Looking back on Wednesday Comics – Part 2
DISCLAIMER: It’s very possible that, as Wednesday Comics settles in my head, the order in which I’ve placed all of these strips may shift around. They already have, as a matter of fact, been moved back and forth every so often during the process of this writing. I will say that, at the very least, my number 1 strip will always be my number 1 strip.
With that out of the way, let’s carry on.
Below are my top 7 Wednesday Comics strips.
7) WONDER WOMAN by Caldwell – Probably the most ambitious
and highly structured story in Wednesday Comics, I initially couldn’t be bothered to wade through the huge number of panels and word balloons in Wonder Woman. Only now, after going back and reading every strip, have I learned to appreciate what Ben Caldwell has done here. Action and word balloons flow nicely from panel to panel and what seemed like an intimidating read at first turned into one of the most pleasant and enjoyable strips in the book. It definitely has the most meat out of any of the stories and it has beautiful, stylized artwork to boot. I wasn’t too fond of the color palette but I suppose it’s fitting with the dream aspect of the story. Ben Caldwell tries to do a lot here and he succeeds in more ways than one.
6) BATMAN by Azzarello and Risso – The team of comics’ crime noir masterpiece 100 Bullets on Batman. How can it not be good? Then again, their last collaboration on Batman, “Broken City,” left me a bit cold but here we are again and their resulting comic is much more entertaining this time around. Azzarello was smart in handling the weekly format as he chose to basically break down every week into a scene. I found that to be one of the most interesting aspects in his writing for this project with the most curious aspect being his restraint on dialogue in some weeks. Of course, artist Eduardo Risso more than steps up to the plate in the more quiet moments. I don’t know how much his particular style benefits from the larger format, if at all, but there’s no denying that he’s a genius at putting the perfect line at just the perfect place. Possibly the strip with the most mature content, this a great Batman story done by master storytellers.
5) METAMORPHO by Gaiman and Allred – Metamorpho is 
perhaps the wildest of all Wednesday Comics strips. From the Metamorpho fan club to the snakes and ladders game to the trek through the periodic table, this strip was so inventive in some of its content that it brought a smile to my face many times. But it was also one of the most uneven strips as some weeks just didn’t click too well with me. The use of a single, two-week panel so early on didn’t seem like a good idea, specially when the same concept was repeated later on (albeit in a much more interesting way). Similarly, some of the weeks that were heavy on story and not much else wound up being rather boring. And what can be said of Allred’s artwork other that it’s perfectly suited for this kind of story. His silver age style and sensibilities add so much to that feeling of nostalgia that Metamorpho so effortlessly evokes that it’s hard to picture another artist over Gaiman’s words. The very last strip is one of my favorites in all of Wednesday Comics.
4) STRANGE ADVENTURES by Pope – I’m only vaguely familiar with Adam Strange but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this strip a great deal. Paul Pope has crafted an incredible world that is very alien yet still compelling. This pulpy, science fiction story is very much what you’d expect from someone like Paul Pope and the “man of two worlds” aspect of the story is handled with great success here, particularly in the last strip . The art itself is much like Pope’s previous work even down to the font he used for dialogue. It’s also worth mentioning that there wasn’t a single page of Strange Adventures that I felt was weak and that’s a big accomplishment in and of itself as very few strips managed to maintain a consistently high level of quality. Strange Adventures is Paul Pope doing what Paul Pope does best.
3) KAMANDI by Gibbons and Sook – Dave Gibbons skews word 
balloons in Kamandi and chooses instead to use narration to tell the story almost as if the strip were a picture book. That’s probably the biggest thing that sets Kamandi apart from the rest of the strips in Wednesday Comics and Gibbons handles this aspect flawlessly. The story is quite good and has a good amount of action and drama and the bittersweet ending puts a nice bow over the whole thing. Ryan Sook’s art, for some reason, started really strong and clean at first but along the way it got kinda rough around the edges. I don’t know if this was intentional or not being that the story does get progressively darker but his work here was really good regardless. Great coloring too. I find that Kamandi has negligible issues but fails at being number 1 because it lacks that extra oomph that other strips brought to the table.
2) HAWKMAN by Baker – Hawkman started with a bang. The first strip is still one of my favorites in the entire series and, even though I don’t think it ever got quite that good again, Hawkman was perhaps the most fun strip in Wednesday Comics. Always interesting, always action packed and Hawkman beating up a T-Rex. What more could you ask for? This almost felt like a JLA strip that focused solely on Hawkman as he goes off and does his own thing in the face of a larger threat that the other heroes confront. We get cameos of all the major heroes as well as a proper guest appearance by Aquaman towards the end. No complaints on the art side other than some of the computery textures Baker used on certain things. Hawkman is the epitome of what Wednesday Comics should be about: fun, entertaining stories by top notch artists.
1) THE FLASH by Kerschl and Fletcher -
If Hawkman is the epitome of fun and entertainment in Wednesday Comics, then The Flash is the result of one artist (and a co-writer) pushing the medium and the superhero genre in wild directions with fantastic results. Initially, the Flash page was divided horizontally into two intertwining strips, one focusing on the Flash and the other focusing on Iris Allen with the former featuring bright, superhero colors while the latter was home to more contrast and a more earthy palette. But it’s only after these two strips start to merge towards the end that we start to see how Kerschl plays with layout and storytelling and it’s absolutely brilliant. In week 9 we are treated to at least five different styles within the page in what has become my single favorite page in all of Wednesday Comics. It’s ultimately a love story but it’s wrapped in superheroics and comic book pseudo-science in a way that’s interesting, refreshing and, as in week 11, very heartwarming. The ending is not what you’d expect but it works in the context of the story and does tie everything up. Karl Kerschl’s art is bright, expressive, clean and a pleasure to look at. I simply cannot compliment this strip enough. May end up being the best comic book related thing I’ve read all year.
And that’s that.
Now that Wednesday Comics is over, I’m going to miss the weekly trip to the comic store.
Here’s to Wednesday Comics 2.
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