Release Date: 9th March 2009

Now I’ve seen the movie proper, and the dust has had time to settle after the giddy excitement of expectation subsided I feel more able to offer a review of this motion comic accompaniment to the greatest graphic novel of all time. And I was willing to give the DVD a fair viewing, despite any misgivings I may have had about the long and ominous shadow of the Almighty Dollar over the affair.

Motive is always the key- just ask Monsieur Poirot. So I freely admit that it was with no small amount of cynical trepidation that I embarked on the mammoth five hour experience that is the WATCHMEN MOTION COMICS. Surely this has got to be another financial ploy from Warner Brothers- a play for the loosely gripped dollars that have no doubt made their way out of every Fanboy’s pockets since the otherwise impeccable marketing campaign for WATCHMEN began.

Firstly, who is this development for? Apart from those who habitually seek every available shiny bit of merchandise attached to a comic/film, I simply cannot work out who this is really aimed at. The WATCHMEN comic book fans may well feel begrudged that the object of their affection has been given the dreaded “update” treatment- consider how art lovers would view an attempt to animate the Mona Lisa. And the WATCHMEN movie fans already have a wonderful motion picture to marvel at- so the primary intentions of adding voice and musical atmosphere to the images seem rather redundant. Perhaps this development can be positive, providing more purchasing opportunities for the ardent fan, but I remain sceptical.

But then perhaps I am being too hasty in my condemnation- there is no doubt a market for retrospective purchasing: those who have seen the film and want a step back to the original artwork without going all the way back to the book. There is, after all, a stigma attached to books amongst the multimedia friendly MTV generation that THE MOTION COMICS might go some way to healing. And that’s not to mention the way the comic book media is still stigmatised after years of building anything like cultural and intellectual credibility.

Still, the enduring effect is one of limited success, because of the various problems with the project; not least the limitations of the employing an audio-book style single person narrative. I suppose I can understand the value of using one narrator to speak for all characters: there is a self-conscious textuality to the motion comics and adhering to the same convention as an audiobook would emphasises this link. But, as hard as Tom Stechschulte tries, he fails to establish enough of an individuality to each different voice, and copes poorly when he is faced with the prospect of voicing a female character. I simply cannot see the logic when it makes a mockery of an otherwise acceptable voice track, nor can I overstate how much more I would have enjoyed the MOTION COMICS if Warner Brothers had hired an entire voice cast. Cost cutting in order to take the most profit out of a cynical money spinner? Or simply the stressing of the work’s inherent textual nature? The jury remains out on the motive, but the execution was definitely substandard, and managed to come off rushed and ill-considered at best.

It is only inevitable that advances in technology would cast their influence over the book industry- the e-book is already a certainty to flood the market, and print on demand services may well spell the end for the humble book store- and the motion comic is perfect evidence. In a society obsessed with the idea of culture as commodity how could the comic book industry (and those in the know with the power to distribute mass media) not be sopping wet at the idea of the motion comic? If you can get a motion comic on every iPhone or iPod in the world (and that looks to be the future) you can have expect licence to print your own money.

To be honest, I would prefer a digital comic revolution- something that makes the original artwork available online using a programme that presents each cell in a slideshow- to this method. And if pressed, I would prefer to just stick to the graphic novel: as the key thing is that THE MOTION COMICS do not add anything to the original text, apart from the increased availability to more advanced media than the humble book. In fact, the media robs the image of a certain depth: the power of WATCHMEN was always in the richness of the context of Moore and Gibbons’ alternative 1985, including the subtle touches like the depth of graffiti in the background that simply is not replicated in the motion comic.

There is just something vulgar about it all- especially when it involves cutting up an untouchable classic and making it look like a Monty Python animation with no irony whatsoever just for those who cannot abide an actual book. The effect of every comic upon its readers is as dependent upon the page layout, so intricately woven by Dave Gibbons in WATCHMEN, as it is upon the story and speech. Personally, I like to use my imagination to enliven the images and I definitely do not need that process taken out of my control and if this is any indication of the future of comics, Ill say no thank you very much: sometimes easier does not mean better.