Let us today pay tribute to the humble dinosaur. Without dinosaurs, Michael Crichton would have only been that complete loser who wrote The Andromeda Strain, museums would be tumbleweed-strewn burned-out shells of buildings, and The Land Before Time would have been ninety minutes worth of poignant shots of ‘tree-stars'. And comic books? Comic books would have gone the way of The Land Before Time. No other medium uses dinosaurs like comics uses dinosaurs. Below, see the top five dino-fights in comics and forget sad-eyed apatosauri forever.

5. The fifth-place dino fight wins a spot in this line-up through its originality and choice of dinosaur. When planning a dinosaur fight, so many people automatically go for the T-Rex. So many focus on conflict among dinosaurs, or among dinosaurs and humans. These people, while holding higher places on this list, will never understand the dignity, the good will, and yes, the poetry, of an organized pterodactyl strike.

(Some sticklers will recognize this as a still from the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series and say that it shouldn't be counted as it is not technically a comic. To you, I repeat Plastic Man's immortal words: "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because I'm seeing gorillas, riding pterodactyls, with harpoon guns, stealing a boat.")


That's right. Feel shame, pedants. Feel shame.

4. Our fourth-best dinosaur fight appears in Wolverine: Old Man Logan. Have a look.

‘What's so special about that,' you say? This:

A T-Rex chasing a jeep? Please. They did that in Jurassic Park.

A T-Rex chasing a jeep while people are shooting at it? Better.

A T-Rex chasing a jeep while a blind man shoots at it? By god, that's a good fight.

3. The third fight in this series starts on an ordinary, average day. Batman and the Green Lantern are hanging out in the Batcave and an alien monster attacks. You know, the kind of thing that happens when there's no big crossover event going on but something needs to happen in the premiere issue of The Brave and the Bold.

Because the attacking alien is a glowing energy-creature fifty feet tall, batarangs don't do much. Fortunately, there is one thing that Batman keeps in his cave that might do the trick; a giant animatronic dinosaur that Green Lantern can control with his ring.

Look at that. You can see why it wins the bronze. This fight is pure technical perfection. Batcave: check. Aliens: check. Batman and Green Lantern: check. Dinosaur: check.

What's that you say? It's not a real dinosaur? That's right. It's a robot. Leading to my final point.

Robots: check.

The fight is so awesome that even Batman has to take cover.

2. The second place fight snuck into the back pages of the final issues of DC's recently-completed Wednesday Comics. Hawkman, the superhero with the silliest headgear in the comics universe, fought a T-Rex. Unfortunately for him, he chose to taunt said Rex, and it responded the way all Tyrannosaurs do when you taunt them, or even when you don't. It kicked the crap out of him, and chased him to the beach and into the ocean. As it turns out, that was his clever plan all along, because Aquaman had come along as back-up.

One little picture can capture so much. A man body-surfing. A giant seahorse. An unrecognizable blur that turns out to be a squid tangling around a tyrannosaurus's legs. But none of those things are what made this fight take the second-place spot.

Look at the T-Rex's tail.

Yes. That's a shark. It's true that sharks inspire a lot of terror, but that's only because in the water they are hundreds of pound of muscle, thousands of teeth, perfectly streamlined, and probably heading for your legs . . . right . . . now.

Out of the water, pretty much all they do is twitch and asphyxiate. That doesn't stop this shark, though. If all it can do is gnaw some dino tail-tip, then that is what is going happen. Never have I seen such a perfect tribute to both the viciousness and the nobility of these often misunderstood creatures. It is like a whole Shark Week squeezed into one panel. One panel with a dinosaur in it.

1. This is Devil Dinosaur from Marvel's Nextwave.

This is Devil Dinosaur shattering a champagne flute in anticipation of kicking the crap out of the protagonists.

This is the protagonists pushing Devil Dinosaur's perfectly round mansion off of its foundations in the two-mile-high floating city it rests on. (Just go with it.)

This is Devil Dinosaur's reaction.

This is Devil Dinosaur's house bouncing off a mountain like a marble off an anthill.

And exploding.

It has to be said that I'm more of a DC person than a Marvel person. It also has to be said that there is good-natured rivalry maintained between those two companies.

Most importantly, though, it has to be said that, without question, Marvel wins the gold in this competition. They had to. They left everything out on the field, and it shows.

