Awful Peanuts Motion Comics from Warner Launched

Digital Comics
Awful Peanuts Motion Comics from Warner Launched
By Hervé St-Louis
November 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.

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.