Weekly Comics Spotlight #100

[Wood]

Congrats on 100 episodes guys, your consistency is to be commended.

I sincerely wish you had enjoyed Wednesday Comics more. As one of those people gushing about the project I can't say as I agree with your criticisms much at all, but I also can't say that you're wrong for feeling the way you do. Enjoying anything is always about personal preference. I guess the one thing I would ask is, what were you expecting? It strikes me that most of your criticisms, save for perhaps the tint of the paper, were all things that were clearly evident in all the solicits and discussion prior to ordering them. Such that a lot of the things that make Wednesday Comics so special to so many, were things you already had a predisposition to not liking. Just strikes me as though this wasn't a project you should've pre-ordered as it had an enormous hurdle to overcome in your minds.

While I've read Ms. Marvel since the beginning, I'm not sure it's been worthy of my $$$ at times. I just love the character so much that it would take a lot for me to drop this particular book. But I wanted to clarify something regarding the disparate arcs. John made a comment that he wasn't sure if it had to do with different writers trying to take the character in different directions; clearly that's not the case as Brian Reed has written the series from the beginning. In listening to Reed in an interview not too long ago, he's been very candid in his belief that his story-telling has grown exponentially from when he first started on Ms. Marvel, and that he isn't very proud of the early efforts. He also acknowledged that Danvers' place in the Marvel U has been prominent enough that events have somewhat dictated story direction at times.

I flipped through Drafted and it did nothing for me. Hard for me to understand how that package [price, conventional story-telling, average art, Obama opportunism] warranted a higher score than Wednesday Comics, to be honest. Now that I think about it, hard for me to fathom rating yet-another-Ms. Marvel-issue above it too, but to each his own.

[Frank Castle]

Yes congrats on #100.

I loved Bob's bit about how people want to wallpaper their house with Wed Comics. That made me laugh pretty hard.

[Koete]

Congrats on 100 episodes Bob and John!

[Frank]

I totally enjoy your thoughts and it is one thing I make sure I do every week.

Frank

[JohnMayo]

Congrats on 100 episodes guys, your consistency is to be commended.

I sincerely wish you had enjoyed Wednesday Comics more. As one of those people gushing about the project I can't say as I agree with your criticisms much at all, but I also can't say that you're wrong for feeling the way you do. Enjoying anything is always about personal preference. I guess the one thing I would ask is, what were you expecting? It strikes me that most of your criticisms, save for perhaps the tint of the paper, were all things that were clearly evident in all the solicits and discussion prior to ordering them. Such that a lot of the things that make Wednesday Comics so special to so many, were things you already had a predisposition to not liking. Just strikes me as though this wasn't a project you should've pre-ordered as it had an enormous hurdle to overcome in your minds.

If we had skipped Wednesday Comics based only on the solicits, odds are we'd be getting comments on pre-judging the book without reading it. (Not from you, Jason, but from someone.)

Personally, I was expecting the creative teams to be writing the stories in Wednesday Comics in single page installments that were readable and complete (in some sense) as single pages. I felt that a few managed to do that (Metal Man, Kamandi, Adam Strange) but that most failed to do that. Just like I expect monthly comics to be written for that format, I expected the stories to fit the format of this project. I don't think that was an unrealistic expectation and I conceded in the episode that writing pages that could standalone was a very, very difficult thing to do and that the very format of Wednesday Comics was a disservice to the creative teams.

[BobBretall]

I sincerely wish you had enjoyed Wednesday Comics more. As one of those people gushing about the project I can't say as I agree with your criticisms much at all, but I also can't say that you're wrong for feeling the way you do. Enjoying anything is always about personal preference. I guess the one thing I would ask is, what were you expecting? It strikes me that most of your criticisms, save for perhaps the tint of the paper, were all things that were clearly evident in all the solicits and discussion prior to ordering them. Such that a lot of the things that make Wednesday Comics so special to so many, were things you already had a predisposition to not liking. Just strikes me as though this wasn't a project you should've pre-ordered as it had an enormous hurdle to overcome in your minds.