Honestly, this fight would have placed if it had stopped at the champagne flute move, because when a Tyrannosaurus Rex in a smoking jacket shatters a champagne flute prior to a fight, the reader has to respect the artistry inherent in that image. But the floating city, the globe-house, the game of pinball with the Alps, the revolver in a dinosaur's claw; it all added up to the most incredible, awe-inspiring, and piss-your-pants funny dinosaur fight of all time. My hat is off to you, Marvel. If this is all you ever do to make the world a better place, be proud. You have succeeded.

I'm not terribly optimistic that comic books will ever regain the kind of popular readership, particularly among young people, that the medium enjoyed in decades past, but Wednesday Comics seems like the sort of thing that has the best shot of reaching new readers. With so many different characters and creative teams to choose from, even the most skeptical readers will likely find at least a few stories that pique their interests, and the (mostly) continuity-free stories provide an ideal entry point for those just discovering the DC universe.

That said, Wednesday Comics is more than just a clever gimmick. DC has put together some great writers and artists for the stories, including Neil Gaiman and Michael Allred on "Metamorpho", Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones on "Green Lantern", and the current Power Girl team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner on "Supergirl". Throughout, there is a palpable sense that these stories are labors of love for the writers and artists; even the stories that don't work seem to be made with more care than some perfunctory fill-in book, and I'm more likely to revisit these stories to see if I missed something than some gratuitous, pointless event tie-in. (Countdown: Arena, I am, as always, looking at you.)

The best stories in this anthology are those that make the best of their unique format. Gaiman and Allred's "Metamorpho" makes great use of the 14" X 20" dimensions the broadsheet pages give them, crafting entire days as a single panel that its characters then wander through. Such a trick might be jarring on a smaller page, but it works brilliantly here. "Metamorpho" also features a support feature where three children answer what they claim to be reader questions about the Element Man. The fact that these children seem to come from a strange alternate universe where Metamorpho is absurdly popular only adds to the charm.

Similar structural trickery can be seen in "The Flash." Under the banner of "Flash Comics", we see multiple small comics in the various issues, including "The Flash", "Iris West", and "Gorilla Grodd". Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher have put together an entire world within a world here; there's a real sense that "Flash Comics" has run in the Sunday newspapers for years, largely unchanged since the 1960's, and this is simply the first time we've noticed. It's a fun device, particularly when much of its story relies on some of the wackiest comic book science this side of the Silver Age.

There are a bunch of other stories in Wednesday Comics that I would recommend without hesitation. John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo's "Superman" is both gorgeous to look at and manages to tell its story in the grandest, most iconic brushstrokes possible. It's a story that feels huge, even if the story only moves forward at a pace of three or four panels per week. My personal favorite, however, might just be "Supergirl", if only because there's something so gloriously, deliriously awesome about devoting most of the story to Kara chasing after her misbehaving pets. The fact that Streaky and Krypto are absolutely adorable probably helps, too.

Not every story is a triumph, though. Ben Caldwell's "Wonder Woman" is probably guilty of overreaching, trying to cram a cryptic, lyrical take on the Amazonian princess into such a small amount of space. The fact that each week features twenty to thirty panels on just one broadsheet page is probably the most obvious indication that he is trying to do too much in not enough space. I didn't really care for Paul Pope's take on "Strange Adventures", but part of the point of something like Wednesday Comics is to try out a wide variety of creative styles; I suppose it would be unlikely that I would be a fan of all of them.

Wednesday Comics is a breath of fresh air in an industry where superhero stories are increasingly stuck inside some fairly well-defined strictures. Its anthology approach and innovative format make sure that Wednesday Comics is quite unlike anything we've seen in quite some time, which should be more than enough to earn it a recommendation. The fact that the stories inside are actually quite good feels almost like a bonus.

Pope explained what was behind the page:

I wanted to try applying the lessons learned from the Wednesday Comics experience to a different subject, here finding a source which would be difficult to illustrate as a page of comics, given that there is very little suggested action. I find that with the format of Wednesday Comics (which is really the traditional Sunday Comics page), one must condense the plot and action to the briefest yet most vivd bursts of information available— there is a lot of space on the page for the illustrations to really overwhelm the reader/viewer, but there isn't a lot of space for story development in the sense of how we'd develop a plot or work up dialogue for a typical comic book page. In a comic book, one page may be well drawn or well written, but it is still just a single facet of a larger whole. One page can be preceded or followed by another, but no one page carries the entire weight of the sustained narrative. The Wednesday Comics single page format forces the artist to create a story unit which may well be part of a larger storyline, however it still must be able to stand alone.

