As we reported last week, the second chapter of Warner Premiere's Watchmen Motion Comic hits this week, and can currently be f
ound at iTunes and Amazon Video on Demand. As Newsarama described earlier, the online comic is a re-telling of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen with motion and audio.
We spoke with Gibbons about seeing his work move online.
Newsarama: Dave, you're now the first artist to have their worksadapted by Warner Premiere Motion Comics - what's the attraction foryou to how they do what they do?
Dave Gibbons: One of the attractions for me of having Watchmenmade into the first Motion Comic was just that - it was breaking newground. It was pretty good candidate for Motion Comics as the linestyle was very clear as I had drawn it years ago and therefore veryeasy to animate. John Higgins used a very flat, interesting colorpalate which made the technical aspect of animating easy. Also thestory is a complete story - you know a beginning, middle and an end.The person who happens upon the Watchmen Motion Comics does not need tohave any previous knowledge of continuity. So I suppose it's anotherway to look at the material.
When I first looked at the samples of the Motion Comics, I thought theywere quite well done but there are a few things that need tweaking,some things and that could be improved quite easily. One of theproblems with the Watchmen material is that I'm so familiar with it andit's hard to get an unbiased view on it. So I showed it to some friendsand family who are in the business of games and animation. Of course wediscussed the technicalities of it, but everyone remarked how well itwas done. The "civilians" that I showed it to, particularly my twoteenage stepdaughters, just thought it was great. They thought it wasso exciting. They wanted to learn more and see what happened next inthe story. So I think that really convinced me that this was a way ofgetting the material out to people who might not be aware of the comic,who might not pick up the comic and get some great entertainment valueout of it.
NRAMA: Speaking how they do what they do, how involved are you in the process, with Watchmen?
DG: The way we work with the Watchmen Motion Comic isthat I get sent successive versions of it. The first is a roughanimatic that gives the breakdown of it in time which has limitedanimation and an unfinished audio track. Then I make my comments onthat.
I start the Motion Comic up and record my comments on my computer insync with what's going on the screen. The people at Juiced and WarnerPremiere play my comments back in a similar fashion and it providesthem a sense as if I'm in the room with them. That works very well.
Basically what I'm looking out for is bits of animation that are notconvincing to me. Bits of re-drawing that need some work. I meananybody who'd tried to re-draw even a static comic to change the formatof it or the size knows that there's a lot of work, a lot of judgmentinvolved in doing that. Doing that in motion as well is a whole newlevel of complexity. By in large it's done very, very well.
I do get to look at the script which is virtually very light editing ofAlan's original script transcribed from the original comic book andthen edited and re-recorded in sound. I must say I am impressed withhow carefully the editing has been done. Words have been cut andre-arranged, but it's incredibly faithful to Alan's original script.Everybody's aim is to be as faithful to the source material aspossible.
NRAMA: Have you had to do anything to the original art for the transition to the Motion Comics version?
DG: I've done a little bit or re-drawing. There are lots ofscenes where cars are driving by in the background. There are very fewcomplete cars drawn in Watchmen. So I've extended the drawing of someof the cars so they can smoothly slide by in the background. I actuallyre-drew the Minutemen picture which Rorschach discovers in the back ofThe Comedian's closet which re-occurs several times throughout thestory. Again, there was no drawing of the Minutemen photo that wasactually complete. Back in the day, I had a complete drawing of it thatI used as a reference. So I re-drew a pretty good sized image so itcould be used cleanly for transitions in all the scenes where theMinutemen photo appeared.
NRAMA: What are your thoughts on the finished product?
DG: I was looking at one of the episodes on my iPhone the otherday and I have to say it translates beautifully to it. The image areais roughly the equivalent of a panel in the comic book with a differentorientation. The sharpness of it is the same as the comic book. Also,the word balloons have been resized and read very clearly on an iPhonescreen. I thought it was fascinating. I could see how the combinationof the material and delivery system would make something like this areally attractive 25 minutes of entertainment for somebody. Also, thefact that it's episodic gives you a new episode to look forward to intwo weeks. So the finished product isn't a comic book but there arestill aspects of it that you'll still need to go to the comic book for.The comic book is the prime experience but I do think the Motion Comicis a very good translation of the experience done very contentiouslywith a great deal of attention. Hopefully this new format will lead toeven more people being aware of and interested in Watchmen.
NRAMA: What are your thoughts about the Motion Comics and theirsource? That is, you and Alan didn't design the comics to do this,necessarily, but rather, they were presented as static images. Thereare some who see this as an adulteration of the original material,while others see it as a hybrid, something reaching to be two things.Where do you land on those topics, that is, how these are "comics thatwiggle" as one observer has called them?
DG: The source material was never designed to be animated andthis has created a lot of logistical problems with extended drawing,additional movement to figures that never had it, etc. I think it'salways going to be a hybrid; it's never going to be the pure thinganymore than the multi-million dollar motion picture will be the realthing. Watchmen the comic book is the real thing.
I still do think it's an attractive and exciting way to present thematerial and I also think it shows the great strengths of Alan'soriginal story and, with modesty, the accessibility of my art stylethat I used on it. I think people can enjoy the graphic novel, they canenjoy the Motion Comic and they can enjoy the movie. I don't thinkenjoying the presence of one excludes enjoyment of the others. I wasparticularly struck by the reaction of people who did not read theinitial graphic novel. They were used to getting their visualexcitement and storytelling from YouTube, TV or DVD. I think it's a wayof bridging that gap - bringing people hopefully to Watchmen thegraphic novel and hopefully to other graphic novels and comics ingeneral.
I do take the point about "comics that wiggle." Obviously the animationis not full animation. It would be interesting actually to maybe do acomic book with this eventual use in mind. Certainly with digital mediamost comic books pass through a digital stage so it would not be adifficult to allow for a later translation to a Motion Comic. I thinkthat would be a really interesting thing to see. It would also beinteresting to make limited animation solely for a Motion Comic. Itwould seem to me to be an artistic challenge to create something thatwould be animated in a limiting way but still have great impact. Idon't think you need to have sophisticated execution to bring a storyover powerfully. The good thing about comics is they are pretty simpleand straightforward. I'll be really interested to see what people cando with Motion Comics as a prime medium without looking over itsshoulder for comic books as source material.
NRAMA: One last thing - any other of your works that you'd liketo see used in this fashion? Any that you think would translate betterthan others?
DG: I think some of the short stories I did for 2000 A.D. - theBritish science fiction anthology. They would be interesting to do andof course I did those with Alan. They're really satisfying littlestories. I suppose there's Martha Washington that Frank Miller and I did together which has some great action sequences. I was thrilled to see how well Batman: Mad Lovewas adapted to Motion Comics format. I think there's something aboutthat style of drawing - the kind of clarity of line and the flat colorthat is the key to the success of the translation. I'm reallyinterested to see where this kind of hybrid medium goes. I'm quiteexcited to have something that I've worked on be the landing craft orthe flagship of it.
I hope and confidently expect that a lot of people will very much enjoy these Motion Comics.
- Original Story: Watchmen in Motion: Gibbons on Watchmen Motion Comics
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