Breaking news (?) from Steve Rude's newsletter:
"DC is launching a new 12-issue series in the spirit of 1985's DC Challenge titled Kamandi Challenge, the 12-issue series will feature a new writer and artist in each issue to tell an interconnected story - in this case, about Kamandi.
"Steve will be teaming up with Keith Giffen on issue #8. Each randomly chosen team will create a story in their part of the world that Jack Kirby laid out years ago then leave the story hanging for the next group to pick up!"
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I have great memories of DC Challenge. I'm glad they're doing this again but I hope they use creators that I'm familiar with. When they did the original, I knew pretty much all of the players and that was what appealed to me. These days, the percentage of writers and artists that I recognize is much smaller.
Hope Kamandi can use his frequent flyer miles!
The map is from Kamandi #32.
I’m ridiculously happy about this. Not only because it revives two of my favorite DC concepts, but because it’s a signal that the publisher is willing to have fun again.
I remember the original DC Challenge, which is mostly thought of today as a failed experiment, better in concept than in execution. The biggest problem was that the artists and writers thought it was more cool than the readers, who got an increasingly muddled story the longer it went on.
These things can be entertaining if done right. One fine example was The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect C... -- a story in which a guy commissions murder schemes from authors Lawrence Block, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey, and Donald Westlake. Each writer contributes a chapter outlining his or her plan ... and a second chapter picking apart everyone else's plan.
Let's hope DC can do better this time around, but I have to wonder: Why base this around Kamandi? It's not like he's the most popular or well-known character.
It might be the other way around: this is a way of doing Kamandi that might interest people. The episodic structure is a good idea.
I think there are a couple reasons to use Kamandi for this. First, as Luke said, it’s a novel way to draw attention to the character. Do this with Superman, and it’s one of many Superman books out there, in competition with all of them (and probably floundering against the ones thate are more “in-continuity”). Kamandi’s a small fry, so he’s got more to gain from this stunt.
Also, Kamandi’s off in his own timeline. One of the things that I loved about the original DC Challenge (but that probably put a lot of people off) was that is went absolutley everywhere, incorporating all sorts of oddball characters from DC history -- and consequently came off like a real nonsensical patchwork. (Which, again, I loved.) By setting this in Kamandi’s time, the story’s likely to be more focused... but it’s also a setting that allows the creative teams to invent, invent, invent. Each team has one issue to blow our minds. There’s something really Kirbyesque about that.
Some of the locations are ones Kamandi had already visited, but there are probably others he never has. The creators have a chance to decide what the tags mean.
The Dominion of the Devils (Canada) was the land of giant insects. Italy is listed as having "Wolf Garibaldeks". Garibaldi was a key figure in the unification of Italy in the 19th century.
The original DC Challenge is one of my guilty pleasures, one I indulge from time to time, most recently not too long ago. I’ve decided that I enjoy it primarily as a showcase for particular characters, writer/artist teams, or penciler/inker teams. The story is so disjointed, it doesn’t read well as a single 12-issue story at all. I’ve decided it reads best one random issue at a time, whatever mix of character/writer/artist I’m in the mood for when I can’t think of anything else to read. The last time I read it, I read issues #1-11 but stopped short of 12. That’s been several months ago. The next time I can’t decide what I’m in the mood to read, I’ll likely pick up DC Challenge #12 to read on its own.
I think the concept of a round robin story is a good fit for Kamandi. He’s DC’s biggest character, but he does have a cult following all his own, and that extends to professionals as well as fans. I’m expecting the teams to cut loose and have some fun. The round robin aspect will tie together what might otherwise be 12 individual stand-alone stories. I can hardly wait to find out who the other creators will be.
While I am excited to see what all of these creative teams will do with the property, I am disappointed by some of the people who aren't on the list.
(I got this one from Bleeding Cool after a quick Google...):
I'm kind of surprised to see no trace of Erik Larsen, Ladronn, pencils-and-or-inks by Keith Giffen, or Tom Scioli on here.
But still, the last thing I want to do is complain. I'm excited about this project, and I'm also really glad that DC is continuing to try things like this despite "failures" at these attempts like Prez, OMAC, and Omega Men.
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