So How Was Wednesday Comics # 1?

Well, it was hit-and-miss for me. It was harder to adjust to the format than I'd counted on, for one thing. Specifically, I found it frustrating that there was, in most of the 15 strips, so little content provided before it was over and on to the next one. Yes, that's probably unavoidable (perhaps even desirable) given the structure, but I didn't really enjoy that aspect much at all. However, since it was the first strip in each case, maybe it'll get better as we go along.

The actual act of reading comics printed in the newspaper format took some getting used to, but that wasn't unpleasant. In fact, it felt rather cool to be mixing the two genres in that way: familiar and yet somehow new.

Some of the features were about what I'd expected, and others either under- or over-delivered. I know that a lot of the reviewers so far have gushed about the entire thing, but for me: some worked, and some didn't.

I quite liked six of them - Batman (which I'd pre-ranked at # 3 out of 15), Flash (# 6), Green Lantern (# 7), Metal Men (# 8), Kamandi (# 10) and Adam Strange (# 11) - for varying reasons. Sometimes it was the art that appealed to me, or the fact that a semblance of plot managed to catch my eye even though each strip was limited to a single page.

A small handful - Demon/Catwoman (# 9), Wonder Woman (# 13) and Teen Titans (# 15) - held virtually no appeal for me, although I'll continue to try them in upcoming weeks, in case they grow on me.

And that leaves the final half dozen - Metamorpho (# 1), Superman (# 2), Sgt Rock (# 4), Hawkman (# 5), Supergirl (# 12), and Deadman (# 14) - in the grey area: kinda hit, kinda miss. Sgt Rock, for example, by the father and son Kuberts, was visually excellent but didn't provide enough story content (summary: Rock is being tortured to get info out of him!) to really hook me. I expected Gaiman's Metamorpho to blow me away, and yet the first chapter was really very pedestrian. But again: it's early days. So we'll see.

I'm pretty confident that I'll stick with Wednesday Comics right through the full 12 issues, but had simply hoped for a better kickoff than I got. The best news of all is that I only have a week to wait until the next issue comes out!