Robot Chicken DCU Special

Coming in September:

Batman: Earth One?

Geoff John's recent graphic novel Batman: Earth One offers a radical take on the Dark Knight that makes him far more human than we're used it (see the summary on Wikipedia). There are also some shocking twists to his traditional back story and some very original takes on the supporting cast. This is certainly a transformative take on Batman, and, even after two reads, I'm still not sure if I'd recommend it. Still, there is certainly much for discussion and debate.

Some useful resources include the following:

BATMAN For A New Era: Gary Frank on BATMAN: EARTH ONE (08 Dec. 2009)

Exclusive! Batman Re-Imagined: An Interview With Geoff Johns (n.d.)

Interview: Geoff Johns Brings Batman to 'Earth One' + EXCLUSIVE Art! (25 June 2012)

Batman: Earth One with Geoff Johns (Plus Exclusive Pages!) (10 July 2012)

Geoff Johns crafts an Everyman Batman in 'Earth One' book (27 June 2012)

INTERVIEW: Geoff Johns talks Batman Earth One (29 June 2012)

‘Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘Earth One’ : A hero lost in shadows (30 June 2012)

INTERVIEW: GARY FRANK TALKS BATMAN: EARTH ONE AND SHAZAM! (19 July 2012)

Interview: Artist Gary Frank Talks BATMAN: EARTH ONE, Vol. 2, SHAZAM, and More (19 July 2012)

Gary Frank Speaks on 'Batman: Earth One' and 'Shazam' (19 July 2012)


Extended Reviews:

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/155936005/how-he-became-a-bat-once-more-with-feeling

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/best-shots-advance-reviews-120703.html

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/the-good-the-bat-and-the-ugly-batman-earth-one-by-geoff-johns-and-gary-frank

http://www.tcj.com/reviews/batman-earth-one/

Joe Kubert Has Died

Comics creator Joe Kubert passed away earlier this week. A detailed obituary can be accessed from the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/arts/design/joe-kubert-giant-of-comic-book-art-dies-at-85.html. For details of his career can be found online at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Kubert).

Brooker on Batman Links

A series of recent Batman pieces by Will Brooker in anticipation of his new book and the current Batmania:

"Review of The Dark Knight Rises." (19 July 2012)

"Batman can't come out as gay – his character relies on him being in denial." (28 May 2012)

"Occupy Gotham: Analysing the Dark Knight Rises Viral Campaign." (8 May 2012)

"Clothes and the Batman: Analysing the Outfits in Dark Knight Rises." (5 May 2012)

"My Life With Batman." (3 May 2012)

"Why Fans of The Dark Knight Should Embrace Batman: The Musical." (24 April 2012)

"Anne Hathaway's New Catwoman Outfit - First Images." (16 April 2012)


In addition, there is also an interview with Brooker at the Scottscope website accessible at http://www.scottsmindfield.com/2012/06/dark-knight-dissected-interview-with.html.

Will Brooker Returns to Batman

Will Brooker, author of Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon (Continuum, 2000), returns to the world of the Caped Crusader in a follow-up book that has received a lot of attention online. Here are the details.


Hunting the Dark Knight: Twenty-first Century Batman 
Will Brooker

Imprint: I.B.Tauris
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

Hardback  £57.50
ISBN: 9781848852792
Publication Date: 30 May 2012
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 134

Paperback  £12.99
ISBN: 9781848852808
Publication Date: 30 May 2012
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 134


Publishing alongside the world premiere of Christopher Nolan's third Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises", Will Brooker's new book explores Batman's twenty-first century incarnations. Brooker's close analysis of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" offers a rigorous, accessible account of the complex relationship between popular films, audiences, and producers in our age of media convergence. By exploring themes of authorship, adaptation and intertextuality, he addresses a myriad of questions raised by these films: did "Batman Begins" end when "The Dark Knight began? Does its story include the Gotham Knight DVD, or the 'Why So Serious' viral marketing campaign? Is it separate from the parallel narratives of the Arkham Asylum videogame, the monthly comic books, the animated series and the graphic novels? Can the brightly campy incarnations of the Batman ever be fully repressed by "The Dark Knight", or are they an intrinsic part of the character? Do all of these various manifestations feed into a single Batman metanarrative? This will be a vital text for film students and academics, as well as legions of Batman fans.

Will Brooker is a leading expert on the Dark Knight, author of the cultural history of Batman, Batman Unmasked.  His other books include Using the Force and Alice’s Adventures. He edited the Audience Studies Reader and The Blade Runner Experience, and wrote the BFI Film Classics volume on Star Wars.  He is Reader and Director of Research in Film and Television at Kingston University, London, and is the editor of Cinema Journal.

Marc Singer's Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics
By Marc Singer

256 pages (approx.), 7 x 10 inches, 50 line illustrations, bibliography, index

978-1-61703-135-9 Printed casebinding $65.00
978-1-61703-136-6 Paper $25.00
978-1-61703-137-3 Ebook $25.00


A critical study of a postmodern comics writer who flaunts superhero conventions

One of the most eclectic and distinctive writers currently working in comics, Grant Morrison (b. 1960) brings the auteurist sensibility of alternative comics and graphic novels to the popular genres--superhero, science fiction, and fantasy--that dominate the American and British comics industries. His comics range from bestsellers featuring the most universally recognized superhero franchises (All-Star Superman, New X-Men, Batman) to more independent, creator-owned work (The Invisibles, The Filth, We3) that defies any generic classification.

In Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, author Marc Singer examines how Morrison uses this fusion of styles to intervene in the major political, aesthetic, and intellectual challenges of our time. His comics blur the boundaries between fantasy and realism, mixing autobiographical representation and cultural critique with heroic adventure. They offer self-reflexive appraisals of their own genres while they experiment with the formal elements of comics. Perhaps most ambitiously, they challenge contemporary theories of language and meaning, seeking to develop new modes of expression grounded in comics' capacity for visual narrative and the fantasy genres' ability to make figurative meanings literal.


Marc Singer, Hyattsville, Maryland, is assistant professor of English at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He is the coeditor of Detective Fiction in a Postcolonial and Transnational World.

IJoCA 14.1 Contents

Contents for IJoCA 14.1 (Spring 2012) have now been posted at the journal's blog. Details at http://ijoca.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-issue-of-international-journal-of.html.

Housekeeping August 9

My apologies for the long gaps between posts this summer. I've been mired in Frankencomics (more on this eventually) and other more pressing matters. I've got a series of posts for night just to clean up a few things.

Michael