A one-off page (with colors by Lovern Kindzierski, who colored the last half of Pope's Wednesday Comics strip), we can't help but wish that a full-scale Dune adaptation makes an appearance on Pope's to-do list at some point in the future.

M'Uad Dib [PulpHope]

How's the convention?

I got in just Friday, I got in late so I hit the ground running, and it doesn't matter what day you arrive now, every day seems sold out, every day is packed. Every day is Saturday as far as I'm concerned. It's pretty intense, the reactions to everything we've got going on from Wednesday Comics to Blackest Night to Superman to Batman has been extremely strong for us. You put a lot of time and energy into working all year to get to this point and to get people having that level of excitement and wanting to know more, and keep reading what's going on right now, gives you a renewed feeling of energy to just dig back in when you get back in to the office.

So what is the most successful thing, or the most popular thing, from the reactions you've been seeing so far?

Without question, it's Blackest Night. I mean, if you walk around the convention floor, you see all the shirts. And I think now, I can honestly say that, with all the colored Lantern shirts, we've finally found a way to knock out Superman and Batman as the most iconic shirt walking around the convention floor. From my standpoint, that is an incredible validation for all the efforts that Geoff [Johns], Pete Tomasi, Ivan Reis and all the guys have put into getting us where we are right now.

What about Wednesday Comics, how do you think that's going over?

I absolutely adore Wednesday Comics, naturally. You know, it was a big risk for us, we took a lot of chances on it. So, for us to hear people coming back not only critically applauding it, but we also have very strong sales, better than we were expecting. Honestly, we walked into it with a lot of hesitation, we didn't walk into it saying 'This is going to be a great money-making book for us,' but we knew it had some weird potential.

I have to admit, it stymied everyone internally, from publicity to sales to marketing, everybody embraced it, everybody got excited about it, but everybody wasn't sure how it was going to do. The first issue exceeded our expectations, and we continue to stand higher than we thought we were going to on the book.

Do you think it's because there's good value in doing non-continuity tales that offer new readers a better opportunity to come into?

You know, I get the new reader question a lot, but I don't think this is about new readers. It's about an interesting format, I think it's a different way to tell stories. Honestly, if you read all the stories, are you getting the origins of everyone? Are you getting all the backstory on everybody? You're not seeing that. What you are seeing are just good, fun stories.

I think new readers can come into comics reading Blackest Night as much as they can come into comics reading Wednesday Comics as much as they could come in reading all the relaunches on all the new Batman books. As long as we tell something that feels exciting, something that feels compelling, something that makes you want to pick up the next month's books, I think that's how you get new readers, that's how you get more readers, and just as importantly, hold onto the readers that you've got.

Do you think that Wednesday Comics is something that you could do again, or is it a one-off?

That's probably the most asked question right now. As I like to say, we still have another nine issues to come out, and the reality is, the only way we can go out there and do a second series of these is to go out with a better arrangement of talent, you know, one that's more high profile, more energetic, and hopefully try to exceed what we've accomplished on the first one.

Which is a tall order, considering what's been accomplished in the first one.

Yeah, yeah. So what I want to do is sit back, and see how this performs, see what it does as a collected form, we're still discussing how we're going to release that, so from my standpoint, once we achieve that, we're going to be able to stand back and think about what we need to accomplish next.

Any teases as to what the next weekly comic will be? Or is there even another weekly comic coming down the line?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, we're discussing a couple of projects right now. One we thought was going to hit this year, but we moved it to next year. I really enjoy the weekly format, I think it's the way to go, it always has relevance to what's going on in the line, or there's something that feels unique about it. There will always be strengths to it. You can look at every one we've done in the weekly format, from 52 and Countdown [To Final Crisis] to Trinity and you can see the strengths of each one, what they've accomplished. The hard part is always coming up with a way to one-up yourself, like I said. I think it's something we've accomplished with Wednesday Comics, but more importantly, I think [weekly is] a valuable format, especially with the buying patterns and type of audience that we have.

