Six weeks ago, DC Comics unleashed one of the most ingenious ideas
to hit the stands in years. While publishers everywhere are rushing to
make books smaller, digital and more portable, DC boldly released
Wednesday Comics, a giant-ass newspaper-sized collection of
superhero comic strips by some of today’s biggest stars. This
delightful format pays tribute to the proud-yet-dying tradition of the
Sunday comics section of the newspaper, but as the name suggests, it is
released on Wednesdays with the rest of the week’s new books. The
12-issue weekly publication not only gives us some writer/artist dream
teams, it allows creators to play with under-used DC characters (like
Paul Pope’s Adam Strange, or Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred’s Metamorpho).
Though not every strip is a winner, there’s definitely a lot of fun
on these pages, and they are fun to read. Wednesday Comics #6 hits stands this week.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2009.