To keep the momentum of its popular global blackout show Revolution during the winter hiatus, NBC has launched animated webisodes of the show on its website, reports ew.com. Starting today (Monday, January 21) the network will offer these new weekly toons through Feb. 18 on NBC.com, YouTube, Hulu and on VOD. The network is also putting a version of the show’s pilot online that includes commentary from showrunner Eric Kripke and executive producer/director Jon Favreau.
The Flash-animated webisodes are based on letters written by Sergeant Joseph Wheatly (Reed Diamond), the character who led Miles (Billy Burke) into the dangerous tunnels toward Philadelphia and into a trap set by General Monroe (David Lyons). In addition, NBC will post the entire first half of the season online Feb. 25, so viewers can catch up with the show before Revolution comes back on March 25.
They don’t even advertise this on both the websites mentioned in the article. I found one link, at the bottom of ew.com. If it is supposed to compliment the live action Revolution, then it needs waaaayyyy more attention than they are giving it.
But after watching, I know why. The artwork itself looks nice, but you can’t call it animated. It is more like a motion comic. It is a sequence of still images, no actual character animation. They could have done so much better than that. At least have it on the level of some of the DCNation shorts on cartoon network. Or better yet, since the stories are similar, take a few notes from Tom Hank’s “Electric City.” It has that post-apocalyptic vibe and the animation is incredible.