goldenboy
02-17-2009, 10:51 AM
So, cool artistic experiment or lame marketing ploy? This is not really new; they were doing essentially the same thing in the 60s, right?
The Return of Captain America (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYuIHR9E-Y)
I'm kinda psyched about it personally. I liked the style Alex Maleev came up with for the Stephen King "N. (http://www.simonsays.com/specials/stephen-king-nishere/)" thing.
I don't know about having them move their lips, faces. That looks cheesy to me (Astonishing X-Men (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jv6bg0ZVbU)). The one they did for #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KeqnwYdeQ) is good. I am looking forward to the new Spider-Woman stuff, one way or another.
Bendis On Spider-Woman's Digital Moves
Brian Michael Bendis chats about everything Spider-Woman, including the upcoming Digital Motion Comic.
by Richard George w/ Jesse Schedeen
February 8, 2009 - Ever since they ended their landmark run on Daredevil in 2006, fans have wondered what the next ongoing collaboration between Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev would be. Though it wasn't long before Marvel revealed that mystery project would be a solo Spider-Woman series, it would be some time before any concrete details about the project surfaced.
It wasn't until last year that fans learned the series would be called Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD. Secret Invasion revealed that the Spider-Woman who had played a starring role in New Avengers since the first issue was actually a Skrull impostor. Now freed from her captors, the real Jessica Drew finds Earth a vastly differently place than what she remembers. She now turns her attention to the stars, and that's where Bendis will pick up her story.
One of the bigger announcements at NYCC concerned Marvel's unique approach to marketing Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD. The first chapter of the series will be released as a free Digital Motion Comic on iTunes, with more chapters to follow. Though the book will also be published as a traditional comic, it's clear Marvel is pushing for a whole new audience with Spider-Woman.
As part of our latest interview with Bendis, we grilled him on his plans for Spider-Woman and how he and Maleev have tailored the series to the strengths of the Digital Motion format.
IGN Comics: Okay just a few questions about Spider-Woman – we just talked about this project a few months ago I believe… but now Marvel is announcing that the series is launching in "Digital Motion" on iTunes. Was that always the plan for this series?
Bendis: It was. It was planned from the get go, but there were just a variety of contracts that had to be locked down before we could talk about it. What this gave us was a real opportunity to look at what a motion comic book is, what the language of what a motion comic book is and to write specifically for that language. Well, both for that and for print at the same time.
IGN Comics: Yeah that is a bit interesting – did your writing style or approach have to change much since you were working with both goals in mind? Two scripts, perhaps?
Bendis: No, what I did was focus the scripts on the motion comics aspect. Alex and I have been making comic books together for almost ten years, so we really did know our comics selves. And I thought about this ad nauseum, it was ridiculous. So what I did was write these for the motion comics with notes towards the comic books. So I'd say oh this will be a double-paged spread or what have you. But yeah, towards the language, tone and emotion of the motion comic books.
I have been obsessed with the fact that… really, most motion comic books… weren't supposed to wiggle and now they're wiggling. Wiggling things that weren't supposed to… with varied success. With that comes, I think, a bit of an emotional disconnect. They just weren't supposed to do that. So what we're doing here is trying to find the emotional core of the story and how you get it across so you're not just distracted by the motion of it. What's comic book and what's animation… all these things.
I have to tell you, years ago Joe Quesada said the future of comic books would be this digital mix. Things that are done digitally that aren't animation and that aren't comics. And he was right on the money. So when it came time, before Secret Invasion, we had a long talk about digital initiatives. And they were very forward about what should and shouldn't be done. It became clear that it's time to dive in and do one of these things, as Marvel did with the Stephen King "N" project. [They wanted] something that was in continuity, ongoing series that starred an iconic character. And Jessica, because she's all those things but in her own world, and launching off of the Secret Invasion event – it just seemed like a great time to do this.
And Alex has been a digital artist in comic books years before that term even really existed. Most people don't know that most of the Daredevil run was produced digitally – but you can't tell at all. There aren't those digital tweaks or quirks. He's been years ahead of everybody for a long time. It became clear to Marvel right away that Alex is maybe that bridge artist between where we were and where we're going to be. So it was just this perfect mixture of him being the artist for the book and him having the talent to produce this. It's also the perfect character and something he and I were dying to do. After our Daredevil run we wanted to do another lengthy run, but we also wanted to set up ourselves. Things went really well on Daredevil so that gets difficult, to produce something that appeals to the people who had been following us but at the same time is a completely different product with a different tone and theme.
