'Wednesday Comics' breaks out of usual comic book mold

DC Comics is thinking big with its new "Wednesday Comics."

Breaking out of the usual comic book format, "Wednesday Comics" will contain 16 pages printed on broadsheet-size newsprint. That's 14 inches by 20 inches a page - wider, though a bit shorter, than a page in The Gazette. The first issue of the 12-issue weekly series arrives in comic book shops on July 8. There will be 15 stories to an issue, each story taking up a page. Folded twice, the publication folds to the size of a regular comic book; the 16th page makes room for a faux cover when displayed like a regular comic.

Look for continuing stories featuring DC's big guns - Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman - as well as lesser-known heroes such as Adam Strange, Metamorpho and the Metal Men.

"We're taking  a page, no pun intended, from the old, great classic Sunday funnies of the past," said DC art director Mark Chiarello, the driving force behind "Wednesday Comics." The Sunday funnies are still around, of course, but they're mostly humor-based these days; classic adventure strips such as "Terry and the Pirates" are long gone.

 "Somebody the other day said, ‘What a brilliant idea. How'd you come up with it?' I said, I stole it from the 1930s," Chiarello said with a laugh.

The stories in "Wednesday Comics" are written and illustrated by many of comic's top creators. Neil Gaiman, known for his work on "Sandman" and a New York Times bestselling author, is the writer of the Metamorpho strip. Andy Kubert is the writer of a Sgt. Rock strip, featuring art by his father, the legendary Joe Kubert. The team of writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso, who recently wrapped up their groundbreaking "100 Bullets" for Vertigo, DC's mature reader imprint, take on Batman.

 "I made a wish list of the guys I wanted to work with and, oddly, they all said yes," Chiarello said. One lure, he acknowledged, was the opportunity to write out-of-continuity stories - a story featuring Batman, for example, without worrying what's going on in his regular series.

"If you're a writer and you're writing a couple of monthly comics, you really have to live with that character," he said. "This gives you the opportunity to do Hawkman for just a couple of issues and have fun with it."

As for the artists, "the pages are so big they all kind of crabbed about how much work it was," Chiarello said. At the same time, they were enthused by the challenge.

"I get pages from these guys every day, and I'm astounded," he said.

Each artist approached the project individually, "so you get a real variety of solutions to everything," Chiarello said. "Some artists are drawing nine panels a page, other artists are drawing 40 panels a page."

After the series wraps up, look for a collection of the 12 issues. But the details are still to come.

"We're trying to figure that out, because the size is so large," Chiarello said.  "Do we collect it that large? I hope we do."

And, depending on sales, "Wednesday Comics" might live again after those 12 issues.

"The response has been so great online and through word of mouth, I wouldn't be surprised if we did this every summer," Chiarello said.