The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

I’m not the DC comics reader. In fact, I don’t currently read any of their business in monthlies, but they do get me through trades a fair deal, but that’s mostly through their Vertigo imprint. That vertical VERTIGO stamp on the spines is nearly as ubiquitous as the vertical MARVEL stamp is on the shelf above.

So why did I buy Wednesday Comics, a twelve week experiment with a page for each of the mostly known DC properties? I have never cared about Superman, and never heard of the Metal Men. What was I thinking?

Well, I was thinking that it was a great premise. One broadsheet newspaper page per character, twelve installments to each story. The large pages were a great idea and I liked some of the names associated. But, it was a few of the names I didn’t at first know that kept me in the game.

I read the first issue three months ago and I was prepared to give it a go but not mindlessly adding it just because. I read the first issue and the experience of it all meant I wanted to be in it. I liked holding that large page in front of me and getting lost in twelve stories for the price of one issue. I didn’t mind that you only got a little bit each week. I like watching teev shows on dvd, but there’s something to be said for tuning in each week. Comics can be good in trade, but there is that love of coming back each month that makes me a weekly/bi-weekly visitor to my local. You get time to digest, you get time to discuss, and you get time to anticipate. LOST is my favourite teev show and I have to say that I love watching it for the first time once a week. I need the time to think about it all, wonder what will happen next and then get pumped for the next one. It’s all part of the process.

So the experience of that broadsheet in front of me was enough to get me into week two of the experiment. But then some unexpected things happened. Sure, I was loving the different artwork, and every week provided at least a few killer moments, but soon I found I was in the story. I wanted to know what would happen next as much as I wanted to see how it was given to me. These were characters I had either never heard of, or never read, or never wanted to read, and I was hooked.

It’s over now and I have to say that it was a success. They are talking about doing it again next year and I have to say I hope they don’t. I would not be a certain addition to that title because it’s a big commitment of money and I don’t know if I’m up for that. I like the novelty, but when you eat ice cream for every meal soon you crave something else. Maybe even health food. I don’t want to get sick of this, and I don’t want to see something rushed together. That would suck. This was good, it had it’s weak links, but overall I have come out of it smiling and happy. I don’t want to be rushed into the next dance. Let me go to the bar and talk to the boys about it first. And I know that they are talking about next year, but man, it’s like event fatigue, don’t just cash in on it because you can, take the time and get it all aligned first.

I have to give a rundown on how it all went. I’ll discuss my favourites down to the least impressive, to me. I think my views are kind of unique, as unique as anyone is on the wwInterweb, because I am not a DC kid. A lot of this was new territory for me and I wasn’t beholden to a lot of stuff. So, here it goes;

The strips that I enjoyed, in alphabetical order, were:
Batman
Deadman
The Flash
Hawkman
Kamandi
Metal Men
Metamorpho
Strange Adventures
Supergirl
Wonder Woman

The strips that really didn’t grab me, in same order, were:
The Demon and Catwoman
Green Lantern
Sgt. Rock
Superman
Teen Titans

I’ll whip through the bad ones first so I can then end on a good note.

I just have no idea what happened. Easily the strip of each week that not only did I not enjoy, but I dreaded getting to. I read it because I paid my money for the rest, so why not take a few minutes to do it, and I wanted to give it a chance each week to get more penetrable, but it never happened. I didn’t know who most of the people were without having to stop and think about it. The artwork just didn’t seem to have any direction or action to it, I was constantly lost. The story seemingly went nowhere and barely had a conclusion. In all, I give this a massive fail, which I feel bad about because everyone on the wwInterweb has done the same thing and I don’t want to drink the Hatorade too, but this was really something that I could not like. I would not inflict it upon anyone else, and I’d even say, to the lay fan, to skip this page if they really wanted to enjoy the experience.

This had some serious promise, and I would like to see Catwoman again in this sort of experiment because I think something great could be done with her, but it most certainly wasn’t done here. The story didn’t have any motivation and each week left me thinking pure and plain ol’ meh. A real shame, I can’t say what went wrong with the creators other than inspiration really didn’t seem to strike. Oh, well.

This was just too slow paced for me. A better author could have covered all of this in about one or two pages. Three max. Nothing happened each week, the layout wasn’t used to take advantage of the full page spread at all. They just enlarged the panels and font but still the same amount of each. Very disappointing. Very disappointing indeed.

This one just didn’t fire for me. Too many week’s used as set up for the next week, which was then a set up for something that would actually pay off after the next set up. Words and scenes needed to be chosen more carefully and layered in more craftily. This was another one where I didn’t hate reading it, but it just never grabbed me at all. There were a few killer moments, but you need more than one or two over three months to make me praise you. But the one moment they had, “One invasion, one Green Lantern” was pretty kick ass. I’ll give kudos for that.

This story just tread water like a duck with an anchor put down. It started so good, I loved the first week’s strip, it actually got me excited. But then the next two months were just navel-gazing drivel. And I know that was part of the story, but if I wrote a story about how a curse depowered Daredevil and made him a boring guy I wouldn’t than stick with that boring guy for two months just to prove a point, would I? No. This gets the jump on Green Lantern purely because I liked the art so much, and it did get good any time those aliens were on screen. Great designs on them.

