the physical book.

Fysh

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Anything extra I want I usually wait till its available in Hardcover because getting something oversized on decent paper stock thats going to last is preferable and yes indeed the internet is great for this.

I'm not too keen on hardcovers due to the amount of space they take up, but I'm with you on the decent copies thing, there are a few series that I will happily pick up in oversize hardcover but I wouldn't make it the norm. I prefer buying TPBs to single issues at this point because I like having a story arc at once.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I agree strongly about the "maybe customer" thing, its hard to make a judgement on a comic when pre-ordering sometimes based on a postage-stamp sized picture and text blurb in previews magazine. It could work for non-mainstream publishers as well if they made say the first 20 pages of a trade/graphic novel available for a couple of dollars and link to amazon or whatever for the physical book.

It seems a few smaller companies (Boom! Studios being the most recent but not the only ones) are moving to models like that. Vertigo have the first issues to most of their series online for free as PDFs. They've also released several cheap books of first issues as samplers but I think the web is intrinsically better for that sort of thing, because sampler books are nice but really if you like the samples you'll buy the full stories (so the sampler is kind of pointless) and if you don't like them, you would't want to keep it...

ztoical

I couldn't write anything in reply to the thread Invincible "animated" comic thing as I took one look at it and felt ill - it was awful looking. I don't think you can take something made for print and turn it into something else - pacing and direction in comics is directed by the artists use of line and negative space as well as the panels and gutters, also the layout and physical act of turning the page - all planned out with the knowledge of "this will be a printed piece of material" if artists now have to think know this has to work both as a print comics and as a digital animated piece its going to either stress them out or have them produce sh!t work.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I agree strongly about the "maybe customer" thing, its hard to make a judgement on a comic when pre-ordering sometimes based on a postage-stamp sized picture and text blurb in previews magazine. It could work for non-mainstream publishers as well if they made say the first 20 pages of a trade/graphic novel available for a couple of dollars and link to amazon or whatever for the physical book.

most of the alternative publishers like fantagraphics, top shelf, dark horse and first second are pretty good for giving decent [10 to 20 page previews] of up coming books on their sites, of course they mainly produce graphic novels and are aiming for both the direct market and the book market.

magwea

ztoical wrote: »

I don't think you can take something made for print and turn it into something else - pacing and direction in comics is directed by the artists use of line and negative space as well as the panels and gutters, also the layout and physical act of turning the page - all planned out with the knowledge of "this will be a printed piece of material"

All well and good, but consider audio books, and the similarities it shares with "animated" comics, although they are not the intended end product and lose plenty in the transition the popularity speaks for them.

Thats not to say that it is in anyway the future of the medium just as audio books were not the future of books.

Most people are accustomed to full animation naturally they are going to be skeptical. I'd love to seen this well done, ain't seen it yet.

livingtargets

magwea wrote: »

I'd love to seen this well done, ain't seen it yet.

but that`s the thing.CAN it be done properly?
I personally don`t think so...
Comics are meant to be read at your own pace and I felt like I was being rushed(even though there were actors saying the lines,if I remember)through the Invincible yoke and it caused a strange sense of motion sickness,for the lack of a better word...

And notice how I`m not talking about downloadable comics,I think the discussion went a bit off topic there as this is about semi-animated comics.and those are very different things.

Also I think audiobooks aren`t really that comparable as there are no visuals
or movement involved with audiobooks.But I agree that it was perhaps a bit strong to say animated comics are the "future" of the medium.

Fysh

livingtargets wrote: »

but that`s the thing.CAN it be done properly?
I personally don`t think so...
Comics are meant to be read at your own pace and I felt like I was being rushed(even though there were actors saying the lines,if I remember)through the Invincible yoke and it caused a strange sense of motion sickness,for the lack of a better word...

I think as a medium it is possible to have well-made and effective examples of....oh god, what do you call them? Partial animations? Anyway, I think that Broken Saints proves that the medium has potential - click here for a sample (bear in mind that the trailers of the DVD version at www.brokensaints.com are much better but appear to be down at the moment).

