Bleeding Cool Rich Johnston has some good news for Joss Whedon fans still broken up about the cancelling of Doll House–Dark Horse Comics’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 is getting the deluxe motion comic treatment. (Voice actors–click that link for casting call details.)

I love the idea of motion comics, especially as a means to attract new, younger, indifferent-to-print readers; though I’m still happy to read the funny pages, rather than click through links for my own comics fix. I think the Whedon-penned Astonishing X-Men motion comic by Neal Adams’ Continuity Studios has been the best conceived motion comic of the recent lot, with actual CG animation adding fluidity to the original John Cassaday illustrations, turning AXM into something not unlike the old 1960s Marvel cartoons). As an evolutionary link between printed comics and fully animated cartoons based on comic runs (see Superman/Batman: Public Enemies), the Continuity design seems like the best approach to motion comics, rather than a video file comprising pan-and-scan panels and spoken word balloons.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean Dark Horse will go that route with their entry into this new medium. But with the potential for significant mainstream crossover appeal with Buffy in the title, this could be the motion comic project that determines the style and technology expected of all motion comics to follow.