Compact Editions Make For Consuming Modern Comics: Digest-ing "DC's New Frontier" Again

August 23rd, 2026

Months back here I praised Mark Waid's timeless writing on "Kingdom Come" before garroting it on "Champions" then especially "Captain America: Home Of the Brave", his socially irresponsible propaganda pamphlet. Alex Ross's detailed Norman Rockwell Ubermenschen-dystopian-blitzkrieg clusterfuck (I hope y'all know compliments when you read 'em) overshadowed a clearheaded and ingenious taut political thriller with roots set in 1938 wrapping sometime that smells like now or later. Diving back here in the Human Warehouse probably 20 years since my prior dip, the story drew me tighter this round. Pleasurably I've passed it to other people on the business end of the legal system who've lapped it like honey. This week past rereading a DC opus I hold in equal esteem by a creator whose visual skill puts him in my paramount club: Darwyn Cooke's mid-century mod Justice League re-imagining, "DC's New Frontier". This plunge produced a result startling in similarities to "Kingdom Come", dawning on me DC Compact Editions are the modern modality most suited for comics communication. Let me back that up.

Back about 18 years I collected all 4 monthlies of Frontier hitting the shops come Wednesdays, racing to some nearby Asian pig-out joint to binge on Cooke's voluptuous Wonder Woman with her awesome eyebrows telling a Superman decked in Max Fleischer toon duds "There's the door, spaceman", splash pages that took the legacies of Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, and Steve Ditko to their earned afterlife, and a joyous stream of J'onn J'onzz panel-work taking the criminally underutilized previously alien lovingly toward the version I adore on CW "Supergirl". Afterwards, I couldn't get fixed enough. Little doses, like a " SOLO" book with adjunct NF tales, until the monstrously beautiful Omnibus. Myself a po' workin' man rubbin' backs in Kentucky for my coin back 'den (actual truth), that was a hard-won 75 smackers. Still, that boss slipcover plus the enormous new cover art and the dimensional upgrade for eye-snogging all that gorgeous open space juxtaposed with crackle and grace, I felt justified. For a while, then honestly it's bookshelf decor. Me, I'm primarily about the utility, still I love that aesthetic.

Regular titles I abandoned moons ago. Too frustrating to finish my fix for the month in a toilet trip. Give me a trade paperback because I can invest an afternoon slowly forking (chop-sticking, if I'm being self-abusive) some bourbon chicken (toldja this was Kentucky) and getting lost in bomb sequential art. Comic books were designed for children for a dime in grocers and druggists bringing Mom peace. Heavy stories of the human condition with painstaking artistic depth for five bucks aren't suited for the medium. Trades followed graphic novels, encapsulating serialized stories in a dense volume. What this brought me was my favorite feature of any media: the sharing gift, plus a pretty bookshelf versus crammed long-boxes to pay rental on.

Anything I read and enjoy I need somebody in my orbit to also. Setting the Wayback to John Stuart Mill who preferred art over lesser-minded notions like sex (check a pic of this stud out then smell them grapes, Violet - this cat wasn't knocking anybody dead at the cotillions).

Going back to Mill, anybody studying Ethics knows about higher-minded disciplines, which I consider especially titles post-early-1980s to be. Companies like DC and Marvel moved the rulers up on entry heights for their stuff. Like any song, movie, or show I binge sharing comics is job #2 of reading them. Bookshelf comics like trades begun the process. Omnibi are too unwieldy and expensive for loaners. Yard-chick Chocolate Cupcake (dodging confusion with nubile Honky trim Vanilla) borrowed my She-Hulk by Slott Omnibus, giving me nervous fits. Strolling with "Hands", a former gangster Mizz Cake tried to put hers on for a minute, she returned the tome. Appearing at my door despite being not 20 pages in to halt our paces, Hands and I giggle daily while eating together over that.

Anyway, implicating the name "Compact Edition" I recollected those quaint square mini-books us tykes of yesteryear had with text left and a single panel right. Smells of divine yellowing paper stacks flood me from a used bookstore I nabbed a miniscule "Batman Meets the Cheetah (not the WW villain, a decent masked and striped zoo criminal)" and a Spidey joint with Mysterio, maybe. Ordering "Harley Quinn And The Gotham City Sirens" over a discounted vendor rate, the product was swell. Getting shipped with the same ex-Nazi gang-member, ex-fiance I lost the first copy of "Absolute Wonder Woman" with, I didn't finish. Meanwhile, "Watchmen" and "Kingdom Come" arrived, both Compact-ed. Instantly, decorator-me seeing them stacked side-by-side found love, with the panel art topping each black spine above bold monochrome titles. Leave it to Target (sounds like a sitcom nobody wants but better than anything on cable TV, trust somebody enslaved to it - that's our REAL punishment) to build the better medium. That company makes its missteps but with design they shine.

New Year's Eve 1999 in Amsterdam, my buddy Amos visited and we met "Honi" on a crowded street where tribes of maniacs set themselves on fire. Ambulances racing madcap, this is a yearlong problem in a society often straight outta Seuss. Fireworks are so problematic PSA's run between shows (not during - one way they're smarter) about bottle rocket mishaps for all the good it don't. Honi was en route to America to design displays for Target. Back then, I knew that company understood visual complement and intelligence. This woman was a living testament to it, exuding art and smartness casually. Investigating Honi on Google later, I'm certain she's the award-winning book cover conceptualizer I found.

These Compact Eds also make for loaners and lovers famously. Sized like the average paperback novel, they lend themselves to the practice. This is where it gets interesting (for me, anyway), and makes a full-circle point. When I share these titles, I birth conversations. When I read them, I get fuller stories. Owning the dual versions of "New Frontier" and "Kingdom" in monthlies then a trade, I derived a vastly more rich intake. This novel approach, read in a single hand, is how we read. Our contemporary brains with the modern medium need this format. Classical comic books are obsolete. Printed panel-style sequential art belongs between more contemporary covers. Those Target kyped from Manga, arguably.

Re-reading "Wonder Woman: Blood and Guts", the monthly trip I took with the princess had more curves and swerves than the monthly trek where I obviously spent more time rubbernecking Cliff Chiang's dazzling design. I've also gotten "Batman: White Knight". On the way are Ed Brubaker and Cooke's Selina in "Trail of the Catwoman", "Batman: Court of Owls", and "Harley and Ivy", plus "We3" (can't wait for inmate reviews), and "Batgirl of Burnside", where I almost shucked out 100.00 for the Omnibus. Glad this happened. "Mister Miracle", "Wonder Woman: Earth One" I sold the ragged collection of to Chocolate Cupcake, and "Injustice: Gods Among Us", which should all be on the shelf at my tootsies by January.

 If you're not collecting these, try it. Should you be a reader that loves art yet avoids the scene at comic shops, here's your fix, finally. Try "New Frontier". Beyond recognized folks like Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and Wondy, there's tons of righteously written romance, political intrigue, civil rights issues, and examinations of the human condition wrapped in sleek, stylish imagery. Perfect shelf art for lovers of such. Those interiors don't suffer for the diminished size a bit. Comics should be a love-fest beyond the borders of established communities, and this 50-year fanboy believes DC Compact Editions might be our treaty.