Quick Thoughts: Wednesday Comics #1

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It’s huge. The most impressive strips are the ones that actually make use of the larger canvas — Adam Strange, Hawkman, etc.

A lot of the creative teams don’t have a good sense of how to tell a story one page at a time. Not many of the strips work well stand-alone. The Cat and The Demon may have been the most successful one in that regard.

I liked the art style on Wonder Woman, but it made really poor use of the space. Panels were tiny, and worse, the words were tiny. It actually felt cramped on a giant newspaper-sized canvas. Almost like someone had taken 6-8 pages of a regular comic book and shrunk them down to digest size, then rearranged them to fit into the space of 4 regular comics pages.

The Flash strip was fantastic. I love what they’re doing with the parallel Flash/Iris West strips.

Having driven along the central California coast a number of times, I can conclusively say that the first panel of Green Lantern is dead on. It looks exactly like any number of stretches of Pacific Coast Highway.

I liked the moody intro to Hawkman, but the Teen Titans into didn’t do much for me.

Supergirl was good, and actually made me laugh out loud at 11:30 at night.

I wasn’t expecting so many of the strips to have such a retro feel. Green Lantern was outright set in the early 1960s, Metal Men was clearly the 1970s, Metamorpho and Flash had the feel of the early Silver Age. (Flash even brought back the logo from the 1940s. And the one from the 2000s. Using both next to each other looks a little awkward.) And everyone seems to be comparing Kamandi to Prince Valiant. I guess it makes sense, given that nostalgia is one of the driving principles behind the series. (That and DC’s quest to keep people coming into the comic shop every week.)

That may be in part why I didn’t like the Neil Gaiman-scripted Metamorpho as much as I’d expected.

I’m not sure how I’m going to store these.

What Happened to Velocity?

Velocity #1 - ChrisCross and SnakebiteJust last week, I read and reviewed the 1996 Velocity miniseries, and re-read her 2007 Pilot Season one-shot. As you may recall, the book was one of that year’s winners, so Top Cow began preparing a new series around the character. It was originally announced for November 2008, then pushed back, and eventually canceled.

Details of the breakdown have been hazy. Artist ChrisCross left first, citing creative differences. Writer Joe Casey said the book had been lost in a shuffle of editorial firings. Now publisher Filip Sablik tells Top Cow’s side as one element in an interview about the recently-announced third round of Pilot Season:

This series is unfortunately “missing in action”. We started working on the series with the original Pilot Season writer Joe Casey with the best of intentions. We couldn’t secure original artist Kevin Maguire so we brought in ChrisCross, who was Joe’s top choice for artists and Snakebite on colors. We actually had the first entire issue complete and a script in for the second issue along with some art in progress when we ran into a disagreement in how the first story arc should proceed. Joe had a direction he wanted to go in, which we didn’t agree with and truthfully wasn’t something we felt represented Velocity (as a company owned character) [emphasis added] in the best way. We tried to work it out with Joe, but reached an impasse and everyone decided it was best if Joe walked away from the series. It’s a damn shame too, because as any publisher can tell you it’s never an easy financial decision to have an entire issue plus completed and not be able to put it out. At the end of the day though, we can’t afford to put out a comic we’re not completely happy with. We’re still looking into how best to retool Velocity and hope to be able to update the fans in the near future. Again Velocity is going to play a vital role in this summer’s Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer series and I hope she’s a character we get to revist on a solo basis in the future.

Now, obviously, everyone involved is going to want to minimize their own share of the blame, but it does seem to come down to this:

The writer and company wanted to do different things with the character, and the company won.

At first glance, it’s kind of ironic considering that Top Cow is one of the original Image studios, and was founded by artists who were tired of being told what they could and couldn’t do with the characters they worked on.

On the other hand, Cyberforce creator Mark Silvestri is still the CEO of the company. So to the extent that he shapes company policy, it’s still a matter of the character’s creator asserting control. For now, anyway. If he ever leaves Top Cow, they’ll be in a similar situation to Marvel without Stan Lee.

It does make me wonder how things will play out with all the various creator-owned characters in the long run. 70 years from now, will someone be licensing, say, The Savage Dragon from Eric Larsen’s estate the way DC is doing The Spirit?

I’m also really curious as to what Joe Casey had in mind that Top Cow didn’t want to do.

Wait…What? The Flash and the Baby Raffle (Golden Age Hijinks)

I’ve got a saved search set up at eBay that lets me know when Golden-Age Flash comics show up in my price range. It’s been a while since I actually bought one, though. Most of them are either too expensive or contain stories I’ve already read, either through reprints or through my own small Golden-Age collection.

Flash Comics #45Anyway, several books showed up in this morning’s email, and I checked them against my want-list and already-read list. Then I looked up the one that I didn’t recognize, Flash Comics #45. Comics.org has a synopsis of the Flash story, “Blessed Event:”

Jay wins a baby in a raffle and it immediately becomes a headache for himself [trying to explain it to Joan], and to the Flash, when the baby turns out to be a midget crook!

Leaving aside the silliness of an adult dwarf being able to pass as an infant (a premise that doesn’t seem to have gone away, being the basis of the 2006 Wayans Brothers film, Little Man), consider the fact that Jay Garrick wins a baby in a raffle.

Seriously. Even in 1943, who thought that raffling off children to the hero was a good idea for a setup?

Midget Joe in his second appearance.It’s probably an oversimplication.

