So half a million people have watched it? Would that be a ball park figure?

Simon | December 28, 14:24 CET

I would think (and just guessing) that he is comparing iTunes episode purchases of a cable show to Buffy Motion comic purchases. 500k per episode/issue would seem high to me in that case. But, I'm really flying blind and just speculating.

I'm am sure that he is just reporting something he has heard 3rd or 4th hand. Even internally the hard numbers can be hard to come by.

[ edited by IrrationaliTV on 2010-12-28 23:37 ]

IrrationaliTV | December 28, 14:35 CET

I bet. How much of a cut does Apple from a sale on iTunes? Anyone know?

Simon | December 28, 14:50 CET

Okay, so when I bought the Season 8 pass, and I assumed the season pass for Season 8 meant the entirety of Season 8, I was being naive, because they meant only half of Season 8 was a full season.

Yeah, that blows.

It sounds like they are taking the 19 episodes that are out and packaging them as the full season, when in reality it only covers half of the 40 comics that comprise Season 8. Or am I totally uninformed?

[ edited by quantumac on 2010-12-29 02:43 ]

quantumac | December 28, 17:35 CET

I'm not sure, but 19 episodes is roughly season length for a tv show. A 40 episode season would be insane, and would cost a lot more for a pass than they charged.

Tumnus | December 28, 18:21 CET

I just whacked at youtube for a preview,
and i am not impressed with what i have
seen so far. ZERO mouth movement, but
plenty of waving loose strands of hair and
eyeblinks. i will likely still buy it.

espalier | December 28, 18:51 CET

Creator seems like such an unusual job title for this, though I am admittedly still fuzzy exactly how big this operation was or what exactly he did.

The technical aspect was an interesting thing to learn but he's sort of vague on the logistics of some of that, like he apparently only kind of sort of worked with Dark Horse or the artists behind the series. Grant I guess it's not like they needed to match styles to draw full on faces that much so much as animating the technical stuff in the background or strands of hair which, for most artists, is not exactly a wildly distinct style to recreate. (I thought it was an interesting comparison to the "motion comic" sequences in Scott Pilgrim where despite making the creator/artist draw a lot of content especially for the film, they brought aboard artists to emulate his style for other sequences or that animated promo short they did on Adult Swim.)

It's nice to see that he tried to bring some stuff to this adaptation of an existing work like the sign bit, though the numerology significance is sort of lost on me.

orangewaxlion | December 28, 21:52 CET

The problem (one of many that I have with this endeavor) with the way they've packaged it is that they're saying one comics issue equals one episode. And no, no it doesn't. One arc equals one episode. According to this project, each issue/episode is roughly eleven minutes long. Times that by four and you'd have the traditional episode length.

Basically, imagine that you're buying Fringe by the act break instead of buying the entire episode. In what world does that sound fair?

The episodes should break down like the TPBs:

1. Long Way Home (4) + The Chain (1)
2. No Future For You (4) + Anywhere But Here (1)
3. A Beautiful Sunset (1) + Wolves at the Gate (4)
4. Time of Your Life (4) + After These Messages... (1)
5. Predators and Prey (5)
6. Retreat (5)
7. Turbulence (1) + Twilight (4)
8. Last Gleaming (5)

The episodes would run a bit long, but they'd be like limited-commercial length episodes.

If they'd gone ahead and done full animation, I imagine each issue would run twice as long, so the ratio would be closer to 2 issues = 1 episode (with the one-shots maybe getting expanded story time). Then each arc would be split in two (Long Way Home Part 1, Part 2) and you'd end up closer to the 22-24 episodes per season mark.

[ edited by Emmie on 2010-12-29 08:24 ]

Emmie | December 28, 23:08 CET

And it would have been too expensive to do on speculation that there would be a market, Emmie and would never have been made. Nice dream though. I think this first one was done to test the waters. if it doesn't sell well then there won't be any more.

IrrationaliTV | December 28, 23:56 CET

I've watched all they've produced and... It's not entirely great. I mean, when it's balls-to-the-wall it's well done -- some of the episodes worked better than the comics for me, emotionally.

But. You know that 'scythe' mistake in the first episode? It's still there in the latest episodes they've produced. Over and over again. And joke delivery is occasionally very off. And they cut and rearrange (and possibly rewrite, I haven't checked) scenes. Here's an example - you know the flash forward in issue 10 to the seed and Buffy crying? It's not in episode 10 of the motion comics. They cut the entire scene.

So I admire the effort, but it's painfully obvious they needed somebody close to the source material working on this.

[ edited by gossi on 2010-12-29 12:18 ]

[ edited by gossi on 2010-12-29 12:19 ]

gossi | December 29, 03:16 CET

"you know the flash forward in issue 10 to the seed and Buffy crying? It's not in episode 10 of the motion comics. They cut the entire scene."

You gotta be kidding me Gossi. Thats a pretty important foreshadowing scene. That'd be like if someone remade Graduation Day and cut out the dream sequence. I was thinking of buying this just for collector's sake but definitely not now.

eddy | December 29, 03:50 CET

I'm open to correction on that, btdub. It's possible I blinked and missed the scene -- I hope I did.

gossi | December 29, 03:57 CET

gossi - yes, they rewrote the flashback scene with Willow and Kennedy from "Amywhere But Here"; they rearranged the existing dialogue and added a line or two that wasn't in the original. The end result makes Kennedy look pretty darned petty, considering that she had a valid concern.

Rowan Hawthorn | December 29, 06:05 CET

I watched episode one, but I just can't get past the voice acting. If it's not the actors/actresses from the original, I'd rather just read the comics and add in their voices in my head (wait, that came out wrong) myself.

The only motion comic I've seen that I liked was Watchmen's. For some reason, I was able to get past that one guy doing all the voices.

SpendTheNightAlone | December 29, 07:10 CET

Did anyone notice the motion comic lists Brian K. Vaughan as the writer of "The Chain" instead of Joss Whedon? Just sloppy.

[ edited by Barry Woodward on 2010-12-29 20:40 ]

Barry Woodward | December 29, 11:26 CET

Given all the above, it's no wonder Dark Horse has never expressed a particular fondness for this project.

@theonetruebix | December 29, 11:39 CET

Agree with Emmie about the episode breakdown. We sure did try to get an answer as to whether or not the rest of the season's comics would be "motionized" and how it would break down....but we got nothin. Mr. Shuter honestly didn't seem to know, which sounds to me like they're waiting to see how it sells.

I had no idea they cut/rewrote that scene, Gossi. That's really....strange. Why on earth?

buffyfest | December 29, 14:28 CET

They do include te seed and Buffy crying, it's just in seperate frames, but still included. I think the motion comic will be good for people thy haven't got to necessariy read the comics. Done cheap? Yeah, but I'd still watch it

Aedan | December 30, 04:10 CET

I stand corrected. I guess I was looking at Buffy in the scene and didn't notice the seed if it was separated out.

gossi | December 30, 10:05 CET