A lot of people are going digital at this convention, there's a lot of talk about digital comics, is that something you're thinking about, or are you just concentrating on "comic" comics?

I'm always concentrating on "comic" comics, because at this point, you look like the readers that we have, that fanbase is built on a very collectable mentality, that's what our fanbase is, that's why comics are succeeding while other magazines are failing. We're not advertising reliant, which is the first thing, so it's the collector aspect that keeps it going.

But to say that we're not focusing on a digital aspect would be false. We're always aware of that, we know that is the future, and that's where things are heading. But the format and when you roll that out, that's a different point.

Is part of it waiting for one particular format? There're a lot of formats, and there's a lot of conversation about which is better.

There's always a lot of conversation. This is my own personal viewpoint: Much of our audience, much of our reader base is very comfortable reading paper, you know what I mean? Once we have an audience that's built, that's learnt, on reading things on a screen, then you'll see a natural migration over to that, but things haven't reached that point in our foundation. I still think what's strong about what we do is the collectability, and that's why we focus on the publishing side we've got going on.

Right now, you've got Green Lantern, Justice Society and Batman getting a push. What should people be looking at in the next year that they may not be looking at now?

Naturally, you'll see a lot of things going on with Superman that's building to a bigger story next year, and I think it's pretty obvious where a lot of that is heading. Also, there's a storyline coming out of [Justice League] Cry for Justice that comes out of that, goes into [Justice] League and then goes into Titans, so you'll see something happening over in the group books a bit, as well.

So are you bringing all the books back together like you did in Countdown To Final Crisis?After that, you pretty much let everything breathe.

Exactly. What I like to do is set milestones, something we should hit every month and use as guidestones. Every month, something happens that everybody reacts to. It's a little bit of an osciliating effect: The stories come together, they feel the cohesion of the universe, and then they break apart and do their own thing, and then they come together again as things go on there. It gives the writers a chance to expand and fill their character base, but also continue to give that cohesive nature to the DCU, and I think that's what most people are looking for.

I look at what we have, and I always say that we have eight key franchises, and what we have is that we've always tried to build stories based around those franchises, and then make them interact. The Bruce Wayne story leading into Batman Reborn, and the Dick Grayson as Batman story is really playing throughout the whole Batman world. Much of what's going on with the World of New Krypton is playing across the Superman books. You had Rise of The Olympian that was taking place in the Wonder Woman series, which has a lot to do still over there. Cry for Justice will be feeding into Justice League of America. And then it comes to the Teen Titans books as well. It'll be an interesting way to see how those things interact.

We came out of the "Thy Kingdom Come" storyline in the JSA and now we watch JSA become a mini-franchise, between Magog and Power Girl and JSA All Stars. And Green Lantern through Blackest Night and Flash through Rebirth, you're going to see our key characters and franchises getting something that really drives them.

But you're going to keep them separate for now?

Well, I like to say that, but we have Green Lantern running, we have Flash running and we have JLA running, and you can see that Flash is playing an integral part in Blackest Night. Not that whole, 'here comes an event so everyone has to be together,' it's more about, who makes most sense for this particular event and watching what happens when we do that so that it feels more organic, and not as forced.

Are you guys changing the ways you do events? Blackest Night feels more focused, if that makes sense, in a way that <em.Final Crisis wasn't.

"Crisis" stands for it's own thing, it stands for multiverses, multiple worlds, multiple incarnations, multiple interpretations, which is all over the place. It's really a cornerstone of DC, but we've sort of played that card a lot of times now, we've decided to take a half-step back and focus on more personal stories and focus on the key characters, like we are doing with Blackest Night. But that's not to say that the next time we go through, we might not have something that's...

...Crisis-esque.

Mmm, I wouldnt say "crisis-esque," but I would say it has the scope of something large, but it still has a very personal context to it.

If anyone else in comics was doing a DJ set, I'd be much more cynical and think that's just something they're doing to show off. But for you, it makes sense; you've always ignored boundaries and been more of a "communicator" than "comic artist" or "cartoonist" or whatever.

Yeah, especially since falling in with these guys, Eclectic Method. I mean, they're really pro and we're all friends, so there's a chance there to start doing parties, like my friends at Dark Igloo, they're sort of a creative design group... Long story short, over the years I've met a lot of people who do proper event planning, for places like MoMA, you know, big parties for liquor sponsors and film releases and stuff like that, so I've been able to move into that world and do public events with those guys, things for audiences. It seems like a natural fit.

