We Love the City

Weirdest comic of 2008?

Written by

Ryan

in

Among DC’s April solicits:

BLUE BEETLE #26
Written by Jai Nitz
Art by Mike Norton & Trevor Scott
Cover by Zach Howard

A special extra-sized Spanish-language issue, with the English script as bonus material! Blue Beetle takes Traci 13 to his family reunion, and having your girlfriend meet your family can be tough, especially when she’s the only guest who doesn’t speak Spanish! To make matters worse, two people have uncovered Jaime’s secret identity — and one of them is the Parasite!
On sale April 30 • 40 pg, FC, $3.50 US

(emphasis mine)

This is either an incredibly bold marketing move, or an fantastically stupid one. Take a book that’s hovering somewhere around the cancellation line, put a fill-in team on it, print the book in an entirely different language, and make it even more expensive than usual?

It could be pretty fun. Traci 13 is a great character, and the setup actually sounds kind of funny. Mike Norton is a good artist – though he’ll have to be on top form to pull this off – and apparently Jai Nitz won a Xeric award back in 2003, so maybe that’s a good sign.

On the other hand, they’re printing an entire issue in Spanish. That’s pretty crazy. Does DC know something we don’t about a huge Spanish-language audience just waiting for a superhero book? Or is Spanish dialogue the new chromium cover?

Pretty ballsy, either way.

Comments

2 Responses to “Weirdest comic of 2008?”

  1. Matthew E

    This is either an incredibly bold marketing move, or an fantastically stupid one.Well, let’s put it this way.Are you looking forward to it? I am.

  2. Ryan

    Well, leaving aside the fact that if DC starts marketing to my tastes, they’ll go bankrupt within a year…I’m really not sure. It could be great. It could be horrible. It actually reminds me, conceptually, of Marvel’s “Nuff Said” month of silent comics – some were really good, some were pretty lame. I’d be more optimistic if it were by the regular creative team – I haven’t been very impressed with the fill-in teams. BB is such a formulaic book in a lot of ways that it needs that extra spark to make it work.

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