Drawing Batman

As someone who has read and collected Batman comics for decades -- and who has read many Batman comics stories published before he was born -- I have to say that many current comics artists simply do not "get" Batman. The Batman is one of the best-designed superhero characters of all time. That's plain from the number of consumers who have never read a Batman comic, and perhaps have never seen the character's 1960's TV show or all of his various animated incarnations over the last 45 years, yet are drawn to T-shirts or toys or other merchandise bearing his image. Batman, when drawn right -- with the right balance of shadow and light, fluidity and solidity -- looks cool. No matter that a Dick Sprang Batman from the mid-fifties is drawn in a completely different style from a Marshall Rogers Batman from the mid-seventies, or that a Jerry Robinson Batman from 1942 does not look exactly like a Carmine Infantino Batman from 1967. When the artist gets it right, you know it's Batman.

Unfortunately, many artists these days don't get it right. They have the necessary costume elements there; but it's not Batman. It's a character in a Batman suit. That doesn't mean the art is necessarily bad. They just don't get the character right.

What a treat, therefore, that the week of October 7, 2010 brought two new comics from artists who know how to draw Batman -- artists who first became known for drawing the character around 40 years ago.

One of the comics was issue #4 of BATMAN ODYSSEY. ODYSSEY is an extraordinary monthly series written, pencilled, and in its first two issues inked by my favorite Batman artist, Neal Adams.



Adams intends ODYSSEY as his definitive take on the character. I take some issues with his vision of Batman: Chatty, somewhat smart-assed, and wearing his emotions on his sleeve. That's particularly true in this issue, in which he thinks a criminal has killed a little girl that he was protecting, and he proceeds to pound the guy into hamburger while Commissioner Gordon and his cops try to talk him out of killing the man. (And I won't get into Adams's mulleted Aquaman.) But I have no complaints about the art, which not only equals the work Adams did from the late '60's to the early '70's on Batman but surpasses it. Even more extraordinary -- both for Adams, given his track record, and for modern comics in general -- is that each monthly issue has come out on time.

The week also brought a nice presentation of an inventory story (from an unspecified year -- although, from the art style, I believe it would be the early '90's) by Bernie Wrightson, ably inked by Kevin Nowlan.




This treat is accompanied by a reprint of Wrightson's first Batman story, a 1973 issue of his and Len Wein's SWAMP THING series, with an appreciation by Wein at the end. In this case, the art in the earlier story is better, in my opinion, than in the later Wrightson tale. But that does not lessen the fun of reading a comic in which the artist gets Batman right.

Fans who have read the character only in recent years may take issue with my preferences. That's fine. Batman is a resilient enough character to accommodate many artistic visions. But I'm glad that I can occasionally see new comics featuring Batman.

A Hell of a Batman Cover

In an article on a recent Batman comics storyline, "Batman R.I.P., the Comics Buyers Guide reprinted several covers from the last forty or so years on which Batman appeared to die. This one, which came out in 1977, caught my eye on the newsstands when I was a kid. I recall being surprised and vaguely disturbed at the language on the tombstone. It's a good bet the tombstone was inspired by the last scene in the movie CARRIE, which had been released the previous year.

The Brave & the Bold & The Wacky

The first issue of the original run of the comics series "The Brave and the Bold" I read, nearly 30 years ago, was issue #150.



Although the art, by Caniff-inspired illustrator Jim Aparo, was fairly modern, I could tell that the writing was more old-fashioned than the other Batman comics coming out at the time. Seventies Batman comics stories by such writers as Denny O'Neil, Steve Engelhart, Archie Goodwin and Len Wein made an attempt to feature fairly modern and realistic (albeit stylized) dialogue. Writer Bob Haney, however, was quite willing to throw in such silliness as Commissioner Gordon addressing Batman as "World's Greatest Detective" in casual conversation, without a hint of sarcasm.

