Wednesday Comics

The Hawkman stuff looks fantastic.
I dig the eclectic old school line-up.

Yeah, sounds like a winner. Be nice if they are widely available instead of the old LCS.

Hopefully DC starts going in this direction more (the ecclectic line-up of talent paired with characters, not the broadsheet format in particular), because they've been mostly suck for awhile now.

Then again, these giant crossover bastards have been easy money for them, so I expect 'em to keep digging the same rut until the market ends.

Wednesday comics are going to be showing up in USA TODAY:

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/06/15...-by-usa-today/

The talent is impressive so I suppose I'll pick it up, but the format couldn't interest me less. More than anything it seems like a step backwards. Does anyone really have nostalgic memories of reading the Sunday funnies? Anyone who isn't in their 50s or older? It doesn't seem like a big move to draw younger crowds into comics. Lastly, while I saw a sample page at my LCS and the colors look good, its still on cheap ass paper that is bound to rip as you open it. I just prefer my comics in comic book form.

Wednesday Comics looks cool, but I'm not sure I want to pay 4 dollars for a comicbook that comes out four times a month, it's too much.
Hopefully this thing will be released in some kind of tradepaperback.
(yes, I'm a cheap bastard)

The difference is it looks like a good comic book.

Great idea in theory. But they're focusing on the comic that looks the most like what the fanboys are already reading.

As odd as it sounds, the more obscure characters like Metamorpho or Kamandi would be the way to go for something like this, because they have no baggage with the general public. Presumably the appeal is opening the paper and getting a full-page, lavishly drawn comic, not the specific character. At least at first.

Newspaper strip comics have been historically HUGELY popular, and have weathered the various storms of the comics industry much better than pamphlets, so it makes sense that DC would want to move into that area. This could be a huge coup for them and really help rejuvenate the comics industry. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they're going about it the right way.

Any news on whether the Wednesday Comics pamphlet itself will be distributed anywhere besides comic book stores?

Adults who read the paper consider Funky Winkerbean provocative and you want to hit them with Kamandi?! If you're going to try to reintroduce comics into the mainstream you need to start with a recognizable character like Superman.

Agreed. People who read USA Today or going to give two shits about Kamandi. You need Superman or Batman. Whether it brings in new readers, I don't see it having much effect, unless they only give part of the story in USA Today, and say "now go buy wednesday comics to see how it ends, you cheap bastard." Even that probably wont be too effective.

They may not give a shit about Kamandi, but if the stories are there, maybe they'll learn to?

I think this is a nice idea, but the way DC delays their shit, I'm more interested in seeing if they can keep this venture alive and on time.

No, they won't.
Also, i just don't see what's wrong with running Superman anyway. It looks cooler than the last movie.

I guess so. Maybe it's not the character so much as the somewhat cluttered artwork that I'm reacting to.

And I do think there are situations in which a character without a lot of baggage could have appeal...but yeah, I guess USA Today isn't the place.

(Don't get all snobby about newspaper comics, though. As recently as 15 years ago a lot of the best comics were in newspapers--Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, Bloom County/Outland...that audience didn't turn into decrepit old bluehairs overnight. If you could get strip-style comics in front of modern kids, they'd read them, it's just question of how.)

Fuck I miss the Farside. There have been photos leaked from randomCon of some DC type reading it in front of the crowd. It's pretty big, and I like that, but it's still not enough for me to plunk down $4.99.

That's a nice look for you, Bob, though you don't seem the slightest bit impressed.

That's not me.
That's the bastard love child of George Lucas and Bill Murray.

That's the artist behind The Abominable Charles Christopher, by the way. He's going to be sneaking the title character from that webcomic into his Flash story. First person to send him a picture of themselves pointing out Charles in the comic gets an autographed sketch.

So this is apparently $3.99? Does that strike anyone else as a bad move?

Seems like they're missing a golden opportunity. But who knows, maybe casual readers will be willing to pay that much week after week if it's made available to them.

No one ever accused DC or Marvel of being the best businessmen in the world. Looking forward to picking this up on Saturday.

How do you guys think they could sustain this at just a dollar a pop?

It's a small miracle they got USA Today to pick up the Superman strip. Newspapers are dying all across the country and the comics section has been a shrinking market for over a decade now. So where else are they going to be able to sell this?

Our of the ones I've seen the pages look pretty, but read about as unsatisfying as usual newspaper comics are.

If they gave out Eisners for Best Single Line in a comic, this from Gaiman and Allred's Metamorpho would win in a walk:

"A quick blast of frozen nitrogen will take care of Sapphire's giant clam."

That's what she said!

I'll have a full review for Thor's in a few days, but having read this I have to repeat: as an attempt to reel in new readers, I'm skeptical as to its effectiveness. Maybe if it were being circulated in places where casual readers might buy it. And it were cheaper. Maybe.

