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.