So Spider-Woman became all these things. It was very, very good timing. I know people have been saying wait you announced this last year. We were going to do this last year. But it was much better to have her launch off of Secret Invasion, to be in this place where her life is completely f---ed. It's a much more interesting narrative, because you don't know what's going to happen to her, you don't know what she's going to do.
And also Marvel gets a motion comic book on iTunes that has "Spider" in the title. So that's as close as you can get to Spider-Man without screwing things up.
IGN Comics: Now, this is just for the first issue, right?
Bendis: Oh, no, we're doing quite a few issues. The whole first arc to start. I've written ten episodes.
IGN Comics: Oh, wow, interesting. So, obviously this sort of endeavor has implications for brick and mortar retailers – will there be incentives in the physical copy to entice people to get that as well?
Bendis: Here's the thing… DVDs didn't kill movies, and vice versa. If anything, this is a glorious opportunity for people to pick up material and… I hate to break the news to you, but a lot of people don't walk into comic book stores. A lot of people. Hopefully, and the goal for everyone, because I make my living in print media, is for people to see this on iTunes or hear about it wherever, and they see it and go find us. They want the trade, they want more comic books. You know what I mean?
Plus, I think the experiment here, and what I think will be fascinating is how different the story will feel in both print and digital form. You know, voice acting. A lot of people listen to audio books, some read print, some do both – enjoying a book in different formats. So it's a gateway book, much like a Free Comic Book Day book, where hopefully this will get people into stores. We're not looking to kill the market, we're looking for other ways to get people into the store.
It's one of those things where people say, "Get more people in the store!" Then you try something and they say, "No! Not that!" It's what has to be done. This is the life we're leading right now. This audience has to be addressed. We have to get in their homes. It used to be that, when I was a kid, people would hang around a 7-Eleven. That was the market at the time. When we were kids we didn't know we were being manipulated, but the cups had Hulk on them and stuff, because that's where kids were hanging with their bicycles and stuff. They were getting us that way. But now the kids aren't there. They're at home looking at pictures of Ashley Simpson in her bikini. And we should be there with our comic books to entice them to get into our stories and characters. Things that might be appealing to them.
And just to be clear, Ashley Simpson is not in this comic book.
IGN Comics: -laughs- Now that you've had a taste of this medium and have written ten episodes, are you eager to bring some of your other books to this format?
Bendis: Well, what I've done is hire neighborhood kids to come over and read my books to me… No, I gotta tell you, this is absolute, top to bottom, a thrill. This really does feel like a movie, there are tons of people working on this, really talented people. We're knee deep in it – it's like Alex is directing a movie. It's a completely different experience. It feels very forward, with very forward thinking.
And again the intimacy of reading a comic book off of a shelf is the most cherished thing in my life. This is something else. To find the emotional core of what this is and find what the language of what this is, to creatively discover that… what a great thing to do with your day. That's really my goal, and again we're back to why [use] Spider-Woman. She's so f---ing pissed off at what happened to her. Rage is very easy to accomplish and these motion comics need to have emotion. And rage is a great place to start. If you think back to the early days of like Rock 'N' Roll or Punk Rock music… the early days of any genre is always rage or frustration. So I think this is a great place that comes very much out of the character and then we can use that to see what this medium can do.
IGN Comics: Anything else you want to add about the project at this point?
Bendis: I'm sure we'll talk about this series more as it gets closer too, but this is a big announcement. I'm very proud of Marvel. In the history of the company they've sometimes been followers on this and I like that they've been leading a little bit.
And also, just so you know, whenever I do an article like this people always say things like this so – yes, I am aware of other webcomics. I'm aware of other motion comic books. I am aware of them. I am thrilled about them. I want to be a part of them. I'm not saying we've invented anything. I'm saying that seeing what's happened and taking that next step of making an ongoing comic book with an existing, in-continuity character is a big deal. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it. So that's what I'm saying, just to be clear.
IGN Comics: Since you kind of brought up "others" – from what you've seen out there, does anything else out there compare to what you guys are working on? Or perhaps what would be the closest?