So is this a different way of expression for you? Are you using different muscles, is it less personal expression and more just getting people dancing? Or is this the same thing for you as drawing, writing, creating a comic strip?

For me, it's just sharing music that I'm into, you know? The Eclectic Method guys, they really bring a party - They've done some really big shows. We've done some big ones here in New York, like 250, 500 people. They always say that my sets are like festival set at five in the morning. Someone else described it as like a
shot in the nuts from a lazer beam in the Cantina bar. I like rock, stuff like that.

So what sort of music are people going to hear, when you play?

I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I've got a few mash-ups I've done. I just play stuff I'm really into... I always like opening a night, because it's early enough, people are just getting to the party...

There's less pressure...

Yeah, it's a chance for people to meet and greet. It's a great thrill to hear music you love, loud. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah, it's great to see people respond to it, especially if they've never heard it before. When you can see them get into it, you see them get it.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm really into, everybody now loves 80s punk bands like the Clash or Joy Division, but I'm into early Nick Cave...

Like The Birthday Party?

Yeah, and there's a lot of splinter groups that came out of the Birthday Party that never quite got bigger. I'm into more obscure things, like '80s Berlin... I play off a laptop because you can store, like, four days worth of music on there. I do want to say that the guys I'm playing with, they do a lot of... It's one of those things that has to be seen to be experienced. They do what they call "video mash-up," everything they do is run through a video mixing board, so they do this crazy, hyper-media-conscious mash-up music, using everything from images from Sesame Street to Jay-Z to The Colbert Report. They do crazy stuff, but they make it work, so people love it. They've done some big things for people like the Bob Marley estate and for Motown, so if there's anybody I could be doing stuff with... I feel really comfortable with these guys. They're British, so they know a lot of the music I'm into, but they turn it into something different. There's a visual tie-in with comics, so it makes sense I'd be involved with something like this.

This thing has gone all over the place. I did this print for Coke Zero, it's going to press in the morning. That's what I'm working on today, we're doing the (color) separations, I'm working with the guys at the press. So primarily, I'm in comics and comic storytelling, but I do like to work in other media.

I think from reading PulpHope, you can see that the language of comics informs your "fine art," for want of a better way of putting it, your screenprints and everything else, but then the processes in doing those feeds back into your comic work. Is it the same for music?

Oh yeah, definitely. I'm a real champion of breaking down this distinction between "high" and "low" (art), that's a conceit that benefits galleries and dealers.

Have you read Bill Drummond? He's a big believer in the idea that "low art" is what people want to see and read and listen to, and so it's more important than "high art"...

It's an interesting thought, that's cool.

Is that kind of thinking what led you to do the clothing last year with DKNY Jeans?

Yeah, I think so. And anytime I get a chance to push the medium in new directions, push the... I don't know, the cause of comics, you could say, then I go for that. I hadn't done something like that before, so I thought it was interesting.

Does it all come back to comics for you? Are things like that experiences that you grab to help make your comics better?

I hope so. When I was growing up, there was such a strong division. There was a choice to be like a mainstream, Jim Lee, John Byrne type cartoonist, or you'd have to be an indie cartoonist...

It's such a weird distinction now, and with things like DC's Wednesday Comics, you're working in the same book as Brian Azzarello, Dave Gibbons... You look at something like that and you just see such a celebration of comics, not just a particular "kind" of comics.

Yeah, that's a thrill. It's a chance to do something that's classically pulp. It's very influenced by something like Flash Gordon or some of the great European comics coming out of the '70s and '80s. I thought this was a chance to take something people kind of think of as a B-list character (Adam Strange, the archeologist-turned-science hero of Pope's Strange Adventures strip), even though he has a lot of potential and a lot of interesting things about him, and try to give him a sandblast, come up with something different.

What's it like working in that format, with the big page to go wild on?

The originals are huge. They take a long time to finish. There's an interesting puzzle putting a page like that together, it takes a little time to consider how to get as much information into one page as possible. I feel like everyone's really doing strong work... I couldn't turn it down, when they offered it. I feel like everyone is stepping out of their (comfort zone), like Ryan Sook is clearly doing a great tribute to Prince Valiant.

