Giant Robots in Japan

The Comicsvine website recently posted this article about Japan's unique way of celebrating the 30th annivarsary of one of it's most popular Anime Mecha series Mobile Suit Gundam by constructing a 60ft model of the first Gundam mecha (the RX-78 Gundam) it was recently completed and is now standing over Odaiba's Shiokaze Park where it will live for the next few months. It looks amazing and at first I thought it was made of some kind of metal, however while it does have a steel frame its actually covered with a hard plastic.

Its an interesting way to celebrate a franchise's 30th annivarsary, the original Mobile Suit Gundam series may have finished years ago but the stories are still a part of the anime genre with a dozen other Gundam series being made over the years. Most of these series are similar to the story told in Mobile Suit Gundam (a colony citizen is forced into piloting a new type of Mobile Suit in order to protect his friends or colony but soon becomes involved in the escalating war between the two sides who are fighting) while others like G Gundam (which was created for Mobile Suit Gundam's 15th annivarsary) take a different route (in that series the Mobile Suits are used as fighters to battle one another to determine who will rule the Earth).

While the original Mobile Suit Gundam series isn't available for viewing in the UK the episodes were edited into three compilation movies which are available on DVD. The 2002 series Gundam SEED and it's sequel Gundam SEED Destiny was seen as an adaptation of sorts of the original series for a modern audience.

Despite being around for 30 years the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise has yet to have a feature length animated movie (there is a live action film called G-Saviour, however Gundam co-creator Yoshiyuki Tomino voiced his disapproval of the project) originally Gundam SEED was going to have a movie made set after it's second series Gundam SEED Destiny however the project has been put on hiatus. The latest Gundam series (Gundam 00) is set to be the first Gundam series to have a movie released in 2010.

Doing Weekly Comics Strongly

You have to praise DC Comics for having guts, since 2006 DC have released a 52 week long series every year on time and with varying degrees of success (52, Countdown To Final Crisis and Trinity) this year however, they have changed their weekly comic (Wednesday Comics) not only in length (12 issues over 12 weeks instead of 52 issues over 52 weeks) but they have also changed the format as well.

Instead of the traditional comic format Wednesday Comics is about the size of a newspaper broadsheet (28" x 20") cleverly folded in the disguise of a normal comic (7" x 10"). It looks like a pull out comic strip section of a newspaper (like the Scottish Sunday Post) Wednesday Comics has 15 one page stories featuring ongoing adventures of some well known DC heroes like Superman, Batman and The Flash as well as the less well know characters like Kamandi and Adam Strange and written and drawn by some of DC's top talent like writer Kurt Busiek (who had recently finished scripting the latest weekly comic Trinity) author Neil Gaiman and Watchmen artist and former Green Lantern Corps writer Dave Gibbons as well as art from Amanda Connor (currently drawing Power Girl), Mike Alldred and legendary comic artist Joe Kubert as well as many others.

The great thing about Wednesday Comics is that it is completely accessible, you don't need to know whats going on in DC Comics to pick it up and read it. Most of the strips have a Silver Age feel to them, largely due to the colouring which has a that 60's retro feel to it (especially with The Flash strip) and because of the size of the comic, the images have a bit more space to breathe without being attacked for space by the word balloons the only exception to this is the Wonder Woman strip which feels cluttered.

Overall the first issue of Wednesday Comics has some interesting setups and what look to be fun stories, USA Today has already announced it will upload the Superman tale every week on their website (Week 1 is already online) which is great for those who can't get to a comic shop every week but the comic is something I will be grabbing every week because it is a bold and different way to read and enjoy comics.