About.com Rating

Introduction:

Some might think that motion comics are not for true comic fans. They are a lazy way to read a comic book and have been used more as a gimmick that regurgitates old content to appease people as a DVD extra or something like that. There hasn’t been a lot of great motion comic books, but Dark Horse is pressing forward in this market with Geek and Sundry’s Youtube channel with some well animated motion comic books that appear to be a means to get new readers into their books.
The technology for these kinds of material has come leaps and bounds lately and I have been quite impressed by the animation, turning a static comic book into a moving thing as good as some cartoons.


That the material already has a fanbase and is free is going to make this a great move by Dark Horse in the long run. One of their latest motion comic episodes is House of Night, a comic book based on the award winning young adult novels of the same name. This motion comic focuses on one piece of the House of Night series, a group of vampires who lived in the 12th century in Norway.

Vitals

Title: House of Night
Writer: P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast, and Kent Dalian
Artist: Karl Kerschl
Colorist: Tyson Hesse
Producer: Mike Richardson
Director: Erik Bruhwiler
Content: House of Night is for young adults and contains references to the occult and has some violence.
Publisher: Dark Horse/Geek and Sundry
Cost: Free

Story:

The story centers around two vampires. Olaf, the long thought dead king of the land and the Priestess, who seeks to create a refuge for vampire kind in a town on the coast of Norway. The king hid his condition from his people and seemingly drove out the presence of vampires from his land, but he secretly protected the vampires by concealing them into caves to hide from humanity.

He eventually faked his own death to live his life out in peace.
At first the priestess is accosted by Olaf for wanting to bring a refuge to this town who has thought vampires a long lost memory. The priestess is ashamed of the way the vampires have had to live here, hiding in caves and avoiding the persecution from the villagers who live in the town. Olaf swears to stop her if she exposes the presence of the vampires in his land, as he has vowed to keep them safe. He soon sees that the priestess will not stop and asks her to contact the goddess Nyx for guidance.

Using her powers over earth, wind, air, and water, the priestess contacts Nyx who sends her two powerful guides in the form of feral cats that are considered sacred beasts to the local dwellers. She must win the trust of these guides through combat, and both her life and the life of King Olaf are at stake in the process.

Review:

I have to admit that I have not ready any of the House of Night comics from Dark Horse, but this motion comic surely whetted my appetite. The animation and effects were quite well done and I was thoroughly impressed with how much they were able to do. One scene in particular stands out when the priestess contacts the goddess Nyx. They picked out the fur from the priestess’ cloak making it wave in the wind and also swelled her cloak as she rose into the air. Combined with some neat lighting effects, it was really a really nice scene. The animators have obviously put in a lot of time and effort into small details that really worked in making this comic book come to life.
In doing some research, this story is not the main focus of House of Night, as it centers around a young 16 year old girl named Zoey Redbird who is a girl who goes through the change to become a vampire and enters an academy for vampires named House of Night in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The genre of the series is romantic fantasy geared towards young adults and although the fantasy aspects ring true, they toned down the romance element for this motion comic book. They did a nice job of getting a thirty-something guy like me who might not want anything to do with a young adult romance fantasy novel, actually think about giving this comic book series a try to see what it is all about.

In the first motion comic Dark Horse put out, The Secret, I was unimpressed with the voice acting. This comic had a couple of dull parts, but the main two characters were quite well done in my opinion. The rough gravelly voice of Olaf was excellent and the wise but feminine voice of the priestess was soothing and compelling. I hope they continue to improve on the voice acting and bring in good talent as this could easily make or break this series of motion comic books.

Conclusion:

I have continually been impressed with how well animated the content has been. The lush art by Karl Kerschl was a fantastic canvas to work from and fit this series really well. It would seem that for now, Dark Horse is not continuing these series as the past three releases on the Geek and Sundry channel have been issues of Umbrella Academy, House of Night, and Usagi Yojimbo. I hope they plan on releasing further issues of these series but as it is, they are at the very least a nice commercial to see if I might like the series and then go make a purchase.
I love that these are free and on the internet for all to see and feel that they will have great success in making some money on these properties and may bring in some new readers to these lines of comic books.

More Information:

Watch House of Night - House of Night
Read House of Night - Dark Horse House of Night Comics