Zach SpearMarvel made the announcement at this week's New York Comic Con.
"Watch and hear your favorite comics, authors and artists come alive," Marvel says on its Motion Comics webpage, where fans can find a preview trailer. "Remaining true to the heritage of panel-by-panel graphic storytelling, boasting groundbreaking graphics, sensational soundscapes and, of course, the explosiveness of the Mighty Marvel Universe, here comes the all-new, all-awesome Marvel Motion!"
The series will launch with two titles from some of the art form's biggest names. Astonishing X-Men will debut from Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, while Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev will weave readers into the new story of Spider-Woman.
Though the X-Men: Evolution animated series is already available on iTunes, these "motion comics" will represent an all-new format combining print, animation, audio, and more.
Voice actors will speak the dialogue, rendering speech bubbles obsolete. While the images won't be fully animated like what one might find in an animated TV show, Marvel believes it will be an engrossing experience for the viewer.
"It became very, very evident to me that as technology moves forward, there will come a day where we'll be able to not just create animation based upon our comic books and our characters and stories that we've told, but there will come a time when eventually we'll be able to take existing comic art, the flat, static art, and be able to animate it," said Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada. "We can put out a product that is not quite a comic book and not quite animation, [but] a wonderful hybrid that incorporates all of our great talents."
The company is working with Neal Adams and Continuity Studios in order to make the concept a reality, according to Geeks of Doom. The panels of the story will contain animated scenes, although as of now it is unknown how users will navigate through them. More original content will be coming in the future, according to Ultimate Spider-Man creator Bendis.
"With [any] new medium comes a new storytelling language," he said. "It's more than just taking the images and moving them around the screen. There's a new storytelling language that's emerging every time we work on it and we're really excited for where that takes us."
According to a story on the Marvel website, Spider-Woman was born during the same brainstorm sessions that produced the entire concept, making it the first story to be completely created exclusively as a motion comic. Plans are in place to bring it to graphic novels later, but for now motion is the focus.
"[We thought] let's try to do something original and brand new that perhaps is constructed for the motion comic, instead of taking something that's been previously done and trying to animate it," Quesada said.
Marvel hopes the new concept, to be delivered via iTunes, Marvel.com, YouTube, DVD, and/or mobile, will reach both the company's most loyal customers and a sizable number of newcomers.
"I absolutely do think that people that have never read a comic or were [not] interested in comics would be interested in motion comics," Quesada said.
Specific availability dates have not been announced, but Marvel's website promises a launch sometime this spring. Some of Marvel's most well-known characters could also find their way into motion comic form.
"Sure you've seen the origin of Fantastic Four in the movies and in cartoons, but we're giving it to you with Jack Kirby's art, come to life," said Quesada. "That to me, ultimately, is the coolest part of this."
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51 Comments
Ah, more fine reading!
Well, my daughter might like it. She spent the weekend at ComicCon here in NYC last weekend.
We were up until 7:00 am the night before, finishing her costume.
The YouTube trailer looked more like a technology demonstration than something designed to get me interested in the story, the story is more important than the medium.
If the trailer is any indication, the concept just seems wrong, but then, I generally loathe how trailers are edited, they are usually irritating to watch.
This is great news. Whereas the record/movie companies are still scrambling on what to do with the whole digital media and distribution, Marvel is taking the proactive route and blazing a new trail. They understand the future is digital and taking that bull by the horns.
I'd love to see an app or subscription method to deliver my selection of formerly newspaper comics to my iPhone every morning. Unfortunately this requires background apps and a cron like facility. The idea is to have the strips you follow on a regular basis loaded before you wake up every morning. That way my fill of Dilbert, Doonesberry and the others I follow would be all readable from one app.
Frankly I'd be willing to pay a subscription fee, of a reasonable amount, if I knew the majority of that fee was going to the authors. Getting ones news and other information that formerly came from the newspaper is relatively easy, comics are a different story.
As to Marvel, well I never got into the so called graphic novels so my opinion might be considered a bit biased. In an event I'm not convinced that the mix of live audio and limited motion is the way to go. That will take some time to play out. The bigger question is just how DRMed these things will be. The people I knew that where into these sorts of things got a lot of joy out of swapping the magazines, will this be possible?
In any event I think the important thing here is that Marvel is willing to experiment across a number of platforms. When new technology like iPhone and iPod Touch becomes an accepted way of doing things, business that fail to experiment with that new tech generally end up getting bit in the backside. So success or failure; it is good to see old line companies like Marvel dip their feet into the tech pool.Dave
I'd love to see an app or subscription method to deliver my selection of formerly newspaper comics to my iPhone every morning. Unfortunately this requires background apps and a cron like facility.
Dave
Seriously... exactly why is it necessary to have a few comics pre-downloaded, when all it would take would be a 'get' button that pulled them all in a few seconds. I mean instant gratification does have its limits, doesn't it?