Yeah, and in your strip, I see callbacks to European comics. I don't know if it's intentional of not, but I see a lot of Heavy Metal in there.

No, there is, (European creators like Manara and Moebius) have laid the groundwork in the same way that you might say that (Frank) Miller has over here, or Jack Kirby. There's a lot to be learned from spending some time with those guys. So that's a good thing.

So, do you see yourself as part of that continuity?

(Understanding Comics) Scott McCloud thinks I'm an "Internationalist", in terms of where I fit in in the big picture. Coming from McCloud, I think that's a good thing.

That makes sense, you have a very individual sensibility, but it's one that's informed by so many different cultural influences.

Yeah, and it's a sincere (influence). I really do love all the different traditions of comics. I have my tastes, there are a lot of things I don't like, but... When I approach a page, it usually takes a lot longer than I expect, which I know irritates the hell out of my editors, but I'm really competitive with myself, I try to do the best I can so that when I finish a page, it stays finished, you know (Laughs)?

You asked earlier where I see myself... After finishing Batman (Year 100), I've really come to embrace fantasy and escapism and its value. I really feel like, in a large sense, the work I'm doing now is a big project that I've committed to, and Adam Strange is one of the first manifestations. It's a real embrace of classic pulp, sincere, no tongue in cheek: Adam Strange is the hero and the bad guys are bad, and I'm just trying to put as much imagination on the page as I can. And that's how I approached the early days of THB, my imagination was unbridled, I didn't have a lot of responsibilities in life, I didn't have a lot of contacts in the industry, I didn't have a lot of perspective of what other people think of my work. I just did work to please myself. It didn't cost a lot to live in Columbus, Ohio, at the time.

Do you think you became too aware of your audience at some point?

No, I think it's more that you want to try things because you think that they'll work. I think everybody in the freelance and creative world is concerned about what people think because you want to make the next paycheck, so you try to be strategic about the balance between personal and professional. Sometimes, getting involved in projects, like, for example, working in Japan was a wonderful experience. Not a lot of the work got published, but I walked away from it with a very interesting skill set, despite the fact that, after five years, very little of it saw print. So, it's a strange thing when you look back on it.

It's strange because, something like 100%, I think is one of the best, most interesting science fiction stories I'd read in years...

Thanks.

...So it's interesting to hear you say that Adam Strange is a return to a purer science fiction.

When I did that book, I was between 30 and 33, and I felt like I really wanted to tell an honest story, and I thought, what do I know about in life, what can I say that's true? At the time, I couldn't approach genre with confidence, I wanted to express something and do it through genre.

Also, at the time I had just read Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, which is one of my favorite science fiction books, and it's such a subtle book. It was a really eye-opening read. It's not like later Dick, it's not like Valis, before he's working from a strictly-paranoid perspective.

I think early Dick works in the same way as 100%, in that it can work even if you don't like science fiction, because you can still empathize with the characters.

I really believe that, in a kind of philosophical sense. As long as we have five, maybe six, senses, as long as we live to be 80, maybe 100 years old, we can't pass on wisdom generation to generation. Everything has to be learned. That's why we keep having wars, that's why all the good, all the bad repeats. As much as we can share tradition, as much as we have the Magna Carta, exploration, conquests... These are things that we share as a culture. But on a deeper level, until people can transcend where memory is longer, or longevity is somehow expanded, we don't have the experience that a 200 year old man would have. But in 200 years, I have a pretty good feeling that there's still going to be boy meets girl, boy loses girl, there's still going to be sex, there's still going to be love.

Those are eternal experiences. There's always going to be someone who's 30, 33, 35, and going through the same things that you were at that time.

Yeah, I think about that a lot, because I'm sort of perplexed at how childhood seems so fresh and so new. It's easier to remember a vivid detail from something that happened when you were eight or nine years old rather than something that happened eight or nine weeks ago, you know? I think that, as you get older, you start to anticipate responses from experience, and I think when you're a kid, you don't have that. You've not even done anything. So everything's dreamlike, it's new. I think artists are able to hold onto that. For me, it's become a way to function in life, to not become overwhelmed by experience that will bring it down.

Is that one of the reasons you're doing your young adult book Battling Boy?

Yeah, I wanted to create a new superhero. I sort of thought, after working on Kavalier & Clay and spending so much time with Michael Chabon, really delving into the classics, the history of Superman and Batman, that superheroes really represent wish fulfillment in society, and (wondered) what superhero doesn't exist now, that people want. And I thought, a child protector.

