Watchmen: Motion Comic

As some of you know, Alan Moore's Watchmen is my all time favorite graphic novel. The characters, the realism, it's just too much for mere words to describe the greatness that this novel contains. Time Magazine thought so too and put it on their ALL TIME 100 novels. It's rubbing elbows with The Great Gatsby and 1984. And I swear if you read one comic in your lifetime YOU MUST READ THIS. No jokes, it's mind altering.

before we start let's go back a couple years. It's 2008, games like Fallout 3 and Gears of War are fast approaching. but for some reason the only thing I can think about is the Watchmen movie that is due for 2009. That's right, a movie was more on my mind than a video game. pretty crazy eh? Anyways, in preparation of the movie the comic comes out in full force. It's sold at Coles, Chapters, HMV, and even *shudder* Hot Topic. Along with the graphic novel, a movie-esque release of Watchmen is released. A visual adaptation that takes the beloved comic and animates it. But calling it an anime or cartoon is inaccurate. The closest thing to classify it is what it's already called, a motion comic.

Take a look for yourself, you'll see what I mean:

The story of Watchmen follows many different plots, but almost all of them can be linked to one overarching plot, the investigation of the murder of Edward Blake. (aka "The Comedian" of the Watchmen) The story get progressively darker and darker as the investigation gets further to the truth. eventually the characters discover that the murder of their colleague was only a part of a horrendous plan. The setting takes place in 1984 in an alternate universe. Nixon is president and has been for several years, cold war tensions between the USA and the USSR are worse than they've ever been, and there is of course Dr. Manhattan. A being who makes Superman look fucking insignificant. But I will not lead any more spoilers so you'll have to watch the movie, motion comic, or just read the graphic novel.

Directed by Jake Strider Hughes and assisted by Tom Stechschult, the art style as you have seen is an exact copy to that of the original comic. Plenty of different colours, but also extremely dark. The animations look oddly fitting, as you see people do subtle things such as shifting their stance, or extreme in some cases such as fighting. The animations give the feeling of the comic coming to life. The voice acting however, has my opinions divided. The voice cast is Tom Stechschulte. That's it. What makes me so torn about it is whether I should commend him for taking up the immense task of voicing every character and doing it quite competently, or condemn for not wanting to branch out and get a whole cast properly.

My thoughts aside, a great art style, different voice acting that should be recognized and of course of one the greatest stories of mankind. WMC is an excellent addition to any Watchmen collector and anyone who likes different mediums should give this a shot.