So, that’s the stuff that could really have been improved, or excluded. Only a few, considering there were fifteen titles running at once. So now let’s go praise the good.

Man, I enjoyed this, and it had it’s moments, but something just doesn’t sit as a whole. I think that once a writer gets full of their own self-importance all I can read is their smug grin on a page. It was well executed, but it left me feeling hollow and used afterward. Which was a shame because this really did have its moments and the art was pretty damn awesome in so many places. This makes the good pile, but it only steadily brings up its rear.

I had never heard of these guys before but I liked the strip. There were puns aplenty and each week left me wondering what would happen next. Not every strip in this series needed to be the same noir grim and gritty thing. Each strip did its own thing, filled its own niche and that’s where the genius was. There was a little something for everyone, and this one was definitely something for someone. I liked the art and I thought the writing was pretty good. Not perfection, but damn well earnest and enjoyable.

This almost comes under the banner of being too self-important. Too smug, but not quite. The story line had its moments, drifting here and there and taking its time a few too many times, but overall an interesting arc, even if the conclusion sat a little flat. The moments surely made it worth it, and the art was good, even if it did look a little bled out. Again, something for everyone, and each art style was something else from the others. Watching Hawkman battle the T-Rex was pretty much worth the price of admission if nothing else.

I have never liked Wonder Woman as a character. She just doens’t appeal to me, but this one was kind of cool. She wasn’t all hardcore Amazon, I’m your queen WW, she was just some chick getting drawn into it all. The story was good, if a tad confusing at times, but I place this strip here because I respect the goddamn balls it took to do this the way it was done. Upwards of 60 panels on a page, a massive page, and different forms of pacing and lines to follow. There was genius hidden here and people didn’t like it because it made you take your time, because it made you think. These are the fanboys that obviously like their decompression, yet probably still piss and moan about it on fan boards everywhere. This strip was something different and though not perfect I appreciate someone willing to do it and not compromise their unique vision. And not just that, it was enjoyable, and I felt like I got my money’s worth on this page every week. This was one of the few that I felt took the medium it was given and tried something that could not have been done in a normal comic, which most of the others really could have.

This shocked me at how much I liked it. All dialogue and story was placed above the panel and the art spoke for itself. The story was good, it constantly moved along and gave me more. I liked this story, but there was not as much love as others have given. I will admit that is personal choice. I am not saying anything is better than something else, I’m just stating what I liked the most. And I liked Kamandi, for nearly every reason, but there were a few others that touched me a little more.

Another character I had no history with but I liked the combined writing and artwork on each page. The story moved around, the characters changed, and I always had something to stop and enjoy on this strip. The one whole page splash was so worked out and effective that I stopped for a long time to admire it, close up and far away. It was like some crazy Frazetta poster run through a four-colour filter. It was a stroke of genius that I admired, unlike another strip’s one page splashes that stunk of laziness and duty.

This strip was good. There’s no doubt about it. This strip was a solid noir Batman story that fit the 12 pages well. Yeah, it could easily have been expanded upon to give a little more light to a lot more sections, but we didn’t necessarily need it all. Brevity of everything made this one sing along. I think it benefitted from being read each week, and it probably won’t be as effective in trade, none of it really will, but this one will prticularly struggle. I liked thinking about it afterwards and though the story is a short space of time, in places, you got that moment of pause and reflection. It was nice.

Now the top three, and I have them in order, but man there wasn’t much in it at all, and I guess I liked all three for different reasons and totally see them as equal top, just in their respective fields. Like trying to ask which is better, Chasing Amy, The Thing or Taxi Driver. They’re all awesome, but all in different ways.

Each week I fell more in love. Each week more was thrown into the pot and they made it work. Each week it got better and better. The art matched the writing and everyone came out a winner. Supergirl was played for cuteness and you just wanted to jump in the page and help her out with her troubles. The ultimate kid’s strip that played great for adults. The cameos were great, particularly Aquaman, who Palmiotti said he modelled kind of on Denis Leary in Rescue Me, which is an inspired choice. And I liked where the story went and how it all wrapped up. Probably my favourite final panel for any of the strips.

Paul Pope did a hell of a job here on both writing and art duties. The story is interesting but it was the art that I could not pull away from. The way he drew things I had never seen before was amazing. The detail he adds and the moments he builds are spectacular. This story will look great together, but it will never look as good as it did on the massive page when I held it up. Gorgeous. It’s just a shame that I hate the way he draws lips. Up there with Steve Dillon for worst lips ever.

This comic was pretty kick ass, and that’s not something I would have ever thought I would say about Flash, or Gorilla Grodd(???). The story continued to sink into density and I was won over like a nerd seeing a hot girl with her shirt undone working over test tubes and a bunsen burner the size of a small tiger. The amount of ideas and concepts that were snuck into twleve large pages was fantastic. This thing hit for the fence and pretty much cleared it. It just got better and it didn’t even matter that the ending was kind of skipped, whatever, the journey getting there kept giving you something else each week. Innovation, concept, storytelling, this one had it all.

That’s my breakdown. In the end the only thing that matters is the answer to this question.

Did I enjoy it?

Damn skippy, I did.

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: comics