I think the point is that as with every other medium, translation between media isn't going to be simple and can't be done according to a formula. Specifically, not all comic artwork will be suitable to being partially animated - it's not just down to the panel layouts, but also the line thicknesses, colour schemes, inking style. While this might work for Invincible (and personally, I don't think it will) I can't imagine any way it will work for Watchmen, for example. As an alternative avenue for original content, yes; but I don't see why comics companies would run to butcher their existing product into a format like this which will mostly produce inferior work that's unappealing to audiences...

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

All well and good, but consider audio books, and the similarities it shares with "animated" comics, although they are not the intended end product and lose plenty in the transition the popularity speaks for them.

with audio books there is direction there with the punctuation for the actor reading it - this gives them an idea of the pacing and I'm sure they're given direction during the recording. The animated comics could in theory follow that if they looked at the art and saw what way the artist was leading the persons eye and followed it or at least used it as a guide but I've yet to see one do that correctly.
With punctuation it will be the same wither your reading it or an actor is reading to you on a tape, with comics its different as alot of the time the direction used will be subtle and you don't even release your being lead around the page but with the animated comics it feels more like your being forced or dragged around.

Also with with books its all visual with books on tape its all audio but with animated comics its visual and audio and that alters the way its read and how its paced and I just don't think you can capture the printed comic feel in this way. Having the balloons and text there and having someone reading them is just to much for me, get rid of the balloons maybe and just have the voice over but if your going that far you might as well just animate the bloody thing fully. Thou I dislike the show I think Tom goes to the mayor is heading more in the right direction [but I still think either make it a comic or animate trying to go half way with either just seems lazy to me]

magwea

livingtargets wrote: »

I think audiobooks aren`t really that comparable as there are no visuals
or movement involved

Reading comic just like reading books is a firstly visual experience then cognitive. Again, just like in comics the movement in books is top right to bottom left whose speed dictated by the complexity of the image or writing.

I'm sure it can be pulled off, its simply a question of time and talent. This is the best purely visual one i could find, anyone else got a good one?

An aside, I wonder if anyone would call this this the future of medium.

magwea

It beggars belief that i forgot about this one, the animated trailer for Bottomless Belly Button, perhaps the densest and most complicated animation that I've ever seen, and quite good to.

Anyone have a copy of the book Metronome handy, and seen it animated?

Sorry to spam.

Fysh

I have a copy of Metronome, actually, having seen the animated version linked to in Rich Johnston's column on CBR. And to be perfectly honest, lush though it is, having seen the animated form first the book was a tad disappointing. The fact that it was all drawn in a format that suited being set to motion meant that it felt slightly less effective when the panels were static on the page.

I disagree re: audiobooks though; the visual aspect of reading prose is insignificant compared to the cognitive process in which the mind transforms and interprets them. That cognitive process can effectively be the same for audiobooks because while the delivery mechanism is different (someone reading the words to you rather than reading them yourself) the actual content being delivered is mostly the same (barring such effects as inflection on the dialogue, which is a relatively minor change). That's fundamentally different to taking a static medium such as comics (where part of the artist's job is to compose panels and panel transitions to suggest the idea of movement happening between them), and then animating the artist's work because either you'll change the artwork's presentation enough that the implied movement effect is lost, or you'll preserve the implied movement effect but in the process create something that looks sub-standard in the context of animation.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

Reading comic just like reading books is a firstly visual experience then cognitive. Again, just like in comics the movement in books is top right to bottom left whose speed dictated by the complexity of the image or writing.

I don't reading a comic is just like reading a book. The movement doesn't have to be top to bottom - look at Peter Kuper's The Metamorphosis for example were the bug crawls all over the walls and the text follows him so you have to turn the book 360 degrees to read all of it. There is an interaction between the comic creator and the reader you just don't get with books - turning the page in a novel never has the same impact as with a comic. If the killer is going to be reveled in the next page of a book and I have to turn the page to find out I still have to read the page to find out - with a comic when you turn the page there is that first visual bang of seeing and then expanded upon by reading the text.

To change the pacing of a written piece the writer might chose to use smaller or faster words but they are still written one after the other with comics you can lead the eye anywhere and at any pace just by how many or few lines you use and the spaces between them, the number of panels and the size of your gutters.

Looking at some of the animated comics I just think they are done by either lazy/talentless animators or ones being paid a **** load of money and don't care what the end product looks like. I can't image any animator getting excited and wanting to produce work like that. To make them half way decent you'd have to put some effort in and as I've said already if your going to do that much you might as well animate them fully.

magwea

ztoical wrote: »

I don't reading a comic is just like reading a book.