Anyway, it's visually dazzling, and as far as these things go, the only failures are Wonder Woman (too cluttered) and Teen Titans (too confusing to non-continuity buffs). And even those may very well improve. I loved the Kamandi, Metamorpho and Adam Strange strips as homages to various old-fashioned adventure strips, Batman actually worked as a nod to noir detective strips (Deadman is much the same, and with better setup for inexperienced readers) and Flash is a hoot. I liked the idea of doing Green Lantern as a rehash of The New Frontier. Superman is a bit "eh" but the cliffhanger's kind of intriguing.

Most of these suffer from being pure setup, but the art is astounding on every single one. It's more interesting as an artifact than as a series of stories, but it still would be worth buying if it wasn't so damn expensive.

Mike Sterling claims he had some new faces in to buy it, so there's that. I doubt it'll have a consistent fanbase outside the usual pool, but who knows. Maybe DC just wants to have huge sales to report so they can shop it around in other markets.

As I remarked to a coworker earlier today, it's like McSweeney's got a license to publish DC Comics.

What the...I believe I was trying to say "Out of the ones I've seen." And after reading it, I still have to agree. I mean they could have had this in regular size and called it "1st Pages" or something. It's just a very unsatisfying way to read a story. Like I said most of them are pretty, but only some of them really delivered. I liked the Deadman one, and the Metamorpho one, and the Flash one. Thats about all I can recall right now.

Yeah, that's sort of what I was trying to say when I said that Superman, etc. weren't the best characters to use.

But I don't see any reason they couldn't make an attempt to stock this in drugstores and newstands, and there's no way they HAVE to charge $3.99 for this. I don't buy it. Even if printing costs really are that high (which I'm pretty sure they aren't, especially for a major publisher like DC which must have a variety of deals in place for bulk printing), they could stock some ads in there to defray costs. This should be a loss leader to bring in new people, or to get people into the comic store every week, and even then I'm sure they can make a small profit.

The current layout seems to derive from the same mentality that gives us event comics--make a big splash and cash in in the short term. But if the idea is to create an appointment comic that can last over the long term, I think they're going about it wrong.

Yeah, this is the next in DC's "weekly event series" (in the tradition of 52, Countdown, Trinity), so I have a feeling right now they're mainly content to sell this the same way they did their other weekly series...for one thing, these are tailor-made for the Direct Market, despite the newspaper angle...the title is "Wednesday Comics" after all, and only dorks like us know the connection btwn Wednesdays and comics. USA Today may be running the Superman strip every week, but I seriously doubt that's going to translate to noticeable higher interest in retail comic book stores.

I agree they could sell it better and wider. I also think the format is turning off some retailers (of the two in my town, one under-ordered and the other just-plain didn't order any, the rationale being that the demand for comics in newspaper form--plus, not tied into any of DC's mainstream events--would be small). I believe the first issue is available for re-order, though, so there's potential for a lot of stores to up their orders accordingly...I have no idea how well it sold this first week, though.

I'm curious to see how they'll eventually package these in a collected format.

My LCS had the guys behind the Deadman strip there signing on Wednesday. I can't give a shit about autographs anyway, but it seems even more ill conceived to have something printed on newspaper signed with a sharpie.

How do you know they didn't?
I would imagine it would be a very hard sell.
"It's just like a newspaper, you see, but you have to keep it out for at least a month. So it's more like a comic book but it won't sit properly in any of your magazine racks or shelves. And it's completely unproven. So how many would you like?"

Also, drugstores and newsstands? Let's try to get them in speakeasies and shoeshine stands while we're at it.

I haven't seen regular old comic books in a 7-Eleven since the Image days.

Also, magazine and newspaper outlets aren't very good at selling magazines and newspapers. I don't think they're the answer for comics.

Well, if any industry is booming now its the newspaper industry...what we really need is more things that look like newspapers.

Why is everyone treating this like it was supposed to lure new readers to comics?
The entire reason Chiarello put this together is because he thought it would be really cool. That's it.

They put it in USA Today, which suggests they're trying to grab new readers. And that really really ought to be the comic industry's top priority right now, so I tend to see everything the big comic companies do through that lens.

They've produced a newspaper-like comic broadsheet. I don't see what it would hurt them to try and sell it alongside newspapers.

Thing looks pretty great, and you gotta love it when companies try something new (even if it is retro). Also, so far the stories seem to be throwbacks and a bit fun and interesting. I will stick with it as long as the stories are interesting.

Also, this is the first bit of super hero comics I have bought for myself in a very long time (all the other super hero stuff I have been buying are Johnny DC books for my son). So in that way they have made an older reader pick up an actual super hero piece.

From Paul Pope's Twitter feed:

It's in the print edition only once, then online for the rest of the story. And I think that's more about keeping the Superman brand out there as opposed to building new readership.
It's not DC and Marvel's top priority, nor should it be from a financial point of view. Their comics are losing money while their other platforms are cleaning up. From a fan point of view I agree. But it's just not gonna happen. If the comic industry, outside of the Big 2, want more readers they will do it without superheroes.

My comic shop is offering a money back guarantee if you don't like it, that's how much the owner loves it and believes in it.

The second Superman one is up at USAToday's website and it just feels like there is so many things wrong with it.