At 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.
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.
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.
A few interesting notes from this weekend’s conventions, HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina and WizardWorld Philadelphia.
Newsarama’s writeup of DC Nation at HeroesCon has the most direct Flash news. Ian Sattler showed of a copy of Wednesday Comics and talked about the series:
Sattler said that the Flash story features Flash Comics on the top of the page and Iris West Comics on the bottom half, but halfway through the story, the two meet and join, as the Flash literally and figuratively “runs” into Iris’ story.
I love this idea. It’s the kind of thing that only really makes sense in a comic-book format, as well. If you did it as a movie, it would just be alternating scenes with each protagonist until they meet.
Newsarama also says that when a fan asked Ethan Van Sciver why Superboy gets a new series but Kid Flash doesn’t, the artist responded, “We’re going to make you so happy in Rebirth.”
From the way it was presented, it sounds like a non-sequitur. Presumably he means that Bart Allen will have a bigger role in the second half of the miniseries. I don’t really expect to turn to the last page of issue #6 and see a Kid Flash series announced, though certainly stranger things have happened.
The other item of interest comes from Wizard World Philadelpha. CBR’s writeup of Philly’s DC Nation included a segment in which Dan Didio talked about Teen Titans.
DiDio said fans will start seeing a more stable team starting with issue #75, adding that a “couple of returning characters are going to be coming back in”
Now, I’m probably reading too much into this, but Superboy and Kid Flash both returned pretty recently. How many Teen Titans readers would like to see them back on the team?
Update: CBR’s article on HeroesCon’s DC Nation has a few details missing from the Newsarama version.
First, Ethan Van Sciver talked more about Flash: Rebirth:
“It’s the best thing to be doing right now,” Van Sciver said. “Geoff Johns and I have a very large vision for these characters.” He said they’re planting “little tentpoles” and have big plans for Bart Allen.
This puts the other remark about Bart into context…though of course, what those plans might be remain in the “wait and see” corner.
A fan also asked EVS about the fate of Rival, and he simply said, “What happens in the Speed Force stays in the Speed Force.”
Another fan wanted Barry Allen to wear bow ties in Justice League of America, but new artist Mark Bagley declined, saying he (Bagley? Barry?) “doesn’t own a single tie.”
Seriously, what is it with the bow tie?
I’ve seen several people online talk about how they’re curious about Wednesday Comics, DC’s experiment to bring back the old full-page Sunday comics format…but that they’re going to wait for the “inevitable” collection.
The thing is, I’m not 100% certain there will be a collection. And if there is, it might not be what readers expect.
Sure, in a world where Amazons Attack gets reprinted as a hardcover book and Terror Titans gets reprinted as a trade paperback, and most comics are written in 4-6–issue story arcs, it certainly seems like everything will get collected eventually. (Except that last arc of Flash after Geoff Johns left, but then I’m not sure anyone misses it.) But two things make me wonder about this one:
The first item means that, for once, the priority isn’t on the eventual collection: it’s back on the periodical.
As for the second, let’s look at the page size in more detail.
According to solicitations, each page will be 14 inches by 20 inches. Basically, open up two comic books flat, then line them up one above the other, and you’ve got the page size. Or pick up a newspaper. (The Los Angeles Times is currently 23″ x 12″ per single page, so WC is a little shorter and a little wider than a newspaper.) If they want to keep the page size, that’s going to be a big book. Certainly hardcover, and more suited to a coffee table than a bookshelf. Like this massive 21″ x 16″ 7-pound Little Nemo in Slumberland tome. That’s larger than (and almost as heavy as) Comic Book Tattoo!
Now, consider that DC charges $50 for a ~200-page hardcover in its Archive series at normal comic book dimensions. A ~200-page hardcover with 4x the page area is likely to cost even more.
So the options I see are:
If there is a collection, it’s likely to be either very big and very expensive, or a poorer reading experience than the original.
Of course, none of this matters if the experiment fails and the series doesn’t sell well in the first place.
Update June 21: The Beat has a photo of a mock-up from Wizard World Philadelphia, demonstrating the size. CBR reports that at HeroesCon’s DC Nation, DC said they planned “both downsized and full-size trades” for the series.
Update October 12: The hardcover will be an 11×17″ coffee table book at $49.99.
Artist Karl Kerschl has posted a preview of art from his and Brenden Fletcher’s Flash strip in Wednesday Comics. The 12-part weekly series launches in July.
DC’s solicitations for July comics are up at CBR and elsewhere. In July, the Flash will show up in not only Flash: Rebirth, but Wednesday Comics, Blackest Night, Titans, JSA, The Last Days of Animal Man and more. There’s also Showcase Presents: The Flash Vol. 3 coming in August.
Written by Geoff Johns
Art and covers by Ethan Van Sciver
Barry Allen left a legacy that thrived after his death. Now his return threatens it all. What secrets does Barry hold inside him about the fate of the Flash Family? What destiny awaits Wally and his twins? What murderous force targets Bart Allen? And what does it truly mean to be a speedster?
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Ethan Van Sciver), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Ethan Van Sciver).
On sale July 22 • 4 of 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Read on for Wednesday Comics, Blackest Night, Titans, Justice Society of America and more after the cut. Continue reading