Of course this is true, nor did i intend say otherwise. The visual element on the page of a comic is much stronger then of written piece, ditto the turning of pages.

As for reading orientation, the top right bottom left is the standard for both mediums, naturally with exceptions and i'm sure we can all name a few.

ztoical wrote: »

Looking at some of the animated comics I just think they are done by either lazy/talentless animators or ones being paid a **** load of money and don't care what the end product looks like. I can't image any animator getting excited and wanting to produce work like that. To make them half way decent you'd have to put some effort in and as I've said already if your going to do that much you might as well animate them fully.

This might be true enough, considering it might also be said about certain artists working in comics animated or not.

magwea

Fysh wrote: »

And to be perfectly honest, lush though it is, having seen the animated form first the book was a tad disappointing. The fact that it was all drawn in a format that suited being set to motion meant that it felt slightly less effective when the panels were static on the page.

Gosh, semi-animated Metronome -future of the comic. And for a book that was intended for print.

I'm not entirely sure about where you disagree here. I'm thinking something like animated comics are more embellished then audio books therefore dissimilar; purely visual to purely audio, purely static to partially animate.

This still misses the point i was trying to make. The fact that something was intended for print only does not mean it cannot be turned into something else and be successful, see Metronome, however far it needs to transformed. That doesn't mean i particularly want to see Watchmen turned into some Hollywood Snyder action movie or "a motion comic" from some half hack.

Fysh

magwea wrote: »

This still misses the point i was trying to make. The fact that something was intended for print only does not mean it cannot be turned into something else and be successful, see Metronome, however far it needs to transformed. That doesn't mean i particularly want to see Watchmen turned into some Hollywood Snyder action movie or "a motion comic" from some half hack.

Well yes, anything can be adapted or transformed from one medium to another. What I was trying to get at is that "motion comics" seems to be a medium torn between using the original artwork of the source material (begging the question of why to adapt it in the first place) and introducing animation into the mix (begging the question of why not just fully animating it instead), and thus seems to be a really pointless avenue for adaptations of existing work. Original material could easily be created for it that wouldn't be as effective in standard comics form, though.

magwea

A bastard art form, just like comics.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

As for reading orientation, the top right bottom left is the standard for both mediums, naturally with exceptions and i'm sure we can all name a few.

I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. From an artists point of view I would view the page as a series of focal points and layers. There's several different things to "read" on a page - along with physical text in balloons, the art work needs to be read as well and opening a page your eye will be drawn to the biggest focal point on the page which is rarely the top left corner. I've near found myself turning the page of a comic and going straight to the top left, my eye usually travels all around the page reading the art work. You don't read a painting from left to right and from top to bottom so I don't think you read comic pages that way either.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

A bastard art form, just like comics.

semi-animated comics is a bastard art form or animation is?

magwea

ztoical wrote: »

From an artists point of view I would view the page as a series of focal points and layers. There's several different things to "read" on a page - along with physical text in balloons, the art work needs to be read as well and opening a page your eye will be drawn to the biggest focal point on the page which is rarely the top left corner. I've near found myself turning the page of a comic and going straight to the top left, my eye usually travels all around the page reading the art work. You don't read a painting from left to right and from top to bottom so I don't think you read comic pages that way either.

Sure, this is a pretty neat way to describe the comic reading experience. Naturally, top right bottom left is an overly simplified description for comics, and clearly the same can be said for reading. The general movement remains the same although there are plenty of meanders.

Are comics not called the bastard medium of writing and drawing? I remember Ware and Kurtzman useing the term - a suitably self-depreciating as is their bent.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

Are comics not called the bastard medium of writing and drawing? I remember Ware and Kurtzman useing the term - a suitably self-depreciating as is their bent.

I'm not sure I would use the term bastard as that implies some forum of hatred from other areas of the arts and I think most just look down on them as low brow [much like fine artists view illustrators or prose writers view screenplay writers, and film screenplay writers view television writers and so on] And it also depends on the culture as comics in say France/Belgium and Japan would be seen as much higher art forums then say american comics.


