This week, DC launched "Wednesday Comics" - their latest attempt at a weekly comic, and a bold move in a new direction for the format. Or, perhaps, in an old direction.

The idea behind Wednesday Comics is that it evokes the Sunday comics pages that used to be features in broadsheet newspapers. That means delivering 15 single-page strips every week, featuring some of DC's most popular characters - and some of their most obscure. The really interesting thing, though, is that it's printed broadsheet size, on newsprint paper. That's four times the size of a regular comic.

Understandably, there are many eyes on the series to see if it'll be a successful experiment. So let's have a think about how it's done so far...

Good: The Page Size
Printing comics that large means that the art looks, frankly, phenomenal. There's far more room for the artist to work with, so the panels don't look crammed together, and the details aren't lost when the page is reduced to fit a standard comic size.

Bad: The Paper Quality
Unfortunately, details are lost on the newsprint, which looks as cheap and muddy as the name suggests. It feels like making a movie using the most technologically advanced, high-definition cameras available... then releasing it on VHS. Of course, the whole point of using newsprint isn't just to hark back to the days of massive broadsheet comics sections, it also has a more practical application...

Bad: The Price
...but the tradeoff hasn't really worked. Wednesday Comics is priced at $3.99, and you certainly wouldn't want to have it be any more expensive - but what you get feels insubstantial. $3.99 is increasingly being seen as the point where comic fans finally draw the line, and it's hard to convince anyone that 15 pages - however big those pages are - is worth that much money.

Good: The Variety
On the other hand, the fact that you get instalments of 15 different stories in each issue means that even if you don't love everything, you're virtually guaranteed at least one thing that you can really get into. So the Batman strip didn't do it for you - how about Kamandi, or Metamorpho, or Sgt. Rock? Or Superman, or the Teen Titans? I'm quite a die-hard Marvel fan, but even I found stuff I liked in here.

Good: The Creators
Much of that is down to the creators, however. It's a star-studded book featuring some seriously A-list talent, from Joe Kubert to Neil Gaiman to Paul Pope. It's a real coup for DC to have some of these people on staff, and a timely reminder that it isn't just Marvel that can deliver the best names in comics.

Bad: One Page Each
If we've learnt anything from issue #1 of Wednesday Comics, it's that one page isn't enough. Partly that's because the creators, largely speaking, haven't tried to use the extra space to tell one story on one page. The opening strip featuring Batman is particularly weak - a page of mute, slow-paced action which doesn't even end on a cliffhanger. Yeah, that'll really please the readers. Even weekly, the pace of some of these stories looks like it'll be glacial.

Clearly, the jury's still out on whether Wednesday Comics is actually a successful experiment. But on the other hand, people are talking about it - and in that sense, it's definitely a success for DC even if it isn't a success for the series.

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.