DC Experiments with Size of its Comics
By Dan Brown In the comic industry in 2026, it’s all about the format. I don’t mean e-comics versus paper ones, I mean the many different sizes that printed superhero tales come in today. Gone are one-size-fits-all comics. The point is to make stories available to readers in a format that suits their lifestyle and budget. DC, in particular, has been leading the charge as far as alternative formats go. Surprise, the Distinguished Competition is actually doing something smart! I’ve reviewed the company’s Compact Comics editions in this space, and I noted that for a classic book like Watchmen, the reduction in size doesn’t affect the reading experience as much as the cheaper paper used in mini-editions. That said, I understand Compact Comics now account for a significant chunk of DC’s sales. Apparently, readers love them (and the lower price point). I’ve bought a handful, and I’m not a DC guy by nature. How small can comics get? Maybe you remember the mini-digests of Archie comics that were a staple offering at supermarkets back in the day. But Archie stories were so anodyne, it never mattered how big or tiny a page they appeared on. At the opposite end of the size spectrum, DC is also coming on strong with its larger, magazine-shaped digests. They typically centre on one character and contain classic stories taken from different stages in DC’s history. I recently read Batman: Three Acclaimed Comic Book Stories. I appreciate how DC blows up ordinary comics pages because for my feeble fiftysomething eyes, it makes the action pop. DC also leavens the panels with painstakingly positioned circular trivia bubbles, like the one that informs readers, “Batman’s origin story was first told in Detective Comics No. 33. The murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, and how it motivated him to become a superhero, was covered in a two-page sequence.” Another one talks about the Dark Knight’s screen legacy, noting the character’s first appearance at the movies came in 1943 in the form of a 13-part serial. So what you get is a reading experience akin to watching Pop-Up Video, the VH1 series that dressed up old music videos with trivia and gossip. None of the factoids will come as a surprise to longtime DC fans, but that’s not the target audience for these magazines, which are chock-a-block with ads for other Batman graphic novels. The goal is to create news fans. There’s even some correcting of the historical record with an admission in the magazine’s introduction that Bob Kane, “long considered the sole creator of Batman,” didn’t work alone. Kane collaborated with Bill Finger, the company admits. Now if only Marvel would follow DC’s lead by acknowledging Jack Kirby’s writing contributions to such company staples as The Fantastic Four! That would be a positive development, in any format. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 34 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
A New Magazine for Comic Fans
GRAPHIC-NOVEL COLUMN: A New Magazine for Comic Fans By Dan Brown COMICS! The Magazine is not a comic. It is a magazine that covers the comic industry and the people who make comics. It is put together by folks who clearly love comics, and want to give avid readers more reasons to love comics. It’s even the size of a comic book. I’ve read two issues so far (Issue No. 6 goes on sale August 5), and what I can tell you is, if you are a superhero fan, you will learn something from reading COMICS! The Magazine. Arguably the hottest mainstream offering in 2026 is DC’s Absolute Batman. So it made perfect sense for the magazine’s creative team to put the pin-headed vigilante on the cover of Issue No. 1. Inside, there was a Q-and-A with the folks who put Absolute Batman together. Now, Q-and-A’s are usually journalistically suspect, but this one was six pages long! In other words, it was the first and last word about the launch of Absolute Batman. I mean, they even interviewed the dude who letters the breakout hit from DC! That is what I would call exhaustive coverage. There’s also news, reviews, profiles, top picks, and power rankings. I would love to see the monthly do more reported articles, I hope that’s in store. COMICS! The Magazine’s editor-in-chief is writer/editor Joseph Keatinge. London’s own Brian Garside is the publication’s digital director. And if you are a young fan who is new to the idea of a print publication covering the comics industry, that first issue also includes a timeline of previous efforts, such as The Comics Journal, which published 276 issues from 1997 to 2013. Writer Jim Rugg calls Comics Journal “probably the only magazine worthy of the word ‘journalism’ on this list,” which stretches back to the 1960s. “The importance of fanzines in comic-book history cannot be overstated,” Rugg adds. In other words, news coverage gives comics as an art form legitimacy. That’s the void COMICS! is trying to fill. A serious industry deserves serious commentary. And Rob Salkowitz (Forbes) and Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), as amazing as their online work is, can’t do it all on their own. There’s no point in a magazine or blog being critical for the sake of being critical, but someone has to tell the truth. And then there are the serendipitous surprises. In the debut issue, the Mail Bag letters column contained a series of “ letters” from Canadian creator Chip Zdarsky. The exchange ends with Zdarsky writing his last message from jail. It was a mildly amusing joke. Then, four issues later, the Mail Bag was given over to an actual convict who sent in an actual letter in response to Zdarksy. Jaymz 13754295 detailed how reading comics works on the inside, so to speak. It was an eye-opening correspondence. Have you checked out COMICS! The Magazine? What is your go-to news source for information about your favourite publishers and characters? Let me know in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