Bendis: Umm… well Watchmen… what an outstanding, what a big job that was, you know what I mean? But again it wasn't supposed to do that, so as outstanding as it was that they accomplished this with what they had… the whole time I'm looking at it saying I wonder what this would be if it was supposed to be that? What would that look like?
But now we can crack this wide open because we can determine what the parameters are, not with what was on the page and what was already existing.
IGN Comics: Makes sense. You know you mentioned something a bit a back and I wanted to loop back to it – you mentioned voice acting is in here. That can easily make or break a project like this. To you how is it sounding?
Bendis: Well, that's why I have taken on all the roles! –laughs-
IGN Comics: -laughs-
Bendis: Can you imagine? What a nightmare. That's the other thing about Watchmen. That voice actor is outstanding, but then he'd get to the Silk Spectre and it'd still be him. [Does his best impression of the voice actor shifting from Dr. Manhattan to Silk Spectre] And you're like oh my god. But it's being taken very, very seriously. It's kind of like when we were doing the Ultimate Spider-Man game, which was really well voice acted. We really found some great talent for that. To find an actor that was the voice that I had in my head for Peter Parker for so many years, to find the guy who could do that voice was a lot of fun. Doing that again with Jessica Drew is very cool.
IGN Comics: And obviously you have different people for different roles… right?
Bendis: Yeah. It starts off with a lot of Jessica Drew and inside her head. It's a lot of her narrating the story to us. It's Jessica and Agent Brand, and then as it goes on more and more Marvel Universe characters will be voiced as it opens up.
IGN Comics: One of the staples in comic books is the caption – or before that, the thought balloon. Did you find it a challenge to differentiate between dialogue and those elements in a motion comic book since everything is being voice acted but not fully animated?
Bendis: A little bit. You'll see in the way the panels are produced. Not unlike the way that Goodfellas would stop the image for a second to talk about an important moment.
IGN Comics: Cool, sir. I think I have everything for now…
Bendis: Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk more about it later. But for now, for those wondering about the delays, this was 90% of the reason.
IGN Comics: Gotcha. Alright, Brian, I'll see you at the show!
Bendis: Cool! It'll be fun.
http://comics.ign.com/articles/952/952480p1.html
The Return of Captain America (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYuIHR9E-Y)
I'm kinda psyched about it personally. I liked the style Alex Maleev came up with for the Stephen King "N. (http://www.simonsays.com/specials/stephen-king-nishere/)" thing.
I don't know about having them move their lips, faces. That looks cheesy to me (Astonishing X-Men (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jv6bg0ZVbU)). The one they did for #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KeqnwYdeQ) is good. I am looking forward to the new Spider-Woman stuff, one way or another.
Bendis On Spider-Woman's Digital Moves
Brian Michael Bendis chats about everything Spider-Woman, including the upcoming Digital Motion Comic.
by Richard George w/ Jesse Schedeen
February 8, 2009 - Ever since they ended their landmark run on Daredevil in 2006, fans have wondered what the next ongoing collaboration between Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev would be. Though it wasn't long before Marvel revealed that mystery project would be a solo Spider-Woman series, it would be some time before any concrete details about the project surfaced.
It wasn't until last year that fans learned the series would be called Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD. Secret Invasion revealed that the Spider-Woman who had played a starring role in New Avengers since the first issue was actually a Skrull impostor. Now freed from her captors, the real Jessica Drew finds Earth a vastly differently place than what she remembers. She now turns her attention to the stars, and that's where Bendis will pick up her story.
One of the bigger announcements at NYCC concerned Marvel's unique approach to marketing Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD. The first chapter of the series will be released as a free Digital Motion Comic on iTunes, with more chapters to follow. Though the book will also be published as a traditional comic, it's clear Marvel is pushing for a whole new audience with Spider-Woman.
As part of our latest interview with Bendis, we grilled him on his plans for Spider-Woman and how he and Maleev have tailored the series to the strengths of the Digital Motion format.
IGN Comics: Okay just a few questions about Spider-Woman – we just talked about this project a few months ago I believe… but now Marvel is announcing that the series is launching in "Digital Motion" on iTunes. Was that always the plan for this series?
