Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada...

By Marc Strom



Spider-Woman comes to life this spring.



Introducing the Spider-Woman Motion Comic, an all-new, all-awesome experience in graphic storytelling.



SPIDER-WOMAN writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Alex Maleev conceived the story and art from the onset as a Motion Comic with a traditional paper comic to follow.



For Marvel's Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, Marvel Motion comics represent the culmination of several years' worth of discussions.



"This has been an ongoing conversation I've had with our publisher Dan Buckley I'd say for the last two to three years," Quesada reveals. "It became very, very evident to me that as technology moves forward, there will come a day where we'll be able to not just create animation based upon our comic books and our characters and stories that we've told, but there will come a time when eventually we'll be able to take existing comic art, the flat, static art, and be able to animate it.



"So [now] we can put out a product that is not quite a comic book and not quite animation, [but] a wonderful hybrid that incorporates all of our great talents."



While Maleev previously participated in a similar venture, the animated adaptation of Stephen King's "N." Quesada tells us that the decision to make SPIDER-WOMAN the first series to get this treatment on a regular basis came from his talks with Bendis.



"Brian and I have always sort of wondered about what are the next steps for comics and comics creators and the Marvel characters, [and the discussion around Digital Motion Comics] was a conversation that we started having years ago," Quesada relates. "Then the idea of Spider-Woman sort of came out of that. [We thought] let's try to do something original and brand new that perhaps is constructed for the motion comic, instead of taking something that's been previously done and trying to animate it."



Quesada also sees the Spider-Woman Motion Comic as the perfect opportunity to reach out to some of Marvel's fans who may not already be reading the comics.

SPIDER-WOMAN promo art by Alex Maleev

"I absolutely do think that people that have never read a comic or were [not] interested in comics would be interested in motion comics," he explains. "When you think about fans out there who are interested in Marvel but primarily interested in [the] movies, animations and games and [who] don't dabble in comics, I think there's an audience out there for the characters and the material that we can absolutely reach through this, including lapsed fans and current fans as well."



While distribution plans are still being ironed out and finalized, Quesada could clarify the rationale those plans would follow.



"They're being built to reach out to our fans as well as our comics readers," the Editor-in-Chief elaborates. "Basically [we want] to have it for them when they want it, where they want it and how they want it. Plans currently include iTunes and other digital distribution outlets, Marvel.com, probably our Marvel YouTube channel and other streaming websites, and we're also exploring distribution via DVD and mobile as well."



Working in such a nascent form has proved greatly rewarding to Quesada, who says that he and everyone else working on the Motion Comics continue to learn more and more about the medium.



"Every day we learn something new about it," Quesada confesses. "It is radically different from constructing animation or constructing a comic, it's somewhere in between. It's kind of the great unknown, and Spider-Woman is the place where we're hopefully going to get the beginning bugs of this stuff out.



"It does take a considerable amount of work—a lot more to put these together than a regular comic—especially [since we're] starting from scratch like this. The wonderful thing from our point of view is that we're getting these bugs out now, so by the time everyone else decides that they really want to go [down] this road, we'll hopefully be way ahead of the curve and have a better understanding of how to do it and how to do it well."



In addition to the all-original SPIDER-WOMAN Motion Comic, Marvel also announced a Motion Comic version of the fan-favorite ASTONISHING X-MEN series by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday. Stay tuned to Marvel.com for all of the latest news regarding Marvel Motion comics!



For all the latest news, announcements and interviews, plus live panel blogging, video features and much more, visit Marvel.com's NYCC 2009 Hub Page! Also, be sure to check out Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited!



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