A couple of responses to specific points posed above:

Q: what were you expecting?
A: A lot more pages like Metal Men & Metamorpho, and a LOT fewer pages (actually, none) like Wonder Woman & Teen Titans.

It strikes me that most of your criticisms, save for perhaps the tint of the paper, were all things that were clearly evident in all the solicits and discussion prior to ordering them. Such that a lot of the things that make Wednesday Comics so special to so many, were things you already had a predisposition to not liking.

I was not pre-disposed to disliking the format. My intense dislike for the format really settled in the first time I picked the thing up. In the solicits it sounded cool. In actual reality, I personally do not care for it. As for the storytelling format, I just wish the teams had leveraged the 1-page format more effectively across-the-board. Some of the teams did a brilliant job, others not so much (again, just my opinion).

I did not dislike Wednesday Comics, I gave it a 3 (mostly because I don't rate anthologies based solely on the parts I like, they all have to be weighed in).

A 3 means: A good solid comic. I get LOTS of comics that are a 3. I will not absolutely drop a book unless it is a "1".

I've stated before that I don't think this is "comics perfection", I know a lot of folks are loving this, personally I think many are focusing only on the parts they love and giving a "pass" to the parts that are not so good. That's fine, but it's not the way we have established for doing our reviews.

That's what makes reviewing an anthology tough.

It's obvious that you don't care for Ms Marvel, you bring it up as a negative comparator to Wednesday Comics, but the thing is, I can judge Ms. Marvel as a singular work in that issue. I like it more than you do, which is fair enough (I think), but Ms. Marvel is not muddied by having 14 other creative teams spinning stories in the same issue.

[BobBretall]

Personally, I was expecting the creative teams to be writing the stories in Wednesday Comics in single page installments that were readable and complete (in some sense) as single pages.

John makes a good point here.

For all the people raving about Wednesday comics being a throwback to the old Sunday papers, those creators wrote to their format and the successful ones did not start off storylines with pages that were unsatisfying when taken as a single Sunday installment. Of course, "Writing for the trade" did not exist. Writers knew the format they were targeting and the good ones tried to craft a story that took advantage of that format and delivered a satisfying "chunk of story" in that one page.

A very tough proposition, I know, but a challenge that was well-known going into this project.

[JohnMayo]

Personally, I was expecting the creative teams to be writing the stories in Wednesday Comics in single page installments that were readable and complete (in some sense) as single pages.

John makes a good point here.

For all the people raving about Wednesday comics being a throwback to the old Sunday papers, those creators wrote to their format and the successful ones did not start off storylines with pages that were unsatisfying when taken as a single Sunday installment. Of course, "Writing for the trade" did not exist. Writers knew the format they were targeting and the good ones tried to craft a story that took advantage of that format and delivered a satisfying "chunk of story" in that one page.

A very tough proposition, I know, but a challenge that was well-known going into this project.

For me, this is where Ms Marvel had the advantage. I got a single story which I enjoyed versus a one page sampling of 15 different stories. I got that satisfying chunk of story in Ms Marvel and Drafted 100 Days while I didn't in Wednesday Comics.

[BobBretall]

I flipped through Drafted and it did nothing for me. Hard for me to understand how that package [price, conventional story-telling, average art, Obama opportunism] warranted a higher score than Wednesday Comics, to be honest.

As an aside, had I just picked up this book and flipped through it in the store, I would have also seen nothing beyond what you describe.

Actually sitting down and reading the whole thing, I ended up enjoying the story. Again, a personal preference.

Did I like Drafted more than Wednesday Comics? Well, I gave Drafted a 3, same as Wednesday Comics. There were several pages in WC I liked MORE than Drafted. Several I would put on par with it, and several pages I liked LESS than WC. Averaging them out, they come up the same.

[HassanT]

Congratulations of #100!!!

