As anyone who was bummed by Zack Snyder's limp "Watchmen" adaptation last year can tell you, comic book geeks and movie buffs are notoriously reluctant to meet in the middle.
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With "Iron Man 2" arriving in theaters in less than a month, Marvel Entertainment is betting that they can drive both factions to do just that with tomorrow's release of the "Iron Man: Extremis" motion comic.
Caught somewhere between the floppy comic books on which it's based and full-fledged animation akin to, say, Marvel's own "Ultimate Avengers" DVD films, "Extremis" is poised to introduce audiences to a fledgling medium.
"We specifically set the month before the movie came out to release the motion comic," said Ruwan Jayatilleke, Marvel Entertainment's senior vice president of development & planning, print, animation and digital media. "Converting a person from the movie to the comic series shouldn't be a hard thing, but it is ... the experiment here is having an intermediate product. It isn't a movie, it isn't live action, but it uses similar storytelling techniques."
"Extremis" will be released digitally on iTunes, Zune and Xbox Live as a series of six episodes, individually priced at $1.99 or as a season for $9.99. Interested fans of the red-and-gold-clad egomaniac can check out the trailer online, or they can download episodes of "Spider-Woman," "Astonishing X-Men: Gifted" or "Stephen King's 'N'," all of which are previous motion comics produced by Marvel.
They could also just read the original comic book, a critically-acclaimed work by fan-favorite writer Warren Ellis and artist Adi Granov, which recently saw an unsurprising hardcover re-release. But maybe they shouldn't.
"A lot of people say if you've read the comic, there's no need to see the motion comic," Jayatilleke said. "For 'Extremis,' we added a huge amount of story content. We really pushed the envelope of the storytelling ... You don't get that level of art in typical animation on TV, and I'm just being honest. All the music was [done] by a full orchestra. All the actors are real working actors."
And other additions, like new 3D effects for Iron Man's various armors, help flesh out the package a bit.
Marvel isn't alone on the motion comics front. A slew of similar projects by rival DC Comics are also out there, like "Batman: Black and White" and "Watchmen," which managed to be much better than the big screen version. There are also the expected cash cow tie-ins from companies that have little stake in the comics business — the Starz-produced "The Crazies Motion Comic," for one, which an iTunes reviewer called "a cheap ploy to make a few extra bucks off the movie."
But Marvel is, at least, feverishly devoted to pushing the envelope. After ruffling feathers with the release of an iPad application that lets customers buy digital comic books, it seems the comic book juggernaut has no intent to stop the forward momentum.
"We haven't officially green-lit anything yet, but I think a fair assumption would be that we'll be producing at least two or three motion comics a year," Jayatilleke said.
He then hinted that future series will likely mirror movie releases.
For the moment, motion comics are here to stay. We'll just have to wait and see whether the Robert Downey Jr.-crazed tweens will be there to enjoy them.
