Motion comic

A motion comic (or animated comic) is a form of animation combining elements of print comic books and animation. Individual panels are expanded into a full shot while sound effects, voice acting, and animation are added to the original artwork. Text boxes and sound effect bubbles are typically removed to feature more of the original artwork being animated. Motion comics are often released as short serials covering a story arc of a long running series or animating a single release of a graphic novel. Single release issues of a story arc are converted into ten- to twenty-minute-long episodes depending on content.

The earliest examples of motion comics are found in independent creations such as Broken Saints (2001). However, the concept was fully outlined in the mid-1960s by science fiction author Philip K. Dick in his novel The Zap Gun, an expansion of his novella Project Plowshare, which was written in 1964 and first published as a serial in the November 1965 and January 1966 issues of Worlds Of Tomorrow magazine. In Dick's novel, weapon designers of the future are mediums, who create their new designs in trance states. The weapon designs are extracted telepathically from a motion comic book, The Blue Cephalopod Man from Titan, created by mad Italian artist Oral Giacomini. Dick describes both the storyline and the animated panels of this comic book in detail.

In 2005, Lions Gate released an animated version of the Saw: Rebirth comic, one of the first examples of an animated comic created to tie into a film franchise. The first major motion comics released, which is also the first use of the term "motion comic," were released by Warner Bros., the owner of DC Comics to coincide with the film premieres of The Dark Knight and Watchmen, releasing an adaptation of Batman: Mad Love and Watchmen: Motion Comics, adapting the comic book of the same name. In 2010 a motion comic called Inception: The Cobol Job was released as prequel and prologue to the movie Inception. In 2012 a prequel motion comic of the movie Dredd was made to show the origins of the movie's main antagonist, Ma-Ma.

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