Upon reading back issues of B & B -- which, in the last approximately fifteen years of its existence, was a team-up book teaming Batman with whichever guest DC wanted to promote -- revealed that Haney's stories often tended toward the wacky. He wrote one story in which miniature superhero The Atom jumps inside the head of a brain-dead Batman; and animates him by dancing on the Caped Crusader's brain. (And yes, Batman is restored to normal at the end of the story -- after solving the case!) In another, Batman and the guest hero were battling a gang of terrorists when suddenly a group of the bad guys attempted to kidnap Haney and Aparo and force them to write an ending in which the terrorists won. Really.






Now Cartoon Network has turned "The Brave and the Bold" into a cartoon series. The first episode aired last night. And the creators are plainly dedicated to bringing to life the wackiness of the show's comic book predecessor. They have eschewed the current Dark Knight incarnation of Batman, and have turned for inspiration to the character's late fifties and early sixties comics incarnation -- a period when Batman might head off to an alien planet for an adventure, or travel in time, or volunteer for a scientific experiment, or perform for charity in broad daylight. Thus, in the premiere episode, Bats and the latest incarnation of The Blue Beetle (a character who, in various iterations, has been around almost as long as Batman) is rocketing into space to stop a meteor when a wormhole transports the two heroes to an alien planet. Batman, of course, takes this in stride. "Judging by the position of the stars," he observes, "we're on the other side of the Milky Way." The two B-heroes then square off against old Justice League villian Kanjar Ro to save a race of intelligent protozoa. Yep, wacky.

The series's challenge is to give full reign to this wackiness, while retaining the coolness-ratio of the character -- something those fifties-to-sixties stories had trouble doing. Judging from the first episode, the creators are managing to do so, by both playing Batman straight and using the Dick Sprang version of the character --replete with muscles, dramatic shadowing, and sharp angles.




If the rest of the series is handled as well as the first episode, this show should be wacky fun.

Printing Error Un-Censors Self-Censored Frank Miller

Yes, that was "self-censored."

According to this story in the L.A. Times' "Hero Complex" blog, DC Comics is recalling the latest issue of the Frank Miller written, Jim Lee drawn comics miniseries "All Star Batman and Robin." Not because it's overripe and laughably over the top; every issue of the miniseries is. Not because it's late; the series still hasn't matched the one-year gap between the release of two issues. No, it's because of a printer error that allowed some not-very-nice words to leak out.

Turns out Miller puts blacked-out cuss words on the page and then covers them with black bars. He actually puts the curses on the page so that the black bar will be the right size. Problem is, due to a printer's error the black wasn't opaque, so the words, er, bled through. Here's an example.

That certainly isn't the worst printing error in the history of comics. The former tradition of bad reproduction in comics (which has largely disappeared with the recent upgrade in printing, intended to make you forget the hideous price for the publications) would often make letters in word balloons run together in entirely Comics Code unfriendly ways. Comics writers learned to avoid words like "flick."

Joker's Wild

Yesterday we saw THE DARK KNIGHT; and apparently we weren't alone. Estimates peg the latest Bat-movie at pulling in around $155 million this weekend, making for the best opening weekend ever for a film, and posturing DARK KNIGHT to go head-to-head with IRON MAN for top movie of the summer. (I find appropriate that these two armored billionaires should grapple mano-a-mano for supremecy. It's the old Marvel vs. DC battles all over again.)

[some mild SPOILERS coming up . . . ]

The one aspect of the DARK KNIGHT I found weak was the bat-suit. In several sequences, especially near the beginning of the film, when it is shown in the light it merely looks silly. I do appreciate the redesign of the bat-armor worked into the movie -- "You'd like to be able to turn your head?" quips armourer Lucius Fox -- but at this point the best design might be the simple look of the comics suit. If Batman is looking for flexible, why not a light mesh armor suit, perhaps of grey or black?

On the other hand, I liked the scenes near the end of the film where the filmakers finally gave Batman an excuse to sport the "blunked-out eyes" that have been his trademark in the comics for decades.

