Wednesday Comics

I want to start off this review of Wednesday Comics by letting you know that I am extremely excited to review John Byrne’s Next Men. But for the sake of posting something while I settle into some sanity, here’s a little something.

Every so often a comic book company decides to do things a little differently. Sometimes it’s awesome, like the Marvel Omnibus project which is reprinting damn near everything but the ads (which would make them PERFECT, by the way. I’m not a fan of advertising, but old comic ads are fantastic. I learned a shitload about OXY products in the 90’s that I would have otherwise missed). Other times, it’s well-meaning but kind of a waste, like Maximum Fantastic Four which reprinted the first issue of Fantastic Four with each panel blown up, sometimes taking up an entire page. The idea was that it would make readers slow down and enjoy the art and story, panel by panel. I would liken it to forcing someone to enjoy a movie by stopping it every 15 minutes and having someone come out and explain why what you just watched was awesome.

Wednesday Comics was a weekly anthology that came out in gigantic 14” X 20” broadsheet, like a newspaper comic book section. I read it in a complete hardcover volume, and I would say both were kind of idiotic in their own way.

The original, floppy printing was better as a physical object, but instead of printing an entirety of, say, Batman, each issue had on page of a story from each of the titles, 15 titles in all. So you got one page of Superman, one of Teen Titans, and so on. Just as long as you could keep track of 15 goddamn stories over a period of a year, you were set. People with human brains, like myself, found it a little frustrating.

Okay, so they learned somewhat of a lesson in the hardback format and printed the like issues back-to-back, so you could read the entirety of Metamorpho in order. However, they neglected to consider that a piece of paper this gigantic, when mounted on a hard shell, is almost impossible to read. If the page is almost two feet tall, that means the page is at least a foot away from where it would normally be in relation to your eyes. Imagine taking a full, unfolded newspaper sheet, mounting it on a rigid board, and then trying to read it. I’d rather blow my goddamn brains out, for which I would use a handgun as a shotgun would be long and unwieldly and difficult to shoot myself with. See! That’s all the thinking it takes!

I think I got about halfway before hitting this Wonder Woman story, seeing the number of tiny words on the page and saying Fuck It. Hell, look at the size of that fry box in relation. (Note: fry box may not be actual size, but is more representative of how I FELT about actual size. It’s an emotionally relative thing).

It would be nice to talk about the stories a little, but they were so tied to the format that it’s hard not to drag the idea of format into the whole thing. Some were cool, and Metamorpho by Mike Allred and Neil Gaiman was trying to do something different and had a very serial feel to it, which was appreciated. Batman by Azzarello was just a normal Batman story chopped into pieces. There was no reason for it to have been published in this format, and it’s kind of a waste when the publisher does something crazy and the creative team pumps out the same ol’ same. Thanks a lot, Bry Guy. Ever since you were not nice to me at ComiCon 2002 I’ve been waiting to get back at you, and it begins today, you writer of mill-running Batman tales. Also, you’re bald.

By the way, for fans interested in meeting this guy, here’s about what you can expect:

Hands in pockets, no smile. Google him, see how many pictures have him smiling. I’m not saying the dude’s got to be Mr. HappyAss all the time, but if you don’t want to meet people, don’t do the cons. Plus, it should also be noted that the woman in the picture is not a fan. That’s multi-Eisner award winner Jill Thompson, who seems capable of mustering a smile for the people who love her work.

Azzarello rant over. For now…

As is the case with most anthologies, whether it be literary or comic books or yet another collection of Power Ballads sold on TV for $800 bucks, I’d say the entries were 50/50 good and bad.

As an object, I’d call this one a failure. There’s just no good way to read it. You could buy all the issues and read them straight through, but then you have 15 storylines in your head. You could buy all the issues and read through, going story by story. But imagine folding and unfolding these goddamn things all day just for a shitty Batman story by a jerk who was a total…no, just imagine the paper part.

Final option, you could get the hardcover which they might as well use as the goddamn chart at the eye doctor. “Look through this lens and tell me, which makes Wonder Woman’s cleavage clearer. One, or two? One, or two?”

I appreciate anything that deviates from the norm a little, and weekly content is a plus. But Just because it’s weekly and different does not mean it’s good. See: Spider population in my apartment.