I was re-reading the killing joke just now and seeing 80s era gritty batman as drawn by brian bolland have a framed picture of bat-mite hit me like a dick slap in the face. Sometimes i forget the squeaky clean and goofy 1950s silver age batman stories exist in the same canon universe and prior to the events of the killing joke still.
What's more interesting is, given the long time between the initial pitch and the printing, Moore and Bolland were making this with the intention of it actually being Pre-Crisis(or at least within the current DCU, Pre/Post Crisis as concepts wouldn't exist then). I don't think Moore nor Bolland especially cared about the difference after this was published after. By design, this is a Batman in the same universe as those 50's stories. Bolland personally photostatted his own Batman annual the original came from and traced a downsized image as homage to Dick sprang, who's line work he liked. Sprang and him would talk personally after this and both complimented the other's line work.
>>153282469The digital inking ruins it
>>153282581>given the long time between the initial pitch and the printing, Moore and Bolland were making this with the intention of it actually being Pre-CrisisWait a min, when was the killing joke originally pitched?
>>153282840Killing Joke was greenlit around 1983 as Camelot 3000 was such a huge hit for DC that editorial basically told Bolland he could do any project he wanted as his next DC book and with whatever talent he wanted. Bolland basically wanted to do the "Ultimate Batman vs Joker" story and have Alan Moore (then just becoming the biggest name in comics thanks to Swamp Thing) write it.Moore knew Bolland from his time at 2000 enough to agree to work with him and had the idea of basically using the project as a vehicle to explore Joker's backstory and basically rewrite the original Red Hood origin story. But because Bolland was super slow, the whole project was top secret. Shit hit the fan however when Frank Miller deliberately erased Babs from Batman lore in Year One. Leading to someone at DC unilaterally deciding to leak the project to the fan press, saying that Miller deliberately fucked over Alan Moore so that his big Batman story where Joker crippled Batgirl could never be released as the big 1987 Batman Annual. This BTW is where the whole "TKJ was supposed to be an annual" thing came from and why Moore quickly churned out a Clayface story for the Annual as there was so much buzz about Moore doing a Batman story that Moore didn't want to leave DC hanging, especially since Len Wein went to back for the two rushing out both a Batgirl special and an issue of Secret Origin to retcon Year one and explicitly restore Batgirl to canon via making her Gordon's niece instead of his daughter. And cause Bolland to hurry up and finish the project after going super slow on it.
>>153283010Was frank miller always a dick? Why did he hate batgirl so much?
>>153283010So was TKJ always meant to be a graphic novel then? If not then how was it originally meant to be published?
>>153285294It was always intended to be a one-shot, but fan press got their wires crossed and thought it was going to be an annual since annuals generally were and are self-contained stories from the ongoing book. If it was an annual, it would've been planned to have content that could be submitted to the CCA for newsstand distribution, rather than not carrying the CCA and shipping to the direct market like Killing Joke did.
>>153282469Batman still dealt with murderers and deranged criminals between the Batmite and Rainbow Creature issues.
>>153284024Stop believing dumb fanfic from that guyThe real reason:Miller originally intended the baby to be BarbaraSomeone did the math at after it was already established Gordon's wife was pregnant, and realized this was a bad idea because it made Barbara way younger than Dick (prior stories established her being older than him) so Miller quickly changed the baby to being Gordon's son instead
>>153285378Yeah but never to the level of grit and edge that we see in something like in TKJ or other comics of that era. Its just really amusing to me imagining bat mite running around in the same time period as victor zsasz cutting up people or ventriloquist and scarface stuffing drugs into dead cadavers >>153285628>gordons sonI havent read enough comics about him, how did gordons son become a serial killer?
>>153285838>I havent read enough comics about him, how did gordons son become a serial killer?It just happened in Scott Snyder's run on Detective Comics.
>>153285984So wait it was only as recent as new 52? I swore to god it happened earlier then that? am i going mad?
>>153286002His Detective Comics run was like a year or so before New 52
>finished reading TKJ and then this fucker shows up right afterOh god i forgot how much i loved this short story
>>153282581>Bolland personally photostatted his own Batman annual the original came from and traced a downsized image as homage to Dick sprang, who's line work he liked. Sprang and him would talk personally after this and both complimented the other's line work.Its surreal to imagine the 50s artists like dick sprang being friends with british invasion 80s guys like bolland or moore but i forget it was only 30 years after the 50s at that point
>>153282591Don't let BB hear that
>>153282469People often forget that DC had transitioned to more serious storytelling long before CoIE, while the Silver Age material was still considered canon.Hell, Crisis happened precisely because DC deemed their publication history incompatible with their then current direction, and they were sick of multiverse shit.
>>153286599Yeah, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing started in 1983, two years before Crisis, and a majority of his run was published without the CCA to the direct market.
>>153286599>and they were sick of multiverse shit.Was the DC multiverse prior to COIE really confusing enough to warrant an entire company wide wipe of continuity and reboot?