I've heard animation being descirbed as the poor cousin of film or the bastard child of film which really annoys me as animation predates film [and is better then film but I might be a tiny bit biased on that opinion]

Fysh

magwea wrote: »

A bastard art form, just like comics.

I don't get your point. So what if it is a bastard art form? (Which I'm assuming you mean as an amalgamation of existing art forms, incidentally - please explain if not) If it's an art form worth a damn then bastard or otherwise it will live or die on the basis of original creations that explicitly make use of the possibilities of its medium, not on the back of adaptations from other media which don't exploit the medium.

The fact that something can be translated into a different form to that which it was originally created in doesn't mean that the translation is worth doing, or that it will create a worthwhile version of the original with new and interesting aspects. Heck, I'd argue that these kind of translations actually hurt comics as a medium, because it suggests a mentality where even people involved in comics don't think they're good enough to get people interested without turning them into something else entirely.

dr_tran

It can be done well. The Metal Gear Solid Bande Dessinee/Digital Graphic Novel series comes to mind as a good comic to animated comic adapatation.

I can only see these widening the appeal of comnics rather then limiting them, which is surely a good thing. And if successful I would imagine we are more likely to see new material created specifically for semi-animated comics (such as the awesome cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops). It's too early to tell but at the moment I'm interested in seeing how this develops.

I would love to be able to pay say $1 for a digital copy of a given Marvel/DC comic and read it on my PC.

Marvel have like a digital subscription service where you can read comics online. They are at least 6 months old however and I don't like the reader they force you to use. Still $10 for access to their entire online catalogue is a pretty good deal I think.

Fysh

dr_tran wrote: »

It can be done well. The Metal Gear Solid Bande Dessinee/Digital Graphic Novel series comes to mind as a good comic to animated comic adapatation.

I can only see these widening the appeal of comnics rather then limiting them, which is surely a good thing. And if successful I would imagine we are more likely to see new material created specifically for semi-animated comics (such as the awesome cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops). It's too early to tell but at the moment I'm interested in seeing how this develops.

Metal Gear Solid comics and animated comics are chiefly going to be aimed at people who are either fans of the games or are at least aware of its existence.

It could be an example of the transition being well-managed, but given that both the comic and the animation are technically adaptations from the game itself I'm not sure it's a good comparison to DC's announced adaptation of Watchmen, for example.

dr_tran wrote: »

Marvel have like a digital subscription service where you can read comics online. They are at least 6 months old however and I don't like the reader they force you to use. Still $10 for access to their entire online catalogue is a pretty good deal I think.

Yeah, but I have lots of issues with the Marvel service. Everything they put up is at least 6 months old, as you say - which would be fine if there were consistency to how they make things available, but from what I've read about it you basically get random bits and pieces thrown up each month, which is pretty poor. I'm not really that much of a Marvel fan, but if I were to subscribe to their service I'd want to have their products categorised and streamlined, with a publishing/release schedule (eg over the course of 12 months you might have the X-men category feature the Age Of Apocalypse storyline; meanwhile in the Avengers category you could have the Crossing storyline running, and so on). Most crucially, I want an option to permanently save the file without DRM and without being tied to their bloody reader. I want to be able to pay them between 1 & 2 dollars (I'm not paying print prices for it when I'm not getting it at print resolution and without a physical copy) to download the file, without restrictions on moving it from one computer to another (I own four computers at the moment, and have several hard drives I use just for backing up my files) and with the option of using the Comic Book Reader to view them.

It's only a tangentially-related issue, but the industry's reaction to the idea of digital comics has been pretty much across-the-board pathetic. Sure, digital samplers are out there, but that's about it. It's like watching the music industry fail to realise that the internet was here all over again, and none of the lessons have been learned. If a pirated version of a product can be easily found quickly and in a format that can be easily read, why on earth would net-savvy customers instead choose to pay for a subscription service that uses an inferior reader and which provides much older content at random? It's just stupid, it's a business model created by someone entirely out of touch with how their target audience uses the internet.

magwea

I think we all agree that the idea has legs, while being skeptical of frankensteining existing comics.

Bastard comics is glib, might be why i like the term.

dr_tran

Fysh wrote: »

Metal Gear Solid comics and animated comics are chiefly going to be aimed at people who are either fans of the games or are at least aware of its existence.