Bendis: It was. It was planned from the get go, but there were just a variety of contracts that had to be locked down before we could talk about it. What this gave us was a real opportunity to look at what a motion comic book is, what the language of what a motion comic book is and to write specifically for that language. Well, both for that and for print at the same time.
IGN Comics: Yeah that is a bit interesting – did your writing style or approach have to change much since you were working with both goals in mind? Two scripts, perhaps?
Bendis: No, what I did was focus the scripts on the motion comics aspect. Alex and I have been making comic books together for almost ten years, so we really did know our comics selves. And I thought about this ad nauseum, it was ridiculous. So what I did was write these for the motion comics with notes towards the comic books. So I'd say oh this will be a double-paged spread or what have you. But yeah, towards the language, tone and emotion of the motion comic books.
I have been obsessed with the fact that… really, most motion comic books… weren't supposed to wiggle and now they're wiggling. Wiggling things that weren't supposed to… with varied success. With that comes, I think, a bit of an emotional disconnect. They just weren't supposed to do that. So what we're doing here is trying to find the emotional core of the story and how you get it across so you're not just distracted by the motion of it. What's comic book and what's animation… all these things.
I have to tell you, years ago Joe Quesada said the future of comic books would be this digital mix. Things that are done digitally that aren't animation and that aren't comics. And he was right on the money. So when it came time, before Secret Invasion, we had a long talk about digital initiatives. And they were very forward about what should and shouldn't be done. It became clear that it's time to dive in and do one of these things, as Marvel did with the Stephen King "N" project. [They wanted] something that was in continuity, ongoing series that starred an iconic character. And Jessica, because she's all those things but in her own world, and launching off of the Secret Invasion event – it just seemed like a great time to do this.
And Alex has been a digital artist in comic books years before that term even really existed. Most people don't know that most of the Daredevil run was produced digitally – but you can't tell at all. There aren't those digital tweaks or quirks. He's been years ahead of everybody for a long time. It became clear to Marvel right away that Alex is maybe that bridge artist between where we were and where we're going to be. So it was just this perfect mixture of him being the artist for the book and him having the talent to produce this. It's also the perfect character and something he and I were dying to do. After our Daredevil run we wanted to do another lengthy run, but we also wanted to set up ourselves. Things went really well on Daredevil so that gets difficult, to produce something that appeals to the people who had been following us but at the same time is a completely different product with a different tone and theme.
So Spider-Woman became all these things. It was very, very good timing. I know people have been saying wait you announced this last year. We were going to do this last year. But it was much better to have her launch off of Secret Invasion, to be in this place where her life is completely f---ed. It's a much more interesting narrative, because you don't know what's going to happen to her, you don't know what she's going to do.
And also Marvel gets a motion comic book on iTunes that has "Spider" in the title. So that's as close as you can get to Spider-Man without screwing things up.
IGN Comics: Now, this is just for the first issue, right?
Bendis: Oh, no, we're doing quite a few issues. The whole first arc to start. I've written ten episodes.
IGN Comics: Oh, wow, interesting. So, obviously this sort of endeavor has implications for brick and mortar retailers – will there be incentives in the physical copy to entice people to get that as well?
Bendis: Here's the thing… DVDs didn't kill movies, and vice versa. If anything, this is a glorious opportunity for people to pick up material and… I hate to break the news to you, but a lot of people don't walk into comic book stores. A lot of people. Hopefully, and the goal for everyone, because I make my living in print media, is for people to see this on iTunes or hear about it wherever, and they see it and go find us. They want the trade, they want more comic books. You know what I mean?
Plus, I think the experiment here, and what I think will be fascinating is how different the story will feel in both print and digital form. You know, voice acting. A lot of people listen to audio books, some read print, some do both – enjoying a book in different formats. So it's a gateway book, much like a Free Comic Book Day book, where hopefully this will get people into stores. We're not looking to kill the market, we're looking for other ways to get people into the store.
It's one of those things where people say, "Get more people in the store!" Then you try something and they say, "No! Not that!" It's what has to be done. This is the life we're leading right now. This audience has to be addressed. We have to get in their homes. It used to be that, when I was a kid, people would hang around a 7-Eleven. That was the market at the time. When we were kids we didn't know we were being manipulated, but the cups had Hulk on them and stuff, because that's where kids were hanging with their bicycles and stuff. They were getting us that way. But now the kids aren't there. They're at home looking at pictures of Ashley Simpson in her bikini. And we should be there with our comic books to entice them to get into our stories and characters. Things that might be appealing to them.