I think children know that they're not safe in the world. They know there's abductions, they know there's war. There's this vague sense of things called bills, or taxes. There's a sense of things to figure out, so I wanted to come up with a kid who was a child defender.

It's really great to be in this position, working on this project with First Second. There's a lot of work to do, in the near future to finish the project and really get it going. And now there's a film in development, and that's another layer. It's been pretty amazing, it's really grown and developed. I can't wait to get it out there. There's a lot of cool characters in the book, good guys and bad guys. It has elements of superheroes, elements of horror, it's definitely got humor in it.

Are you working on the movie as well?

I'm working on the film as well. The writer who's currently working on the film is Alex Tse, who wrote Watchmen, we were up working til 1am on the script. I'm kind of a consultant.

Is there a date set?

No, there's a lot of stuff to do. It's not in development hell, we're moving along, but one thing I'm learning about this film stuff is that there's so many things that can happen, positively and negatively, outside your control. You could hand in a perfect script, and then the economy tanks, or the studio comes in and doesn't like what you're doing...

Does that make you appreciate the freedom in comics more?

Yeah, it definitely does, but I wouldn't want to choose one or the other. It does make me love comics, because you can have a really cool idea and just do it, you don't have to spend a lot of money to do it.

Paul will be DJing at the PopCult party at Onyx/Thin (852 5th Avenue) in San Diego on Saturday night, beginning at 9pm. Other performances include Eclectic Method, DJ Intel, Murs, Hollywood Holt and Rob Roy, with a live art performance throughout by Jim Mahfood, Dumperfoo, Mike Huddleston and Scott Morse. Entrance is a $5 donation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and if you need more reason to attend, the limited edition Coke Zero print Paul talked about above is being given free to the first 300 people there.
Thanks to Jeff Newelt for setting this up.

It's unfair, really. Even if you ignore the dual Obama-bandwagon-jumping of President Evil and Drafted: One Hundred Days (pitting the president against zombies and aliens, respectively), there's a lot to look for in stores this week.

Marvel focuses on familiar faces with its Marvel 70th Anniversary anthology, new Uncanny X-Men: First Class retro series, Dark X-Men: The Beginning franchise redo and Hulk: Broken Worlds parallel-green-dude collection.

IDW does the same with a GI Joe: Best Of Storm Shadow anthology. And a collection of the alternate history "what if the Klingons fucked everything up" story, Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Last Generation.

DC, meanwhile, make a great play for winning the week even before you get to Wednesday. For one thing, there's Jeff Lemire's The Nobody (which we reviewed last week). There's also a collection of the recent spin-off comic from NBC's Chuck, a re-issue for the oversized (and extra-paged) edition of DC: The New Frontier and a specially-priced ($1) new edition of the first issue from Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's wonderful All-Star Superman.

Plus, of course, there's the new deluxe hardcover Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow, which collects all of Watchmen and V For Vendetta writer Alan Moore's work on the Man of Steel under one set of hardcovers for the first time.

The only competition for that line-up comes from Dark Horse, who's releasing a handsome hardcover version of horror comic Pixu: The Mark of Evil by indie sweethearts Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba (Consider it highly recommended).

But, still. Wednesday Comics has our attention and our heart - A weekly 12-issue series of oversized strips by some of comics' best cartoonists, starring some of DC's best known characters (and some lesser-known but equally awesome - Adam Strange? The Metal Men?), it has the potential to be either the kind of comic that reminds you of the medium's potential, or a terrible carwreck. But either way, we'd be first in line to pick it up. Just the thought of seeing Paul Pope, Karl Kerschl, Eduardo Risso and Ryan Sook artwork at that size in the first place makes our fannish hearts go all a-flutter, never mind writing from Kurt Busiek, Neil Gaiman, Walt Simonson and many, many more.

Whether it's weekly proof that comics can dazzle and entertain or watching the leader of the free world shoot aliens in the head, consider your local comic store the place to be tomorrow... and if none of the above sounds your scene, set your peepers on this week's Diamond Distributors Shipping List, Daddio, to see what else you cool cats could be reading. Just don't bother us; we're going to be wondering whether we should frame some of that gorgeous newspaper-size Wednesday work...

