Awful Peanuts Motion Comics from Warner Launched
By Hervé St-LouisNov 3, 2008 - 22:21
Motion comics is the new thing and Warner Premiere and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution have announced a new series of animated comic strips Peanuts for iTune users, from 1964. This is the first proposed property the Warner companies will experiment with as digital contents made with Adobe Flash as portable mobile contents. While Warner produced and released online contents, such as Gotham Girls and other series almost a decade ago, it is trying to reach a new public again through its motion comics initiative.
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As an animator - a Flash animator - I have to say that while the prospect of animated contents for mobile platforms seems interesting, I fail to understand the continuing appeal of half-animated contents and why producers continue to believe that viewers will be entertained by bastardized hybrids.
Second, as Warner intends its contents mainly for iPhone and iTune users, it limits who can access the 20 episodes it plans to produce on Charlie Brown, Snoopy and their friends. Warner wants to sell the entire “season” for $7.99, hoping to induce users into purchasing the contents. Perhaps that is why they assume that viewers will adopt the iTune platform, although it is not user friendly and locked.
I will be skipping these classic cartoons and favour the original reprints instead. I’m not interested in installing Apple software on my computer. It always causes many problems and tries to take over all other program as the main digital media platform on my computer. Were I using a Macintosh computer, I could perhaps tolerate this type of corporate invasion on my personal computer. While I still have a choice of what goes on my computer, I’ll skip this joint scheme by Apple and Warner and let their enlightened and brainwashed Mac fans enjoy bastardized Peanuts features that are neither animation nor comic strips.
I’ll reconsider if Warner decides to make their animated Peanuts comic strips available on my Nokia tablet without forcing me to use iTune.
Last Updated: Jan 7, 2012 - 7:41
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2-I can't watch them because I don't have an iPhone or iTune.
3-I been doing animation since 1994 and Flash since 1999. I own an animation studio, have worked on countless television series and directed a lot commercials and animation projects. I think I'm knowledgeable enough on animation.
What they do is brainwash people into thinking they are cool, but really they are not. If you need a consumer product company to make you cool, you're not cool to begin with...
At the time I wrote this I didn't like how companies favoured only one platform - Apple's and there are a lot of things that I don't like about Apple corporate-wise. They are the anti-thesis of capitalism and competition. I like competition. I like products being offered to as many platforms as possible and allowing the best guy to win, fairly. I like opened networks and not the restricted mentality at Apple that dictates to people what they can or not do with the stuff they buy. It doesn't benefit users. It only benefits Apple. Have you see Steve Jobs' response to the iPhone 4 antenna. He blames users for not holding the phone properly instead of blaming his company for making a flawed product.
About motion comics, they really are not great. They are like those 1960s Marvel cartoons, but people are in awe of the technology, instead of the actual contents. They think that if it moves a bit it's cool. That's not what animation is about.
They would do better to make the old 1970s cartoons available at the iTunes store rather than half born thing.
And no was never rejected by Warner for a job (or Apple)!
cheers
Man, I bet you don't like ice cream, either
