Comic serials on Wednesdays
DC's Wednesday Comics has been over hyped. Yes, there is a lot of great work in there by talented comic creators. But besides that, should the comic really be hyped for its weekly, Sunday strip format?
The Sunday comic strip format is nothing new to newspapers. Comic strips are usually given small, rectangular spaces in the newspapers, allowing space for several strips to be featured. These strips did not allow for much story development, and thus the comic strip serial was born. Even so, the amount of space each strip had was insufficient. And so, on Sundays, where comics are given more space in newspapers, the Sunday format was born.
Comic strips on Sundays could fill up one entire page, like Prince Valiant. Large "strips" were also published in magazines. In Britain, there is the Eagle and AD 2000, two very popular comic magazines. The former's most famous feature was Dan Dare, while the latter, still being published today, featured Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and many others.
The Sunday strip was born out of a neccessity for more development in stories, given the limited space newspapers could afford. From this point of view, DC's choice to make a weekly comic of serials is simply a marketing ploy. Although the serial strips do have some artistic quality to them, nevertheless, I do feel that for DC to publish such a work, it can only have nostalgic and romantic value. It is simply not practical to create such stories if a company has enough money to create so many floppies.
Wednesday Comics is a successful project for DC, one that uses an old format that was meant to overcome limitations imposed by newspaper publishers. Yet, it has managed to gain readers interest and attention, to see their favourite heroes in a format rarely seen in modern newspapers. I would let you know that there were Superman and Batman comic strips in daily and Sunday formats in the past. Wednesday Comics is not completely original.
The Sunday comic strip format is nothing new to newspapers. Comic strips are usually given small, rectangular spaces in the newspapers, allowing space for several strips to be featured. These strips did not allow for much story development, and thus the comic strip serial was born. Even so, the amount of space each strip had was insufficient. And so, on Sundays, where comics are given more space in newspapers, the Sunday format was born.
Comic strips on Sundays could fill up one entire page, like Prince Valiant. Large "strips" were also published in magazines. In Britain, there is the Eagle and AD 2000, two very popular comic magazines. The former's most famous feature was Dan Dare, while the latter, still being published today, featured Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and many others.
The Sunday strip was born out of a neccessity for more development in stories, given the limited space newspapers could afford. From this point of view, DC's choice to make a weekly comic of serials is simply a marketing ploy. Although the serial strips do have some artistic quality to them, nevertheless, I do feel that for DC to publish such a work, it can only have nostalgic and romantic value. It is simply not practical to create such stories if a company has enough money to create so many floppies.
Wednesday Comics is a successful project for DC, one that uses an old format that was meant to overcome limitations imposed by newspaper publishers. Yet, it has managed to gain readers interest and attention, to see their favourite heroes in a format rarely seen in modern newspapers. I would let you know that there were Superman and Batman comic strips in daily and Sunday formats in the past. Wednesday Comics is not completely original.
posted by Hilary at 3:21 PM
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