Watchmen Motion Comic A One-Note Blunder

Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ “The Watchmen” will always be regarded as one of the most thought-provoking, intense and iconic graphic novels of all time.

Unfortunately for the motion comic based on the series, sound issues in particular destroy what could have been an amazing adaptation of an equally amazing piece of source material.

It shouldn’t really come as a shock though, considering how poorly produced most motion comics have been over the past decade. A medium that has never been truly supported by the mainstream media or by casual and hardcore comic book fans, it’s weird that it was even released in the first place.

Upcoming movies do weird things to film companies though and in collaboration with the theatrical release of the Zach Snyder’s “The Watchmen,” this motion comic was given the light of day.

Although it’s beautiful to look at and has given new fans a version of the comic that is 100 percent accurate, the voice acting is so off the mark that it practically ruins the entire experience.

With a script like the one in “The Watchmen,” with excellent plot-development and dialogue, how could it all go wrong?

Well it’s easy… when only one person does every single voice during the entire five-four performance.

As a result, in spite of all the drama, a one of a kind story and small, yet solid pieces of animation that have been streamlined into the production, the whole thing ends up being flat.

When Sally Jupiter sounds like Rorschach is having his privates pinched by Adrian Veidt, it’s obvious that there’s a huge problem. It’s not that narrator Tom Stechschulte isn’t capable of performing possibly two or three different characters, or maybe even all the male characters, but he’s just given too much to handle here. With an impressive resume, spanning over 30 years in entertainment, he does an excellent job as the narrator of the production, giving the motion comic an old school feel.

Ultimately, it isn’t enough.

In all fairness to Stechschulte, not even Mel Blanc himself could have handled all the voice-acting duties for this thing.

Had as much time and effort went into the voice-acting that went into making sure the look and feel of the comic was well-represented, this could have been the motion comic that got the world into the medium.

However, with the sound being as bad as it is, it’s hard to sit through the entire production, nevertheless acknowledge its overall brilliance.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

1 Comment

  1. I totally agree. I’ve been waiting for a group of fans to record their own audio to replace the motion comic’s.

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