I haven't had time to listen to the episode but I wanted to jump in and say congrats!!!

[Trev]

I want to wallpaper my office in Metamorpho, GL, and Deadman pages!

Seriously love the feel of those strips. Would be cool to get some of that art.

[Ratenef]

Gentlemen,

Let me also congratulate you on your centennial episode. The fact you've not skipped a week in all that time is truly a feat worthy of praise.

As for your review of Wednesday Comics I was wholeheartedly pleased with the fact that I wasn't the only one who just 'wasn't getting it'.

I listened to iFanboy and 11 O'clock comics and just couldn't help but think "enough is enough". It was an experiment in comics format that was, at least for the first issue, well received. But it isn't the AWESOME thing that it was being touted as being. I've 'read' the first issue and have to agree with John and Bob, there wasn't anything in the first issue that made me feel that I had to read the 2nd, never mind the 12th.

Actually all in all I completely agree with John and Bob's critique of the comic. The format is a marketing ploy, as is the storytelling going along with the format it is tied to, the cost if prohibitive (and this coming from someone who hasn't balked at any other $3.99 comics) and the quality of the art ranges from excellent (Kamandi) to poor (Teen Titans).

Everyone is outraged at the idea of paying $3.99 for any comic, and here they are extolling the virtues of the Wednesday comic which, as John and Bob have pointed out, is somewhere between a 15 and 22 page comic. A local newspaper, that has many more pages and is colour, ranges in price from free (my local paper) to $1.50. Makes it hard to justify the shelling out of $3.99 for something with so few pages.

I think that with this episode John and Bob have cemented me as a fan, as I can now comfortably say that they've proven their tastes and sensibilities are most inline with mine.

I find that iFanboy is too much of Batman (Connor), victim of marketing (Ron) or contrarian (Josh). Around Comics became more about the industry than actual issues. 11 O'clock comics is entertaining to listen to, but I don't align well with any one of them (and Vince is just way out there on a peyote binge with Morrison).


Another nice component of this 'network' is the Mayo reports, as I like to see the overall trends and ideas that this information, and John, Bob and Chris, bring about the reality of what is being bought in what quantities. Actually, I'm very interested to see how the trend ends up being for Wednesday Comics, and how big initial sales actually were.

So, John and Bob, thanks for the excellent, informative and entertaining podcast (that only makes me cringe when I realize how much you guys spend on comics each month!! How do your wives put up with that!!!).

Here's to the next 100 episodes!

Thanks again,
Trevor Chapman
Brampton, ON
CANADA

[spid]

First Congrats to reaching 100 episodes.

I am also one of those people who do not get Wednesday's Comic. It was hard for me to see why people were so excited, but I figured maybe I was missing something. Once I saw the final product at the store I shook my head and put it back down. For me it is not worth the $3.99 they wanted me to pay. If this was maybe a dollar I could see why some people would pick it up.

I like Ms. Marvel, on the whole, but I agree the comic lacks direction. I think the biggest problem is Brian Reed does not enjoy writing Carol Danvers. It comes across every time there is some other guest star in the book. That character receives the best lines and Carol comes off as dull. I think Reed is a good writer, but I think the book would be better off if some one who really liked Carol took over.

Drafted. I am a big fan of the series, and I initially thought like you guys that it would be a cash grab. After the reading the book his involvement felt natural. It would have better if they had more interaction with the main characters from the series. I think it would have helped get more people interested in picking up the older series. I would have given this book 4/5.

[JohnMayo]

Gentlemen,

Let me also congratulate you on your centennial episode. The fact you've not skipped a week in all that time is truly a feat worthy of praise.

As for your review of Wednesday Comics I was wholeheartedly pleased with the fact that I wasn't the only one who just 'wasn't getting it'.

I listened to iFanboy and 11 O'clock comics and just couldn't help but think "enough is enough". It was an experiment in comics format that was, at least for the first issue, well received. But it isn't the AWESOME thing that it was being touted as being. I've 'read' the first issue and have to agree with John and Bob, there wasn't anything in the first issue that made me feel that I had to read the 2nd, never mind the 12th.