It could be an example of the transition being well-managed, but given that both the comic and the animation are technically adaptations from the game itself I'm not sure it's a good comparison to DC's announced adaptation of Watchmen, for example.

Ah yeah, I agree. I was just saying it was a good example of how to do it right as opposed to some of the less successful stuff out there.

Fysh wrote: »

Yeah, but I have lots of issues with the Marvel service. Everything they put up is at least 6 months old, as you say - which would be fine if there were consistency to how they make things available, but from what I've read about it you basically get random bits and pieces thrown up each month, which is pretty poor. I'm not really that much of a Marvel fan, but if I were to subscribe to their service I'd want to have their products categorised and streamlined, with a publishing/release schedule (eg over the course of 12 months you might have the X-men category feature the Age Of Apocalypse storyline; meanwhile in the Avengers category you could have the Crossing storyline running, and so on). Most crucially, I want an option to permanently save the file without DRM and without being tied to their bloody reader. I want to be able to pay them between 1 & 2 dollars (I'm not paying print prices for it when I'm not getting it at print resolution and without a physical copy) to download the file, without restrictions on moving it from one computer to another (I own four computers at the moment, and have several hard drives I use just for backing up my files) and with the option of using the Comic Book Reader to view them.

Yeah I agree with this too. I personally wouldn't subscribe to the service (don't think it's even available outside the US) but if you weren't familiar with Marvel comics it is a good price for sampling a large amount of comics. Like you I'd prefer some DRM free downloads I could use in ComicRack or whatever but I can't imagine we will be seeing something like that for quite a while.

livingtargets

magwea wrote: »

Are comics not called the bastard medium of writing and drawing? I remember Ware and Kurtzman useing the term - a suitably self-depreciating as is their bent.

I hate to be preaching to the choir but comics are an art in themselves.Far above being "writing+drawing=comic".
And I don`t like the way you use Ware`s and Kurtzman`s names as if we`ll go "if they said it it must be true".Also Ware and Kurtzman aren`t the Grand Council Of Comics or anything.Robert Crumb could say tomorrow that comics are for benders and I don`t think a lot of people would go "You`re right there Bobby.comics are s**t"

magwea

livingtargets wrote: »

Robert Crumb could say tomorrow that comics are for benders and I don`t think a lot of people would go "You`re right there Bobby.comics are s**t"

Ha, funnily though more then a few creaters have this very sentiment, of the top of my head Eddie Campbell, Felipe Smith. Nothing really new there. Wasn't it Crumb who defended comics against censors by saying that they are just words and pictures .

As for the bstardness of comics; like i said its more glib then anything.

Then again I can't see how you can disregard the view of a creator, who in the end is going to know a lot more about the medium, especially such important ones, that easily simply because its undermining. Creators effectively are the "Grande Council" of the medium.

Perhaps, an artform of its own, yet certainly plenty similar to others. Nothing necessarily wrong there either.

Fysh

Magwea, a creator's view on the medium is just that - their view. The fact that they are a creator means they may have more insight than Joe Random Punter might be assumed to have, but it doesn't mean that what they say should be writ upon stone in letters ten foot high and taken as gospel by all who follow.

There again, I don't know about anyone else but I've been having real trouble actually figuring out what points, if any, you have to make. It could be down to me but you seem to be just floating from vague notion to vague notion, offering us little more than what you yourself admit are glib comments and yet then expressing surprise when they are met with disdain...

magwea

Fysh wrote: »

Magwea, a creator's view on the medium is just that - their view. The fact that they are a creator means they may have more insight than Joe Random Punter might be assumed to have, but it doesn't mean that what they say should be writ upon stone in letters ten foot high and taken as gospel by all who follow.

We the consumer know the merit of comics, greater the those who make them!

Fysh wrote: »

There again, I don't know about anyone else but I've been having real trouble actually figuring out what points, if any, you have to make. It could be down to me but you seem to be just floating from vague notion to vague notion, offering us little more than what you yourself admit are glib comments and yet then expressing surprise when they are met with disdain...

Pretty harsh there, fairly true nevertheless. Vagueness is a great defense for my ignorance. Is glibness not the bread and butter of good debate. There is no surprise only anticipation.

Woe to those who attack the great sanctity of the comics medium.

Monday mornings!