Wednesday Comics #4

History

The project originated with DC Art Director Mark Chiarello, whose earlier passion-project anthologies included Batman: Black and White, Solo, and DC: The New Frontier; he pitched the newspaper-broadsheet concept to DC publisher Paul Levitz, a process one contributor said took years to green-light. Originally conceived under the working title 'Wednesday Funnies' and envisioned as a 52-installment year-long series, the project was scaled back to twelve weekly issues before launch. Chiarello's editorial philosophy was to approach creators and ask which DC characters they most wanted to work on, resulting in pairings as unlikely as Gaiman with the B-list Metamorpho and Dave Gibbons — co-creator of Watchmen — with Jack Kirby's Kamandi. The series launched July 8, 2009, with issue #4 arriving on July 29; the complete run was collected in an oversized hardcover by DC in June 2010 and subsequently translated and reprinted in Germany (Panini, 2011) and Spain (ECC Ediciones, 2021).

Trivia · 8 facts

• Wednesday Comics #4 went on sale July 29, 2009, as the fourth of twelve weekly broadsheet installments, each measuring 14" × 20" when unfolded — deliberately evoking Sunday newspaper comics sections.
• The issue carries the fourth chapter of all fifteen concurrent serialized strips; no strip debuts or concludes in this issue, as every story ran continuously across all twelve issues.
• The Batman strip (Brian Azzarello / Eduardo Risso) continues Bruce Wayne's noir murder-mystery investigation centered on the death of Franklin Glass and the machinations of Luna Glass.
• Neil Gaiman's Metamorpho strip (art by Mike Allred) advances the adventure of Rex Mason, Sapphire Stagg, Simon Stagg, Java, and Element Girl (Urania Blackwell) on an Antarctica expedition; Gaiman's use of Element Girl here directly echoes her tragic appearance in his own Sandman run.
• Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher's Flash strip features Barry Allen battling Gorilla Grodd while also navigating his romantic life with Iris West — one of the few strips in the series to use a classic recurring villain.
• Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook's Kamandi strip continues the conflict with Baaku's ape army and involves Prince Tuftan, set in the post-apocalyptic Earth-AD first envisioned by Jack Kirby.
• The Teen Titans strip (Eddie Berganza / Sean Galloway) puts Tim Drake's Red Robin, Starfire (Koriand'r), and allies against the villain Trident.
• The entire series was later collected in a hardcover edition (DC Comics, June 2010) that was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album–Reprint, and the run was reprinted internationally by Panini Deutschland (2011) and ECC Ediciones (2021).

Cast · 40 characters

Full credits