Actually all in all I completely agree with John and Bob's critique of the comic. The format is a marketing ploy, as is the storytelling going along with the format it is tied to, the cost if prohibitive (and this coming from someone who hasn't balked at any other $3.99 comics) and the quality of the art ranges from excellent (Kamandi) to poor (Teen Titans).

Everyone is outraged at the idea of paying $3.99 for any comic, and here they are extolling the virtues of the Wednesday comic which, as John and Bob have pointed out, is somewhere between a 15 and 22 page comic. A local newspaper, that has many more pages and is colour, ranges in price from free (my local paper) to $1.50. Makes it hard to justify the shelling out of $3.99 for something with so few pages.

I think that with this episode John and Bob have cemented me as a fan, as I can now comfortably say that they've proven their tastes and sensibilities are most inline with mine.

I find that iFanboy is too much of Batman (Connor), victim of marketing (Ron) or contrarian (Josh). Around Comics became more about the industry than actual issues. 11 O'clock comics is entertaining to listen to, but I don't align well with any one of them (and Vince is just way out there on a peyote binge with Morrison).


Another nice component of this 'network' is the Mayo reports, as I like to see the overall trends and ideas that this information, and John, Bob and Chris, bring about the reality of what is being bought in what quantities. Actually, I'm very interested to see how the trend ends up being for Wednesday Comics, and how big initial sales actually were.

So, John and Bob, thanks for the excellent, informative and entertaining podcast (that only makes me cringe when I realize how much you guys spend on comics each month!! How do your wives put up with that!!!).

Here's to the next 100 episodes!

Thanks again,
Trevor Chapman
Brampton, ON
CANADA

Thank you for the kind words, Trevor.

The thing that I hadn't expected with Wednesday Comics but become more and more to me as I read each "story" was just how hard it can be to tell enough of a story in a single page to hook me.

Metal Men jumped out of the gate into the story and got me hooked. Most of the others felt like a prologue to the story. I love the idea behind Wednesday Comics. I also agree that the art of a few of the stories is brilliant. But others, like the Teen Titans page, fell below the "Acceptable" level for me.

Now, that maybe a harsh critique but these creators knew the format going in and all I had to judge the stories on in the first issue was the first issue.

But, different people enjoy different things. I can see how/why other people may have loved Wednesday Comics. I simply wasn't one of them.

I'm really curious to see the sales figures for Wednesday Comics. The higher price and the low ending sales of Trinity make me think that initial orders for the first batch aren't going to amazingly high. I expect that future issues will see a noticeable drop in sales. This is a title where sell-through information would be very telling.

I felt that the solicits weren't as informative as the could have been. Jason Wood thinks they told us everything about the series we needed to know so I should reread the solicits when I get back home. (I'm at Bob's right now.) But my gut feeling is that, for some people, what they expected and what they feel they got may not have matched up all that well.

As for comic spending, we actually discuss that a bit in Weekly Comics Spotlight #101. It helps that I'm not married. But I keep my spending within my budget.

[Koete]

I love Wednesday Comics. I love the newspaper feel to the paper. I love the oversized pages. Apart from Teen Titans and Wonder Woman, I enjoyed all of the stories. I do wish though that more of the stories could have taken advantage of the format like the Kamandi and Flash strips. I could have bought the series through DCBS, but instead, I decided to pick the issues up for full price at the LCS for the added feel of picking it up on Wednesday. Was this also partly to see what it was like before I made the commitment to buy it? Sure, but as soon as I saw the first issue on the shelf, I had a grin from ear to ear because it just looked so damn cool. I like to see new things being tried within the medium, which is one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Grant Morrison. Wednesday Comics is doing something new in the medium. Will it be a success? I can't say. All I know is this is the most fun I've had reading comics in a long time and I hope it is successful enough that DC will be able to publish a volume two next year.