Comic-Con: Warner, Disney put motion comics on display

DIGITAL: Stan Lee talks about creation of new Time Jumper

By Ned Randolph -- Video Business, 7/24/2009

JULY 24 | DIGITAL: SAN DIEGO—The next step in graphic novels was on display July 23 at Comic-Con International here.

Warner Home Video and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment both premiered trailers for their newest projects in motion comics, which marry elements of still-frame comics, such as stationary backdrops, with subtle character animation, dialog and music.

“It’s a complicated experimental process,” said Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics, which is collaborating with Warner Premiere on several titles. “It’s a challenge for those of us who grew up heavily in one craft and are wedded to a particular craft. This isn’t what you did before, but it’s a way to connect with an audience in a new way.”

Motion comics also are a way for studios to connect younger audiences to iconic catalog titles, the motion comic versions of which can be delivered over multiple digital platforms, including mobile phones and computers.

Warner has refashioned classic graphic novels Watchmen, Superman: Red Son, Batgirl: Year Oneand Batman: Black and White Collection 2 into motion comics. They are available for download on iTunes.

To create motion comics from still frames, artists have to painstakingly work from the source material in order to animate it.

“It was a thrill for me to see my pictures move,” said Dave Gibbons, the illustrator of the Watchmen series and early skeptic of motion comics. “But I also thought, does it need to be done at all?”

It wasn’t until he showed his teenage girls the concept that he realized its potential.

“They said, ‘Wow, what happens next?’ As a story teller, that’s what you want,” he said.

Comic book legend Stan Lee said motion comics are "taking comics to the next level. Lee is collaborating with Disney on a project called Time Jumper. “It’s not an animated cartoon or a comic strip. It’s a comic strip with motion and special effects.”

Unlike Warner creating motion comics from catalog sources, with Time Jumper, Lee set out to create a motion comic from scratch. Time Jumper has typical comic elements with heroes and villains battling each other, but the comic's story takes the characters traveling through time and disrupting history.

Artistic director Anthony Diecidue is designing the motion comic straight onto the computer, sketching nothing by hand.

“We are discovering and experimenting with a new way of telling stories,” said Lee. “We’ve been doing regular comics for several years and animating for several years. To me, the link between comics and animation is the next step. It’s the missing link of comics.”

The first episode of Time Jumper bowed on iTunes today, and an iPhone app will soon be released.