Eleven months ago, I posted about how so many mainstream authors were stepping into the comic book arena. In particular, the post was all about how Jodi Picoult was stepping in to write for DC’s Wonder Woman. Well, a few months later, we saw how big of an out-of-character trainwreck that turned out to be. Just goes to show that rankings on the bestseller lists have little to no bearing on how good that author will be when brought into a medium they don’t really understand, to write stories for a character they fail to comprehend.
Well, just in time for the holiday season, DC Comics has compiled the issues from Picoult’s run into an inevitable graphic novel. This is expected. What is surprising, however, is the cover. Picoult’s novels have a particular look and feel, right down to the modified Book Antiqua font used for her name. The graphic novel is following the same style guide, meaning that Picoult’s name is given more real estate than the comic’s title. Here’s how The Comics Reporter assessed the situation:
It’s nice that they put author Jodi Picoult’s name in larger type than the superhero she wrote in the comics collected into Wonder Woman: Love and Murder; what she really deserves is an apology. In the comic book version of a weird casting moment when someone is given a television or movie showcase that seems to outright work against the skill-set of the potential star, Picoult’s suggested ability with banter and wordplay is asked to brighten up what feels like an arbitrary, continuity-heavy re-launch, which is almost immediately dragged into an even more laborious and poorly conceived, continuity super-heavy plot …
Fixing the cover seems to be a simple enough task, so I’ve done so. Here you go, DC.
Maybe the ill-fated take-over wasn’t Picoult’s fault after all. Had she known that DC was going to unleash a flock of angry Amazons into their already crossover-addled continuity, maybe she would’ve turned down the opportunity. Or better yet, she could’ve taken the comic in a different direction, maybe using the out-of-continuity route that Frank “Goddamn” Miller and Grant Morrison have been using on their respective All-Star books with Batman and Superman. That way, the author can just take the character and run with it, free of the convoluted chains of canon. (Yes, I realize that the end result is kind of like publisher-approved fan fiction with better art, but that’s beside the point.)
Not everything that DC is doing right now is bad. In fact, I’m incredibly excited about their upcoming direct-to-DVD movie. It’s a faithful adaptation of Darwyn Cooke’s series, The New Frontier. There is even a great Flash-driven website to promote it. Here, let me show you it.
(Oh. It looks like all of the coolness has been replaced with “Coming Soon.” Sigh.)