>>153287044It supposedly made them look more old-fashioned next to the then strong continuity and soap opera writing of Marvel. Hence why they wanted a complete reboot, not an Earth-2 solution like they did before.But honestly, I'm not sure if that's what the readership at the time actually thought or if it's just one of those things people believe to be true because it's been repeated so much.
>>153287847>and soap opera writing of Marvel.Did people actually like that back then? I find it so annoying nowadays
>>153286101Was this made for the deluxe edition? I can't remember. Also what was the point of it? I'm kinda clueless on this one. It's tied to the themeing of TKJ so I assume it's basically illustrating the common person can have psychotic tendencies just like the Joker said people can have? A different iteration on that part of the message?
>>153282591It's the dogshit colors. Bolland recolored the book for the 2008 Deluxe edition. Apparently the Absolute prints both Bolland's recolor and John Higgins' original colors.
>>153289998It was originally in the original Batman Black & White miniseries. It's usually included in modern Killing Joke reprintings because it's Bolland's only other longform work on Batman.
>>153290043Higgins colors are so much better. Bolland's colors are too literal. Higgins' colors are manic, psychedelic and psychotic, it's like being inside The Joker's mind.
>>153286101>>153289998Originally printed in Batman: Black & White
>>153285378Heck. Penny Plunderer kills a man.
>>153290163Have they done a penny plunderer story yet now that they officially stopped producing pennies? I feel like that could lend itself to a funny comic
>>153290120Well also as mamy Batfans probably don't like to admit but the 60's show, 70's comics, and more from even earlier always had psychedlic coloring and I think that just makes it all look more interesting. Not all the time. We gotta have some darkness and realism from time to time. But Batman where shit gets weird and utter insanity goes down is kinda what I like the villains to be. Insanity that is ordered in a way. Like a kid thinks insanity is just babbling nonsense in the street and that is right to a degree. But for a story, that insanity has to have some order to it, just in a weird twist. Like Two Face being governed by binary choices. Or Joker seeing everything as a joke. I think having the color look like thatis emblematic of that ideology batcomics have. >>153290136>>153290092Hmm....ok. Reading it again he mentions surface level things about what it means to be good and arbitrarily says that being evil has to be to that degree that he describes. Is it perhaps that he is supposed to embody the reader of TKJ? Where we see the good and evil acted out and get an idea of what feels good and not good? And that this fan is delusional or uncreative in his imagination or detatched from reality? Like a fan of Batman who saw how fear rules everyone and how Batman uses it and now he wants to really put fear into something else or himself and see if he can cope with it and see if he is as good as he says he is? Perhaps, the real message is that true insanity is blurring fiction and reality and losing touch with what should be valued in the world.
>>153282469There was a time when comics were not ashamed of whimsy
>>153286514Who is BB?
>>153282469If the killing joke is the best joker story then what is the second best joker story?
>>153291270Brian Bolland. The artist we have been mentioning in this thread who drew TKJ. >>153292141Laughing Fish? At least that's the other one I see most represented alongside TKJ. Death in the Family is kind of too disjointed and weird to be considered 2nd. Also I just imagined Norm Macdonald wearing make up like that, making a face like that, and doing his podcast while playing those songs in the background as he eggs on a guest to do more of his-I mean someone's jokes.
>>153292320Oh im a retard for not realizing that was who those initials stood for
>>153292320Didnt norm make a joker movie joke before he died?
>>153293023The only thing I recall about him and Joker is the Cum Town guys reacting to his tweet reply (pic related) which is how I found out about it.
>>153293118Literally what did norm mean by that? I dont know who seth simons even is. Also its 2 am in the morning and looking at that jared leto joker sitting behind joaquins joker is like staring at a chimpanzee in face pain doing meth and its making my head spin literally.
>>153290043Im gonna out myself as a pleb but i prefer right to left
>>153282581>batman artist literally named dick sprangDid he write the comic about the jokers boner?
>>153282591You guys say this about everything.
>>153294984No, he only did the coverThe issue was drawn by Lew Sayre Schwartz
>>153296689>dude who wrote the proper joker boner story has another dick euphanism last nameHypercrises anyone?
>>153297126No he only drew itIt was written by Bill Finger
>>153297158Finger is also a sexual euphemism too
>>153293767Seth Simons got Shane Gillis fired from SNL, which was a big career jump for him at the time, by being petty. Norm liked to get into scraps.>>153297167Especially if he went by Willy Finger.
>>153298506>Seth Simons got Shane Gillis fired from SNLSo he was some overly PC performative male cuck then, got it>willy fingerUnironically that should be the name of a alter ego of a rapist supervillain character
>>153294654Same, although I do think the original colors work better for the roller coaster scene.
>>153282469Oh shit
>>153300017Okay i can see your point their
>>153294654At least you recognize.
>>153297167look familiar
>>153303122>he doesnt recognize great kino when he sees itNGMI
>>153304117oh
>>153283010In my knowledge, when Bolland visited New York he and Miller had lunch and during that Bolland said that they were making TKJ then Miller said Batman is a little overrated at the time because of the popularity of Year One.
>>153293118kek based
>>153290043I still prefer the recolored.
