Broken Frontier

Those who buy their comics weekly may know of Wednesday Comics as “that weird, newspaper thing,” while those who are like me and buy trades may know of Wednesday Comics as “that really tall hardcover thing.”

Wednesday Comics has a great deal of “odd” characteristics. First, there’s the size. How this book will ever fit on a book shelf is beyond me, but this isn’t the oddest thing about this collection. It’s also an experiment in storytelling, and if you look on the back cover, you’ll see a smattering of big names in the industry.

All of these, however, are not the icing on the cake in the Odd Olympics. Wednesday Comics is a rare gem, because it screams of hype and actually delivers. Just by looking at the cover of this collection, you’ll see quotes exclaiming this book has the greatest the industry has to offer, art of epic proportions, and promises that the book is worth its fifty-dollar price tag.

These are not lies. Wednesday Comics actually does deliver, and once you crack open its awkwardly shaped cover and peer inside, it’s easy to see why.

Wednesday Comics is the result of pure love. It is love not just for comics but for an old form of news strip storytelling no longer found in today’s Sunday papers.  For readers not knowledgeable in older newspaper strips, read the introduction by Mark Chiarello, Editorial Art Director at DC.

This collection includes the fifteen twelve-page stories that were originally released over twelve weeks in a newspaper format. As described earlier, Wednesday Comics is an experiment: what if comics were released in an oversized format, nearly triple the size of a standard comic page? The result is an amazing interpretation of comic art and storytelling, plus a hint of nostalgia.

Each story features DC Comics characters, some flagship icons like Superman and Batman, but also others that some readers may be less familiar with, such as Sgt. Rock or the Metal Men.  As my knowledge of these lesser known DC characters is limited, I would initially groan when I began these stories.  However, once I was two or three pages in, I found myself glued to almost all of them. The writers and artists clearly had chosen these characters because they had a story that was original, inspiring, or simply cool to tell.

One such story that not only swept me off my feet but also stole my heart was the Kamandi story, written by Dave Gibbons and drawn by Ryan Sook. I have no knowledge of Kamandi at all, but Dave Gibbons’ old-fashioned writing style was enchanting. More enchanting was Sook’s art, which stole the show. Sook draws characters like Tiger-men and vicious Ape armies that would seem perfectly suited for an illustrated Tolkien novel.

The most interesting part of Wednesday Comics was seeing how each creative team utilized the real estate of each page. Some, as in the case of John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo’s Superman story or Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones’ Green Lantern story, used the page as though it were a poster. Panels tripled in size and the art became the attraction.  I would give my right arm for the original art for those stories. Any page would do.

Others, like Ben Caldwell with his Wonder Woman story, used the size to tell an elaborate and detailed story.  Where Joe Quinones’ Green Lantern seems giant, Caldwell’s Wonder Woman shrinks down to fit standard sized panels on a giant canvas. His pages look more like a mosaic of Greek mythology.

Other stories fit between these extremes, and some work while others don’t. The fun lies in discovering for yourself which ones you enjoy.  Don’t be surprised if you find yourself spending a span of nearly ten minutes staring at a single page, soaking in the amazing art.

As with any anthology, not every story is pure gold, but Wednesday Comics has so much to offer that it’s impossible to find this collection a waste.  Continuity fans will probably find this not worth their time, but for anyone who enjoys a good story, Wednesday Comics is a new best friend.

The Wednesday Comics collection is available at $49.99 from DC Comics.