Naturally it's all subjective, but for me animated gifs just look cheesy. I like the original much better then the animated flames. It moves something that requires a thought process to actually take in the art and understand what the artist was getting at to a place of hey my 5 year old would instantly get that the cat caught fire. Maybe I'm just to old school...but those are my thoughts.
But really fun idea of the 9 lives book. Hope you plan to publish it (actual print not just ebook)...that is yet another POD item ;) . Book with original illustrations. You can go 2 directions or both. One towards adult readers and one for a childrens book.
I understand you my friend-
I was also somewhat against Gifs too.
I like to experiment and I have never done one before so I was intrigued.
I have actually completed half the book of which I started over 20 years ago.
I sent it to several publishers who all loved it but said the public would not go for such a concept at that time (20 years ago).
Perhaps if I tried again now I might have a better chance? The world had moved on.
I wondered if books might be dying out and if perhaps the idea might work better as a sort of animated blog. However, II was unsure if git would work.
I guess I was intrigued enough ti try.
Thanks for you honest answer, much appreciated.
I love the animation. But It only works online, I would say. Here you have the gif loving poeple. The original picture above is great but the gif has much more drama too it. Fits the story.
Thanks for your thoughts @sumsum-
At the moment I am learning how to do Gifs and when I am learning something new then I am very happy and motivated. It is a joy to learn new things.
Not sure where I will go with this project but I will just continue and see.
@sumsum for some flair online it does work and I think after seeing a couple times it's growing on me. A few of them on a marketing page for selling the book would work great to grab attention of potential buyers.