The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

Another week brings another copy of what might be my new favourite reason to hit the comic shop; Wednesday Comics. Just sucks I have to get it on Friday, would taste so much sweeter on the titular day.

For those who don’t know, Wednesday Comics is a new experiment by DC to put out a braodsheet newspaper with fifteen comics in it, but only one page of each title per week. Last week I picked up the first one because I had heard some good press and I was not disappointed. This week proved interesting because it turned things around with the title.

Last week I gave Batman and Superman big wraps, with Metamorpho just sneaking through for the win with a fantastic few lines of innuendo that I found pretty brave, and funny. This week things change.

Batman remains cool, but does not have the same punch as it’s intro did. Nonetheless it is a good strip and I do not deduct any points for it. I like that this is the lead-in, sets up the tone and expectation very well.

Superman is also good, but like Batman rings a different bell. It’s a moment between Supes and the cowled one, Batman. It’s a good moment and easily this is the best looking Superman I have ever seen.

Kamandi is pretty awesome, possibly even better than last week, the same with Deadman. Both get through the intro of the character and build some nice movement and progression of the story.

The Flash, with it’s dissected page impressed me more again this week. It has a nice relationship between the two strips, with the Iris West strip not lacking anything and standing up to the more ‘heroic’ side of the page.

Supergirl continued the awesomely cute story and I think I like it for what it is, which some fanboys seem to have a hard time doing. This is very much a child’s story, but there is still fun there for adults. I definitely up my score for this on.

Green Lantern upped the ante a little, and I love the art to pieces, but I feel that more could be happening. It does have a nice set-up for next week that I hope is brutally capitalised on.

Metal Men is growing on me, and I like the action, the very bad puns and the punchline to see what happens next week.

I really love the structure of Wonder Woman. It takes me ages to read and I feel like I am getting so much. It’s very cool.

Metamorpho let me down a bit with one major panel that didn’t give me much on story, dialogue or smutty entendre. A drop in scale for this one, I’m afraid.

Sgt. Rock offered more but still hasn’t completely drawn me in. I just need a bit more hook and worm in my mouth before I’ll bite. Same with Teen Titans, the art is muddled and leaves me wondering and I am not drawn in at all, sadly. Catwoman/The Devil also hasn’t grabbed my by the collar and made me take notice.

Which leaves two for the win this week.
Hawkman steps up with a pretty cool progression of things and one wicked sequence that made me laugh, stop, read through it again, and laugh again. Loved it. That thumbs up pays off well, and the look on his face is priceless.

But how much does he work on those triceps, my god, must have been rocking the European Reach Around before it ever became popular.

The other win, and what I think might just be the genius in the book that I didn’t quite get last week, was Strange Tales. This is where DC has shown this to be a winning idea. I have never really seen Paul Pope’s work before, but I would be very tempted to go out now and see what his Batman: Year 100 looks like. He draws a mean serial and I am hooked with how much he fits into each page, and each panel. This intro is exactly what one should want from this experiment.

In all, Wednesday Comics has proven to be another winner this week and I could not be happier to read it. It makes me glad to be a comic reader, at the forefront and getting this as it happened, not just hearing about it later.

In other reading news, Incognito gave me what might have been my favourite issue so far. It seemed that every page I turned offered up two more pages, and it would not end, in the best possible way. Cannot wait to see how this all ends, because the cliffhanger was a doozy.

Justin Greenwood continues to rock the shit with Resurrection. He won me over with one small reaction panel that just captured the mood and essence of the character so well.

I also picked up the first issue of Dark Horse’s Creepy. It was good, but expensive, and I’m not entirely sure that I’d check it out again. But it was well worth the experiment.

It was a good week for comics, and gave me one hell of an afternoon after I had to go for a departmental interview for my job. Interview went well, though I did feel like I was convincing one of the interviewers who may have been a bit of a hater to begin with, which I have no reason why, maybe hater is strong, but definitely a doubter. By the end of the interview everyone was smiling, so that’s always good news.

With respect to John Landis and Joe Hill

Posted on July 18th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: Uncategorized, comics