But then, this is the same series where the Flash’s dimwitted sidekicks buy a restaurant and accidentally turn people invisible when they use an alien plant in their salads. (To top things off, it ties into the otherwise-serious origin of the Thinker.) The Silver Age had its share of goofy stories, but it’s got nothing on the Golden Age for sheer silliness.

Believe it or not, “Midget Joe” (as his name is given) actually comes back in Flash Comics #61, one of the issues I’ve read. The criminal escapes from prison, then hides out in a children’s hospital ward. Unfortunately for him, the Flash is performing magic tricks to cheer up the patients, but the hero doesn’t recognize him at first…

Flash in Wednesday Comics Preview

Flash Wednesday Comics ThumbAt The Source, DC has posted the first page of the Flash strip from Wednesday Comics by Brenden Fletcher and Kerl Kerschl! The story stars Barry Allen, Iris West and Gorilla Grodd.

As you can see by the layout, each page is basically the size of four standard comic book pages.

Wednesday Comics starts tomorrow and will run weekly for the next 12 weeks.

This Week (July 8): Wednesday Comics Launch

It’s another light week, with just one Flash appearance coming out (and one Kid Flash)…but it’s the first issue of Wednesday Comics, DC’s experimental newspaper-sized weekly series that runs through the summer.

Wednesday Comics #1

Wednesday ComicsIn July, DC Comics gives a fresh twist to a grand comics tradition with Wednesday Comics, a new, weekly 12-issue series by some of the greatest names in comics today!

Wednesday Comics is unique in modern comics history: Reinventing the classic weekly newspaper comics section, it is a 16-page weekly that unfolds to a sprawling 28” x 20” tabloid-sized reading experience bursting with mind-blowing color, action and excitement, with each feature on its own 14” x 20” page.

Spearheaded by DCU Editorial Art Director Mark Chiarello, whose past editing credits include Batman: Black & White, DC: The New Frontier and Solo, each page of Wednesday Comics spotlights the continuing adventures of DC heroes, including:

  • Batman, Wednesday Comics’ weekly cover feature, by the Eisner Award-winning 100 BULLETS team of writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso
  • Adam Strange, by writer/artist Paul Pope (Batman: Year 100)
  • Metamorpho, written by New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman with art by Eisner Award-winner Michael Allred (Madman)
  • The Demon and Catwoman, written by Walter Simonson (Thor, Manhunter) with art by famed DC cover artist Brian Stelfreeze
  • Deadman, written by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck, art by Dave Bullock
  • Kamandi, written by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Green Lantern Corps) with art by Ryan Sook (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Arkham Asylum: Living Hell)
  • Superman, written by John Arcudi (The Mask) with art by Lee Bermejo (Joker)
  • Wonder Woman, written and illustrated by Ben Caldwell (Dare Detectives)
  • Green Lantern, written by Kurt Busiek (Trinity, Astro City) with art by Joe Quiñones (Teen Titans Go!)
  • Teen Titans, written by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway
  • Supergirl, written by Jimmy Palmiotti (Jonah Hex) with art by Amanda Conner (Power Girl)
  • Hawkman, written and illustrated by Kyle Baker (Plastic Man, Special Forces)
  • Sgt. Rock, written by Adam Kubert (Superman: Last Son), illustrated by legendary comics artist Joe Kubert
  • The Flash, written by Karl Kerschl (Teen Titans: Year One, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive) and Brenden Fletcher, illustrated by Karl Kerschl
  • Metal Men, written by Dan DiDio with art by Ian Churchill (Supergirl)

Wednesday Comics will arrive in stores folded twice to 7” x 10”, with the first issue set to reach stores on July 8.

7” x 10”, 16 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Booster Gold #22

Booster Gold #22Written by Keith Giffen; co-feature written by Matthew Sturges; Art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund; co-feature Art by Mike Norton; Cover by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund

“Day of Death” part 2! Booster Gold travels back in time to prevent the Black Beetle from killing the New Titans, but who will save Booster Gold from the Black Beetle — and what role will Deathstroke play?

And in the all-new Blue Beetle co-feature, Jaime must battle a flying robot army from destroying all of the people in El Paso!

40pg – $3.99 US

Note: This slipped my notice the first time through, but Booster Gold is going back to the time when Wally West was on the team as Kid Flash. Also: Newsarama has a preview of the issue.

Speed Reading: Gearing Up for Wednesday Comics

Some linkblogging for a Monday, first with a couple of general links:

Comics in Crisis is running a series on Cartoon Heroes. The first installment includes video clips from the Filmation cartoons from the 1960s (which I reviewed when it came out on DVD) and Super-Friends.

Toys R Us will have (among other items) an exclusive Flash action figure at Comic-Con International.

Wednesday Comics

The Weekly Crisis wants to know: Will you be buying Wednesday Comics?

Karl Kerschl is running a contest: He’s hidden an image of The Abominable Charles Christopher in a panel of the Flash story in Wednesday Comics (he’s not saying which week). When you spot it, email him a photo of yourself pointing to the yeti, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for an original sketch.

When Worlds Collide’s Timothy Callahan is wildly enthusiastic about the series, and compares it to Solo. He also notes that the reasons he liked Solo and is looking forward to Wednesday Comics — get a bunch of top-tier artists and writers and let them loose on DC’s characters — is exactly why Solo sold so poorly.

Speaking of Solo, I didn’t buy every issue, but I did pick up three or four. I bought the ones by artists I wanted to read. Darwyn Cooke, Sergio Aragonés, I forget who else.