There’s been a bit of a back and forth about Wednesday Comics after I snarked about them here.
I haven’t really looked at Wednesday Comics that closely, I have to admit…basically because it’s too much of a time and money commitment. I am interested in some of the creators (Kyle Baker definitely; Neil Gaiman and Brian Azzarello sort of; the Wonder Woman strip a little bit.) But there’s no way I’m going to the comics shop every week and spending $4 for a couple of pages of a couple of comics I might be interested in. Cost/benefit wise, it just doesn’t even come close. I sort of hope the Baker Hawkman comes out in a trade I guess…but otherwise, eh, I’ll live without it.
In general, I also find the whole project a little depressing. And the reason I find it depressing is precisely because, you know, this really is innovative. It’s a fairly ballsy effort to get a bunch of top notch creators working in an unusual format. It’s kind of going out on a limb in terms of delivery and marketing and aesthetics. By the standards of mainstream comics, it’s fairly visionary, I guess.
And yet…it’s also just incredibly staid. You’ve got all these folks who are supposed to be the best in the bizness with an exciting new format…and yet they’re using the same damn characters that are in all the other titles. And you’ve got the same kind of stories, pretty much, without much effort to adapt to the different medium — that is, serialized pulp, which, personally, I think is a pretty dumb way to go when you’ve only got a single page at a time. (It sounds like they’re trying to do something somewhat different with WW; more power to them.) And the gimmick, the hook, the nifty twist, is entirely aimed at the most insular audience possible. It’s all for people who are already obsessed with comics, right? People who go to the store every week, without fail. Even the title is a lame inside nudge — “Wednesday Comics — get it? Because comics come out every Wednesday!” I don’t know…I mean the old anthology titles (“Action! Amazing! Awesome Sauce!”) were kind of ridiculous, obviously, but at least they were trying to pander to a broad audience. Kids like action; kids like amazing; kids like awesome sauce. Who the hell likes Wednesdays especially? And, yes, I know the answer to that one, and, as I said, it’s depressing.
In short, for DC, “innovative and exciting!” doesn’t mean reaching out to a new audience. Instead it means taking a chance on crawling further up their own navels. And I’ll give them this; Wednesday comics looks infinitely better than Blackest Night or Marvel Zombies. Chalk one up for innovation. Yay team.
I think the "Wednesday Comics" has nothing to do with Action or Awesome Sauce…but with Sunday newspapers. "Sunday Comics"…but this comes out on Wednesday…therefore "Wednesday Comics". I don't think the title is supposed to excite anyone (in terms of content)–it's just a format reference to Sunday Comics of yore. So…it's basically nostalgia, but at least it's not nostalgia for Silver Age Superman (or whoever), which DC does ad infinitum, but nostalgia for a different format. I know you're not so big on nostalgia of any stripe, but the title isn't meant to gear you up in the way you seem to suggest….
And WC has its moments…Kamandi actually probably works best because it isn't really just the "same old characters" and it has something in common with old Prince Valiant/Tarzan style strips…
In the end, WC is something of a squandered opportunity to invent new characters and new/old ways of telling stories. Why they have to trot out so many of the standard characters is beyond me. Obviously Bats and Supes will help it sell to the Wednesday comic store set, but some new characters/types of stories wouldn't be too impossible, I wouldn't think. They've also squandered their link to USA Today by giving them one of the worst strips-Superman.
Still…it is something different, and because brief (12 weeks) I was willing to give it a shot, which is more than I can say for almost any other comic (Morrison's Batman and Robin is the only other title I'm buying).
I've found that, for DC, bold and innovative either means:
1) violence towards women (if you've read Val D'Orazio's book you'd REALLY get it)
2) violence
3) bringing back dead characters for vague reasons
4) killing off rather large characters for literally no reason
5) bringing back dead characters from 20-30 yeas ago for vague reasons and then not explaining who the fuck they are at all
6) destroying the few three dimensional characters they have for the sake of shaking things up
Not to mention, in 50 years, exactly how many characters have actually received ANY kind of character development?
I like that people at DC are willing to toy with the medium, even if only in a superficial way. There's very little experimentation with how comics are published. Even the "artsy" publishers don't really mess with the codex format.
R.C. – Some do. Picturebox plays around with the notion of comics-as-art-object – But, yeah, mostly this is the province of DIY or mini-comics.
Personally – And I am buying Wednesday comics every week – I'm fine with people using the old characters – It's a DC comics release, it's probably gonna be pulp derived action, generally with Batman in it. That's cool with me.
What bugs me is that it's not very good – It's often quite pretty, but the writers simply aren't trained in using this kind of space, so 9 times outta ten you get something like
GREEN LANTERN –
(Eight panels of people sitting around in a bar.)
Optimally, I'd like some kind of resolution at the end of each strip, ala Peanuts, or Calvin and Hobbes. But at this point I'd just settle for the writers taking the time to ADVANCE THE FUCKING PLOT.
On the other hand: Y'know what? I'm perfectly happy paying two bucks a piece for one big page of artwork by Joe Kubert and Paul Pope. I think of everything else as a "bonus."
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're arguing that innovation and excitement are impossible in stories that feature popular, iconic characters. And then you argue that innovation can't be achieved unless the experiment reaches a wider readership. But if the best way to reach a wider readership is through popular, iconic characters…ruh roh.
Maybe "innovative" and "broadly appealing" are meaningless criteria to judge the work by, the only accessible questions when you haven't read the material. In fact, you toss out the only really worthwhile subject for criticism (the stories themselves) in the second paragraph. So the rest is just…a travelogue of your assumptions?
I know it's an impossibly high standard…but if I look at a couple of pages, and I'm fucking bored, I tend not to want to waste my time or my $16 a month. I guess that makes me unqualified to discuss the matter, but what can you do.
And yeah, I can see how it's impossible to reach a broader audience except with the same characters. That's why Twilight is all about Aquagirl.
"yet they're using the same damn characters that are in all the other titles."
Y'know, like The Metal Men, Metamorpho, Demon Etrigan, Kamandi, Deadman and… Iris West??? — textbook staples when it comes to superhero comics.
FRIGGIN' NOT!
Sheesh.
One could actually go in the exact opposite direction with this argument. DC Comics got these great creators to show off what comics can do, and they picked some rather obscure characters that might alienate mainstream consumers.
There's classic formats, like the aforementioned Prince Valiant-styled Kamandi and Iris West's Mary Worth-format — then there's layouts so challenging, even an older comics fan such as myself has had trouble with the order (Ben Caldwell's an amazing artist, but he needs to read Understanding Comics, phew).
Fact is, IT'S JUST THE RIGHT BALANCE. Nothing to complain about, thus a non-story and then not worth blogging about. So let's make something up!
You know you're about to read something insightful when it basically begins… I haven't even read these, but…
~Dakota
"The Metal Men, Metamorpho, Demon Etrigan, Kamandi, Deadman and… Iris West"
Wow! You're right! It's not like all those characters have been around for 40, 50 years at all!
You know you've crawled into the butt of the mainstream and died when you think reviving the Metal Men qualifies as cutting edge.