Besides being an artist, Mark Chiarello is the art director at DC Comics as well as serving as editor of Batman: Black and White, an anthology of Batman stories, and Solo, a series that showcased a single creator each issue who was free to focus on a superhero from the DC library of characters. But Chiarello’s most recent project is Wednesday Comics, an unusual and vivid homage to the history of color Sunday newspaper comic strips
Serialized last summer, the Wednesday Comics offered a variety of DC’s classic characters in original full color stories by a gang of great creators that were published in an old-fashioned oversized newspaper broadsheet format on actual newsprint. Wednesday Comics features fifteen stories by such acclaimed creators as Paul Pope, Neil Gaiman, and Kyle Baker and this summer the series was collected and released as an oversized hardcover edition. Chiarello spoke with PW Comics Week about the process of creating Wednesday Comics, the series’ goals and the new collected hardcover edition.
PW Comics Week: How did you come up with the idea for Wednesday Comics?
Mark Chiarello: I was very good friends with a fellow who passed away recently, Alex Toth, who was one of the giants of the comics world, and I was over at his place one time in California. He was a really big fan of the old strips, Terry and the Pirates, Prince Valiant, and all that stuff, and he was showing me his collection of Sunday strips he had cut out of the newspapers when he was a kid. They were so cool and they were so colorful, that it wasn’t a stretch to put two and two together and think, what would it be like to couple that format with DC’s great characters like Batman and Superman.
PWCW: Do you think by adding that spectacle aspect, Wednesday Comics would bring more people into comics, because its bigger and bolder than people are used to in comics?
MC: Yeah, that’s a tough question, because there are a lot of people who work at all the comics’ companies who really try to expand the market and appeal to people who might not normally pick up a comic book. I tend not to worry about that so much; if that happens, that’s great, but my real concern is to put out a really good comic book, a really well crafted, fun experience. It might be short sighted on my part but I think at the end of the day if you can get someone really jazzed about reading their comic book, then you’ve done your job.
PWCW: One of the things that struck me about Wednesday Comics is that they are really great stories, and they’re fun and entertaining, but they are also inventive with the form as well. Was that a goal of yours, to be more experimental?
MC: Yeah, certainly that size, that format, really lends itself to trying something different. The way we addressed that question was to hire creators who you knew were not going to just do the quote on quote, normal thing. When you hire Neil Gaiman, you hire Paul Pope, Kyle Baker, they’re not just going to draw a regular comic page and just blow it up large. If you look at a strip in Wednesday Comics like the Flash story that Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher did, its so great, and its so experimental, that it’s, to me, what’s exciting about this format.
PWCW: Superhero comics have gotten so convoluted with narrative continuity—long running and often complex storylines and subplots—but Wednesday Comics, as well as being inventive with form, are just really well crafted stories that are enjoyable.
MC: Absolutely, comics’ fans fall into two categories: there’s the pro-continuity guy and the anti-continuity fan. I think I fall into the anti-continuity sort. I shouldn’t need to know that much about Batman’s back-story to be able to sit down with the comic book and to really enjoy it, and that was one thing that was neat about Wednesday Comics. You might not even know who Deadman is, but if you read this story in Wednesday Comics, you get it.
PWCW: That goes back to one of the first questions I asked you, if you thought Wednesday Comics would bring new people to comics. Were you hoping that ordinary people would be able to approach these comics because they are free from all the baggage and are just good stories, without having worry about who is going to read them or if they would reach the market they are supposed to?
MC: Yes, absolutely. The real goal of Wednesday Comics was you could give it to anybody, and they could sit down and have a fun time. It’s a fun read; you don’t have to be worried about collectibility or if it is in mint condition or do you have to know who these characters are.
PWCW: There are a lot of characters that haven’t been used in awhile in the book. Was that a goal as well, to use characters that people might not be that familiar with, so you could just have fun with them?
MC: Yeah, there are definently secondary and tertiary characters in the universe who might not be able to support a monthly title, but they’re characters that people really like. They’re really intriguing characters like Kamandi or the Metal Men or Deadman. You can really enjoy who [the characters] are, and you don’t have to buy 1000 comic books [to get their back story].
PWCW: It was interesting to see characters like Kamandi and Adam Strange, and how the styles of the artists fit their stories. Did the artists pick the characters they were going to do?
MC: Yeah, for the most part, they pretty much did. I suggested certain characters to some of the creators. But, every comic creator has a favorite character, so they kind of pushed me into who they wanted, and that was ok with me.