USA Today announced this morning that the Superman strip from the much-anticipated Wednesday Comics anthology will also be appearing on the newspaper's website, launching with a full-page installment in the print version on July 8th. The strip, written by The Mask creator (and Hellboy-spinoff, BPRD writer) John Arcudi and drawn by The Joker artist Lee Bermejo, takes full advantage of the increased size of Wednesday's format (Each of the 15 strips in the anthology runs one of the 14 inch by 20 inch pages each week), giving Bermejo's art a chance to shine:

Wednesday Comics - which also features strips by Paul Pope, Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred, Kyle Baker, Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook and many more - is also released on July 8th.

Superman to leap off these pages [USA Today]

The solicitations also reveal, for the first time, the price of each issue ($3.99) and the full line-up of which creators are handling which characters:

• BATMAN, WEDNESDAY COMICS' weekly cover feature, by the Eisner Award-winning 100 BULLETS team of writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso
• ADAM STRANGE, by writer/artist Paul Pope (BATMAN: YEAR 100)
• METAMORPHO, written by New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman with art by Eisner Award-winner Michael Allred (Madman)
• THE DEMON AND CATWOMAN, written by Walter Simonson (Thor, MANHUNTER) with art by famed DC cover artist Brian Stelfreeze
• DEADMAN, written by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck, art by Dave Bullock
• KAMANDI, written by Dave Gibbons (WATCHMEN, GREEN LANTERN CORPS) with art by Ryan Sook (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, ARKHAM ASYLUM: LIVING HELL)
• SUPERMAN, written by John Arcudi (The Mask) with art by Lee Bermejo (JOKER)
• WONDER WOMAN, written and illustrated by Ben Caldwell (Dare Detectives)
• GREEN LANTERN, written by Kurt Busiek (TRINITY, ASTRO CITY) with art by Joe Quiñones (TEEN TITANS GO!)
• TEEN TITANS, written by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway
• SUPERGIRL, written by Jimmy Palmiotti (JONAH HEX) with art by Amanda Conner (POWER GIRL)
• HAWKMAN, written and illustrated by Kyle Baker (PLASTIC MAN, Special Forces)
• SGT. ROCK, written by Adam Kubert (SUPERMAN: LAST SON), ilustrated by legendary comics artist Joe Kubert
• THE FLASH, written by Karl Kerschl (TEEN TITANS YEAR ONE, THE FLASH: THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE) and Brenden Fletcher, illustrated by Karl Kerschl
• METAL MEN, written by Dan DiDio with art by Ian Churchill (SUPERGIRL)

DC have also released some previews of what to expect visually on their Source blog, and we're already sold - Here are Risso's Batman, Sook's Kamandi, Allred's Metamorpho and Bermejo's Superman:

Wednesday Comics begins July 8th.

Rumored for some time and finally confirmed yesterday, Wednesday Comics will be an experimental twelve-issue weekly series from America's oldest comic book publisher; dumping the now-traditional 22-page (with ads) comic book format in favor of an oversized (14" x 20") format filled with sixteen different one-page strips created by some of DC's top talent, like Paul Pope, Watchmen's Dave Gibbons, and Neil Gaiman. The characters you can expect to see in the series are a similar mix of big name (Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman) and the excitingly obscure (and, for that matter, science fictional: alien space-hero Adam Strange, teen-trapped-in-future-dystopia Kamandi and elemental robots-gone-wild the Metal Men, to name but three). Even better, this series isn't going to be the start of another company-wide crossover requiring you to buy seventy other books, according to DC executive editor Dan DiDio:

All the creators are working to make sure that these stories are being created from the standpoint that the readers is someone who has never seen or read anything with the character before, [a]nd really capture both the essence of the character as well as the magic of comics... The concept is that we are trying to recapture the spirit, format, and sense of enjoyment that people had from reading the Sunday comics that arrive in newspapers every week.

So, let me get this straight: Good creators, making stand-alone stories about good characters in a format that'll allow for experimentation in the form that hasn't been seen since the days of Little Nemo In Slumberland? DC may just have made a significant grab for the comic win of the year.

Wednesday Comics launches this summer.

(Image not from Wednesday Comics, but Kamandi by Paul Pope from his Flickr stream.)

Sunday Comics on Wednesday? DC's New 'Wednesday Comics [Newsarama.com]