by MrBlack » Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:18 pm
Wednesday Comics #1
First, let's get this out of the way: I dug it. The stories were great, and the art was great all round. It would be overlong to review every individual story, but Paul Pope's "Strange Adventures," Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti's "Supergirl," and Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred's "Metamorpho" really stand out, although there isn't a loser in the bunch. It was a great collection, and I will be picking this up regularly.
Now, let me make an observation. As a regular comic reader, I am used to reading serialized stories. I understand when I pick up a comic, it is more likely than not that I will only get a small portion of a much larger story, that may take between two and twelve issues to resolve. That being said, it was quite jarring to start reading Wednesday Comics and have each story end EXACTLY where I was just starting to get interested. The ending of most of the strips was very abrupt, and the stop-start nature of the collection was alien to me. Keep in mind that none of the daily newspapers I have regularly read throughout my life have had true serialized strips in them. No Spiderman, no Superman, not even Apartment 3-G. The closest I've seen is Doonesbury or For Better or Worse, and even those generally follow the "three panels and a gag" formula of modern comic strips. This is not a negative thing, and I don't mention it as a slam against the book. I only mention it to say that the medium is somewhat foreign to me, and that it might be somewhat jarring to younger readers, or those who have not been blessed with a more robust comic section in their local papers.
Still, none of that took away from the greatness of the content. The talent on display is truly staggering, and while it is difficult to judge any of these stories based solely on their opening chapters, I expect this to be a classic.
Story: 10
Art: 10
Overall: 10