PWCW: I wanted to talk about the Wonder Woman strip. The art is amazing, the detail and the style are very interesting, and the layouts are obviously crazy, because there are so many panels. Did you have any reaction to this strip from people, have readers found it hard to read since it doesn’t follow the conventions of panel layouts that we’re used to?
MC: Yeah, that was definitely the one strip that people either loved or hated. I honestly think it’s the work of genius. I think Ben Caldwell is an absolute genius, and unfortunately, I think it’s going to take 20 years from now till everybody goes, “you know what, you were right, that story was genius.” It’s a really dense read.
PWCW: It’s hard to read at points, but you get the hang of it after awhile. You can feel him playing with it, to see what works and doesn’t.
MC: Which I absolutely applaud. There are fifteen different flavors in this book. If you read Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s Supergirl story, it’s a funny and breezy, goodtime read, and if you compare that to Caldwell’s Wonder Woman, then you really have to work for it. We didn’t want them all to feel the same.
PWCW: When you picked the contributors, was that something you were looking for, to have as much variety as possible?
MC: Absolutely, I sat down and made a wish list of people I’d like to work with, and fortunately every single one of them said yes. Publishing doesn’t always work out that way, but we were in luck. They were so psyched to write that format, and especially to draw that format. Because, original comic art is drawn large, but fans never get to see it big. All the artists, Paul Pope, all these guys, said, “wow, now my fans get to see enormous artwork from me.”
PWCW: So, did they work at their normal size or did they work even bigger, so they could still have the benefit of shrinking down?
MC: Oh my god, some artists were drawing at like poster size. Mike Allred, [who drew the Metal Men strip with Neil Gaiman], I ran into him at a convention. He had brought a couple pages, and they were literally poster size.
PWCW: So are you thinking of doing more Wednesday Comics?
MC: There’s some talk about it. I think the only reason to do it would be to do it as good, if not better than the first series, and that’s going to be difficult.
PWCW: Would you want to do another set of characters?
MC: I think you would definitely want to put Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman in there, but you could do an Enemy Ace story, or, oh, I don’t know, a Sugar and Spike story.
PWCW: Was there anyone that you would have wanted to be in this series, that you would try to get in the next one if you do it?
MC: Yeah, there are a few creators. One thing that was really nice, when the issues started coming out, I started getting phone calls from some really big names in the business, who said, “Mark, if you ever do another series, let me know, I’d love to do one.” I was bummed out; Darwyn Cooke was originally going to do one, but he had to bow out due to another commitment. There are a handful of artists and writers I tried to get; Tim Sale is always a favorite guy to work with. There is also a writer-artist, Michael Cho, who I would love to work with on something someday.
PWCW: What was the process of figuring out how to collect it, because it had such a unique form in its serialization as a newspaper?
MC: Somebody here suggested we do it small comic book size, and that person was thrown out of the window and hasn’t been heard from since. We knew the only thing we had to do was keep it large, keep it colorful, keep it fun. I’m happy we were able to produce such a large, such an enormous book.
PWCW: It’s interesting to see the newsprint Wednesday Comics and then the book edition, because the newsprint version has an immediate just picked up a comic to read, feel, whereas the book is glossy and classy and you get to experience the complete stories at one time, rather than waiting for the next installment.
MC: Yeah, I think the original series was the perfect immediate summer entertainment. A lot of people told me, each week they would read a new issue and give it to somebody, give it to their son, give it to their cousin, give it to their friend, to pass on that fun reading experience. The other side of that is the hardcover collection; its such a nice coffee table book, that it’s a similar experience, but infinitely different.
PWCW: It seems in all your projects, Wednesday Comics, Solo, Batman: Black and White, you want creators to be able to have fun with characters and present comics in a different and interesting way.
MC: I’m the art director at DC, so that’s my full time job, and I rarely get a chance to edit anything. So, when I do create a project I tend to think, “how could a writer and artist have as much fun as possible?" Comics should be fun, to read and to draw. And, they aren’t always, but I think if you’re doing you’re job they are.
Invariably, everyone’s favorite script in Wednesday Comics was the Supergirl script that Jimmy and Amanda did, because it was just pure fun. It was just, “wow this is just refreshing.” I learned it all from I guy I worked for in the 80’s named Archie Goodwin. He’s the patron saint of comic book editors, and the greatest editor in the history of comics. This was a guy who facilitated other creators, and that was really cool. What a great lesson, you know, god forbid you should have fun reading a comic.
