Motion comics: modes of adaptation and the issue of authenticity

Motion comics can be considered as an emerging form of digital animation that typically appropriates and remediates an existing comic book narrative and artwork into a screen-based animated narrative. One such example of motion comic adaptation is The Watchmen, which was released on DVD and is also available on the iTunes online store as a digital download. This article argues that this new hybrid media raises unique considerations in terms of adaptation, and therefore provides a brief summary of key debates in adaptation studies, with a particular emphasis on the issue of authenticity. This is followed by a study of conventional adaptation practices from a comic book source and the emerging digital post-production approaches of animators and creative practitioners in the motion comic field, including a discussion on the importance of sound.