Those notes out of the way, I can see why the DARK KNIGHT is garnering the raves that it is. It shows that a filmmaker can bring to an urban superhero project the sort of bravura filmmaking usually reserved for films like THE FRENCH CONNECTION. Despite being confined to Gotham City, it is expansive, giving the impression that every decision and action the characters make affects millions. (Remember how, in Tim Burton's first Batman movie, Gotham City seemed to consist of about two blocks?) It echoes several moments in the comics, without actually directly copying any scenes from them -- although a scene near the end is very close to one in BATMAN: YEAR ONE. It shows that the third act of a superhero film can consist of more than the hero and villain tearing up the scenery as they pummel each other. (A common feature of IRON MAN and THE INCREDIBLE HULK.)

But the biggest takeaway from the film is Heath Ledger's bravura performance as The Joker -- a performance that would stand out even if it was not his last completed role before his untimely death.




I find fascinating that each of the three most memorable portrayals of the Joker -- Jack Nicholson's in 1989's BATMAN, Mark Hamill as the voice of the knave in BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES in the '90's, and Ledger in this film -- plays the character completely differently; and none quite duplicates the skeletal, grinning killer that either Bob Kane or Jerry Robinson (conflicting accounts) created in 1940, and which Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams redesigned in the seventies.


Ledger's portrayal eschews the dead-white skin, green hair and ruby lips as the character's permanent look; the filmmakers found more in keeping with their "realistic" take on the story that Ledger's character would be nuts enought to wear "war paint" makeup instead. His slow-burn delivery eschews the manic approach that Nicholson and Hamill took. And Ledger really does not smile very much (apart from the false "smile" his scars create), and doesn't give out with one of the Joker's chilling laughs until quite a way into the story.

Yet he hits upon the center of the character, as portrayed initially in the comics and from the '70's on: the Joker's sense of mystery, aided by his unreliable accounts of his origins; his monumental ego, justifying any horrific, large scale act just to satisfy his whims; his psychotic unpredictability; his cunning, here manifested in his mastery of strategy; and his attachment to Batman as his perfect straight man.

There will be other interpretations of the rivalry between Batman and the Joker in the future. They will likely be as different from this movie as the movie is different from what came before. One can only hope they'll be as original and yet as spot-on as this one.

Go West or Bust

If you recall the 1960's live-action BATMAN TV show, you might remember that the switch for the sliding wall that led to the batpoles was hidden in a bust of Shakespeare in Bruce Wayne's study. The muftied millionare would grab the Bard's beard, tilt the bust's head back, reach into its larynx, and flick the switch as the dramatic music swelled.

Now,the circle is complete. Sculptor Ruben Procopio has molded a bust of Adam West (nee William Anderson of Walla Walla), in his role as Bruce Wayne. No word on whether his head tilts back.

++++++Update+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dial 'B' for 'Blog'" features an illustration of the trick Shakespeare bust from the series. According to DBFB, the switch actually turned on a light behind the set that signaled the stage hands to slide the wall open, revealing the bat-poles.

The Perfect Comic Book Cover?

Conceptually, a comic book cover -- like any magazine or book cover -- is an advertising poster, the goal of which is to persuade the viewer to buy the publication without seeing the contents.

By that standard, the 1968 cover to Batman issue 199 -- beautifully drawn by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, published during the Bat-mania of the mid-sixties, and plugging no less than seven other DC comic books -- may be the perfect comic book cover.

Same Bat-Pillow, Same Bat-Case

Of all the Batman collectibles in my collection, this is definitely the one that I've owned (or that has at least been in the family) the longest: a pillowcase with a print made up of Batman characters, sound effects, and the Batmobile.




Although, like most 1960's Batman collectibles, the pillowcase is copyrighted 1966 and was released as a piece of merchandising for the TV show, the artwork is done more or less in the style of the comic book, rather than the show. At ;east some of the art is traced from comic-book art; the shot of the Riddler holding a crossword puzzle as a shield, for instance, is a poorly-done trace of a splash page published in Batman # 179.



I don't know if this pillowcase was purchased for me or for (more likely) my brother Michael, but it graced my pillow many times when I was in single digits. Who knows how many dreams it influenced