Dollars and Cents.

Yesterday saw the release of the first issue of Wednesday Comics by DC. And like most of the second-place company's decisions lately, it is both exciting and dissapointing.

Positive: The content is great. DC assembled top-shelf artists to create a stunningly beautiful collection of "Sunday comics" on a weekly basis. The "one page at a time" format creates an interesting storytelling challenge, that each writer seems to rise to in this first issue. It's successful since I want to see where all of these stories are going.

Massive Negative: $3.99 is a terrible price point for this title. Absolutely terrible. As beautiful as the results are, the book is published on oversized newsprint and only 16 pages long. Ideally, this book should boast a $1.99-$2.50 cover price. In the current marketplace this is essentially an experimental title. And If DC wanted to draw new readers in they shot themselves in the foot by pricing it like a big event title (next weeks 48 page Blackest Night #1 is $3.99). Despite the rave reviews of the content, the cost will hurt the in-store sales of this book. And many readers will miss out on one of the more interesting mainstream comic projects of the year.

Bright Starts.

Less than a year ago, Murphy commented on a missed opportunity by DC. The success of The Dark Knight film drove new customers into comics stores, looking for new Batman comics. What they unfortunately found was the middle of "Batman: RIP": a densely written, surreal breakdown of the Batman character. I agreed with Chris that despite personally enjoying the arc, it was the furthest thing from a comfortable starting point for new readers. It drew too much from Grant Morrison's previous year of Batman comics and well, basically was a little too Grant Morrison. And on top of that, I never felt Tony Daniel was the right artist for the storyline. In any case, it seemed like a missed opportunity to draw in new readers.

It turns out they missed the mark by a bit under a year, in the form of two of my favorite new releases.

Go buy Detective Comics #854.
Go buy Batman and Robin #1.

The former features Batwoman, a relatively new character getting her long-awaited starring role written by Greg Rucka. The first issue introduces the character, has a Batman cameo to ground it, and sets up her first case. It's engrossing and beautifully illustrated by J.H. Williams III. It's everything an introduction to a comic story should be.

The latter features the new Batman and Robin. It asks for more backstory but that depends on how much the new reader wants to know. The basics are easy. Bruce is gone. Dick Grayson has ascended to the cowl. Bruce's l'enfant terrible Damian is the new Robin. How things got to this point is sort of complicated (and isn't that what Wikipedia and trades are for?) But once you accept the starting point, it's a good one. And it doesn't hurt that it has great (slightly unconventional) artwork, courtesy of Frank Quitely.