Re: Watchmen Motion Comic Download Free
Laverne Levenstein
The long-anticipated motion picture adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's seminal comic classic, Watchmen, is, at this writing, merely days away. But there's another adaptation out there that many fans may not be aware of. I'm speaking of the excellent "motion comic" adaptation of the graphic novel, which features a frame-by-frame recreation of the entire series with limited-yet-crucial animation, sound effects and score, and voiced by renowned audio book performer, Tom Stechshulte.
This five-hour-plus set is presented in 12 segments, much like the original series, but I found that time flew by once I was lost in the gloriously presented artwork of Gibbons, and carried off into the Watchmen universe by the hypnotic tones of Stechshulte. While it took an episode or two to get comfortable with the fact that Stechshulte voices every character (including women and children), audio book veterans should have no such problem adapting to the material, and fans of Watchmen owe it to themselves to see this remarkable book come to life.
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic comes to Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers, and is presented in a drop-dead gorgeous 1.85:1 transfer that sports crisp lines and astonishingly vivid colors. Blacks are deep and true, while notoriously "hot" colors like reds and yellows are wonderfully bright and intense without a hint of oversaturation or haloing. This transfer, quite simply, is beautiful stuff.
The big surprise for me was how effective the 5.1 True HD soundtrack was. While it's certainly nothing to be compared with the better examples of Blu-ray audio offerings, I was still quite impressed by the fidelity offered here. Stechshulte's voice sounds rich and organic, as though he was in the room beside you, while the film's myriad sound effects and score emanated from the front of the house in perfect tonal harmony. Rears and surrounds don't get too much play, save for a few discrete FX, but for what is essentially an HD version of a "book on tape" Watchmen impresses.
Supplements include a brief snippet about Zack Snyder's live-action version of the film, as well as an extended clip from the upcoming Wonder Woman animated feature. Still, with over five and a half hours worth of feature content, I'm not complaining.
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic really took me by surprise. I was expecting little more than a slideshow of scans from the pages of the comic, but instead I was rewarded with a technically proficient recreation of the "book" experience. This is something every Watchmen fan should see, whether as a refresher course before seeing Snyder's film, or just to relive one of the most important achievements in four color literature.
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic is a 2008 American animated short film series of motion comics for web and television based on the DC comic book series Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.
The movie excited a lot of people. It came out on DVD and Blu-Ray. The DVD version came with the film on 2 discs (6 episodes each). The Blu-Ray version came with the digital copy and the presentation on 1 disc. It also came with a paper that was $7.50 off to see Watchmen (it has now expired). It runs for 5 hours and 25 minutes. The usual price for the movie is $30.
DC comics has also surely appreciated the interest the trailer sparked in the original collected 12-issue series of the comic. Today, it's No. 9 on the overall best-selling books list and No. 2 in fiction.
Over the next few months, until the movie's March 2009 release, anticipation will only grow, and Warner Bros. is capitalizing already. It recently released the first episode of the Watchmen motion comic, and already its popularity is impressive. It's currently listed as No. 2 on the best-selling TV shows on iTunes. The first episode costs $1.99, or you can buy the whole season for $19.99 and save four bucks. Either way, if you're curious about the story and don't mind spoiling the movie, this is a great way to (somewhat) see what the fuss is about.
Cruel and Unusual Productions--headed by one of the movie's producers--has taken the art from the comic and animated it, making it into basically an animated movie. Now, don't get too excited. They've only used the original art assets from the book, so don't expect Wall-e or anything up to Disney cel animation standards. The animation here is crude, but very effective.
One of my favorite touches was seeing a character wallow in his depression. In the comic, the character is just sitting there humped over on a half splashpage with no dialogue. Here you actually see the character slump down, creating something more immediately effective. More cinematic.
And speaking of cinematic, they've also added camera zooms, pans, fades, and foreground defocusing to really give the motion comic an even more movie-like feel than the original comic already had. Also, with these camera movements they're able to make certain small details of character emotion stand out right away, where it may have taken a couple readthroughs of the book to notice this before.
Comics, and Watchmen in particular, can convey character emotion very effectively when needed. One thing they can't do though is convey emotion through music. The music in the motion comic hits a perfect tone for this first episode. It's very noir-like and creates a somber and sad, but menacing, mood. Perfect for Watchmen.
OK, now I have to put my geek hat on fully. Although some of the voices, like Rorschach's and Dr. Manhattan's, are effective, the voice of Nite Owl II is performed very woodenly. This is weird, since apparently all the characters are voiced by the same guy.
A guy who sees no reason to even try to fake a female's voice speaks for the character of Laurie. I'd prefer if they actually got a woman to perform her voice in subsequent episodes. Also, although I liked the way Rorschach's mask animates when his mood changes, the idle animation for it is too distracting. That's about it as far as negatives go though. Aside from a couple lines of missing dialogue and some weird pauses, I was highly impressed with what they've been able to do with art that was never meant to be animated in the first place.
The motion comic is cool, however it's using a different language to tell the story than the original comic book did. With the book, you have the freedom to stop and take in a scene and study the immense detail in each panel. Also, in the book, between each chapter there are very important pieces of the back story, written mostly in traditional novel form.
These breaks in the plot aren't necessary to understand the plot of Watchmen, but they are necessary to fully understand what makes this comic so great and why so many revere it. So, check out the motion comic, but remember, it is not a replacement for the book. It's more like having a couple of tasty courses of a seven-course meal. If you like the taste, then you'll love the full course.
The popularity of the motion comic of Watchmen (now available on iTunes and elsewhere) got folks at Warner Bros. and D.C. thinking. Now they're bringing two new popular titles to the moving graphic novel genre.
Watchmen: Motion Comic uma srie de curta-metragens animados em motion comic para web e televiso, baseada na histria em quadrinhos da DC Comics, Watchmen, escrita por Alan Moore e ilustrada por Dave Gibbons.[1] A srie foi produzida pela Cruel and Unusual Films, produtora de Zack Snyder, e estreou em 17 de julho de 2008. Watchmen: Motion Comic consiste em doze episdios abreviados de 25 a 30 minutos, cada um baseado e compartilhando um nome com um dos doze captulos da HQ.[2][3][4] A srie foi lanada em DVD em maro de 2009 para coincidir com o lanamento do filme Watchmen.[5][6]
Em outubro de 1985, durante a invaso sovitica do Afeganisto e na vspera da guerra nuclear, um Rorschach deprimido, um dos vrios super heris ilegalizados, comea a investigar por que todos os antigos super-heris mascarados esto mortos ou diminuram.
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