The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

I’ve been meaning to mention this one ever since it was announced. DC comics are particularly fond of the summer event idea and are also rather fond of the idea of weekly comics. Now normally I have to say I find the whole idea rather horribly drowning in dense continuity, but the latest summer weekly series looks rather special indeed. And it’s special simply because it’s being sold on two important factors: the talent involved and an innovative yet nostalgic form.

Wednesday Comics is a weekly done in tabloid form to recapture a little of the old glory of nostalgia for the Sunday cartoon pages, folded to fit on the shelves (so good luck finding mint copies all you collector types) and with 15 features, one per huge page. But it’s the talent that really marks it out as special. There’s a complete list of those involved here and a full size image of the cover above on DC’s Source blog here. But how about these for a few selected highlights: Batman (the cover feature) by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso (fresh off their phenomenal run on 100 Bullets), Neil Gaiman & Mike Allred on Metamorpho, Paul Pope’s Adam Strange, Hawkman by Kyle Baker, a return to Sergeant Rock for Joe Kubert and much more.

There’s even a major coup for DC as USA Today will be syndicating John Arcudi / Lee Bermejo’s Superman strip every week for it’s entiire 12 week runover the course of the 12-week series online with features on the strip each week in the print version.

(Superman in Wednesday Comics by John Arcudi & Lee Bermejo. Full page here.)

(Paul Pope’s Strange Adventures Adam Strange strip from Wednesday Comics. Full page plus page 2 on Pope’s blog here.)

(Joe Kubert art from Adam Kubert’s story in Sgt Rock from Wednesday Comics. Full page here.)

And don’t they all look just lovely? Wednesday Comics starts in the US on Wednesday the 8th July. Here in the UK we get our Wednesday Comics on Thursday, but that slight problem aside, this looks like being one of two potentially great superhero events I’ll be looking forward to this year. The other one being Marvel’s Strange Tales Max series coming in September. But more on that tomorrow.