Pictures as video isn’t new either. La Jette ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RvmJan17q8 ) was made 47 years ago and if you go further into the fine arts Marcel DuChamp, Man Ray etc all did work in this line in the 20-30′s. Heck these premises of moving the locations of still images goes back to the 1800′s animation toys… this is not a new idea… it’s so old that it’s been forgotten by the visual culture.

‘Motion Comics’ were first really introduced on a major market level in 1995 when Microsoft went to Windows 95 and showed the abilities of slide show applications to motion path graphical content to make dynamic presentations. Marvel being ahead of the curve jumped on board to release a few ‘key comics’ on ‘MARVEL CD-ROM’ which was basic pan and scan over panels with text boxes filling in when people spoke and sound effects. They were fairly weak but they kept toying with the idea. When flash came out in ’96 they has an engine with more control that took less processing power to do the same effects and so there were some tests for short pieces of comics that went online sort of to promote the comic books. These eventually extended to the full issues. As digital software was being used to compile panels even for print (allowing figures to shift isolated form the background) they had freedom to slide figures isolated from the background. From there it’s just stepping motion and bending joints. The more you break up an image the more it looks like animation (that’s how flash animation works for those who aren’t flash animators.)

Now flash stated getting flipped to disk and DVD and the industry sort of had a revelation moment where they went ‘if we are going to flip it to DVD why the heck aren’t we just doing this stuff in more heavy duty animation and non-linear video programs. The Watchmen Motion Comics were excellent… they were likely one of the most extensive efforts ever made for Motion Comics. They had a budget… and they spent every penny.

In the end, this doesn’t seem like they are making a Motion Comic. What they are doing instead is basically closer to La Jette only using comic art instead of photographs.

I’m sure there is a question there for someone… what’s the difference. Well what’s the difference between an audio book and a film adaptation? This isn’t a verbatim read… it’s a film adaptation only using the same kind of artwork. That makes it something a bit different… in fact their term ‘Illustrated Film’ is as accurate as anything else.

All you Sci-Fi fans know the rule of thumb… if you want to be futuristic you have to look far enough into the past, select things, and imagine how they would exist if they were still around now or in the future. Tech speaking… welcome to futurama…. I hope to show with them in the next Worlds Fair.

With all that said… as an artist and a ‘time curator’ I have to say… I can’t wait for this and a handful of other awesome projects which are really questioning what it means to be a film.

-Mike