Wednesday Comics No. 1
Published by DC Comics. Art and writing by various.
The Deal: Wednesday Comics is DC’s attempt at capturing the look and feel of those old, full-page comic strips that used to run in the Sunday editions of newspapers waaayyyy back in the day. The folks at DC have gathered together a star-studded group of writers and artists — like Neil Gaiman, Joe Kubert, Brian Azzarello, Kyle Baker and many more — to create over-sized, one-page, serialized comic strips starring an eclectic bunch of the company’s characters.
The Good: I’ve always loved those old full-page newspaper comics. When I was a kid, I used to go to the library and read old reprints of “Wash Tubbs” comics (Yes, I’m a geek!), so seeing this secret “strip” fantasy of mine realized is definitely a dream come true. But beyond my own personal affection for the full-page format, no one can deny the mind-blowing quality of the art and the writing found on these pages. I mean, you’ve got Paul Pope writing and drawing an Adam Strange strip … and it’s as off-kilter, kitschy and alien as you’d expect. Other standouts include Kyle Baker on Hawkman, and … and … wow, there’s a lot, lot, lot to like.
The Bad: Comic Shop News kind of screwed up this series a little bit. I don’t mean that the reporters over there gave it bad press or anything like that, but that weekly magazine about comics has been giving away their similarly formatted publication for free for years. So, I think it makes it hard for comic buyers to think of Wednesday Comics as something they have to pay for — especially $3.99. Now, it’s definitely worth the price, but some readers have just been trained to not buy a folded, newsprint publication like this.
The Verdict: Buy it, dammit!
Reviewed materials provided by Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find: www.heroesonline.com.
This article appears in Jul 14-21, 2009.