And just to be clear, Ashley Simpson is not in this comic book.
IGN Comics: -laughs- Now that you've had a taste of this medium and have written ten episodes, are you eager to bring some of your other books to this format?
Bendis: Well, what I've done is hire neighborhood kids to come over and read my books to me… No, I gotta tell you, this is absolute, top to bottom, a thrill. This really does feel like a movie, there are tons of people working on this, really talented people. We're knee deep in it – it's like Alex is directing a movie. It's a completely different experience. It feels very forward, with very forward thinking.
And again the intimacy of reading a comic book off of a shelf is the most cherished thing in my life. This is something else. To find the emotional core of what this is and find what the language of what this is, to creatively discover that… what a great thing to do with your day. That's really my goal, and again we're back to why [use] Spider-Woman. She's so f---ing pissed off at what happened to her. Rage is very easy to accomplish and these motion comics need to have emotion. And rage is a great place to start. If you think back to the early days of like Rock 'N' Roll or Punk Rock music… the early days of any genre is always rage or frustration. So I think this is a great place that comes very much out of the character and then we can use that to see what this medium can do.
IGN Comics: Anything else you want to add about the project at this point?
Bendis: I'm sure we'll talk about this series more as it gets closer too, but this is a big announcement. I'm very proud of Marvel. In the history of the company they've sometimes been followers on this and I like that they've been leading a little bit.
And also, just so you know, whenever I do an article like this people always say things like this so – yes, I am aware of other webcomics. I'm aware of other motion comic books. I am aware of them. I am thrilled about them. I want to be a part of them. I'm not saying we've invented anything. I'm saying that seeing what's happened and taking that next step of making an ongoing comic book with an existing, in-continuity character is a big deal. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it. So that's what I'm saying, just to be clear.
IGN Comics: Since you kind of brought up "others" – from what you've seen out there, does anything else out there compare to what you guys are working on? Or perhaps what would be the closest?
Bendis: Umm… well Watchmen… what an outstanding, what a big job that was, you know what I mean? But again it wasn't supposed to do that, so as outstanding as it was that they accomplished this with what they had… the whole time I'm looking at it saying I wonder what this would be if it was supposed to be that? What would that look like?
But now we can crack this wide open because we can determine what the parameters are, not with what was on the page and what was already existing.
IGN Comics: Makes sense. You know you mentioned something a bit a back and I wanted to loop back to it – you mentioned voice acting is in here. That can easily make or break a project like this. To you how is it sounding?
Bendis: Well, that's why I have taken on all the roles! –laughs-
IGN Comics: -laughs-
Bendis: Can you imagine? What a nightmare. That's the other thing about Watchmen. That voice actor is outstanding, but then he'd get to the Silk Spectre and it'd still be him. [Does his best impression of the voice actor shifting from Dr. Manhattan to Silk Spectre] And you're like oh my god. But it's being taken very, very seriously. It's kind of like when we were doing the Ultimate Spider-Man game, which was really well voice acted. We really found some great talent for that. To find an actor that was the voice that I had in my head for Peter Parker for so many years, to find the guy who could do that voice was a lot of fun. Doing that again with Jessica Drew is very cool.
IGN Comics: And obviously you have different people for different roles… right?
Bendis: Yeah. It starts off with a lot of Jessica Drew and inside her head. It's a lot of her narrating the story to us. It's Jessica and Agent Brand, and then as it goes on more and more Marvel Universe characters will be voiced as it opens up.
IGN Comics: One of the staples in comic books is the caption – or before that, the thought balloon. Did you find it a challenge to differentiate between dialogue and those elements in a motion comic book since everything is being voice acted but not fully animated?
Bendis: A little bit. You'll see in the way the panels are produced. Not unlike the way that Goodfellas would stop the image for a second to talk about an important moment.
IGN Comics: Cool, sir. I think I have everything for now…
Bendis: Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk more about it later. But for now, for those wondering about the delays, this was 90% of the reason.
IGN Comics: Gotcha. Alright, Brian, I'll see you at the show!
Bendis: Cool! It'll be fun.
http://comics.ign.com/articles/952/952480p1.html