Yikes! A drunk driver slammed into the Slave Labor Graphics offices, causing much property carnage but no personal injury, thank goodness. Take a look at the photos here.
Mikester
Some socially secure comics.
If you ever wanted to read a pulse-pounding comic book about Social Security, then get yourself over to the Social Security Administration website to read “John’s First Job” (from 1956).
There’s a lot more here (scroll down).
Giant-Size Franklin.
I stand corrected…there is a new “Giant-Size Man-Thing” joke to be found, per the title on this post from Franklin Harris.
Swamp Thingery.
Here are a few DC characters (and a Marvel character) done in the Batman/Superman/Justice League animated style. The Swamp Thing seems a little light on the details (which is realistic, if it were to actually be animated), and the very existence of an animated-style King Mob hurts my head. The other pages on this site have some nice convention sketches as well. Look for the Swamp Thing sketch by Mark Millar!
Pa Kent isn’t the most observant person in the world.
(Alternate title: “Pa Kent is as dumb as a load of bricks.”)
from Adventure Comics #311 (August 1963) by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan and George Klein
Okay, so Pa Kent looks up at the flying baby, the one that looks pretty much like baby Clark, wearing the same blue and red clothes that Superbaby is always wearing, the very same clothes made out of the Kryptonian cloth that Ma Kent had to get baby Clark to use his heat vision to cut, and he’s not 100% sure that the flying baby is really his son or not…presumably because of the green cake frosting. Because, you know, the sky above Smallville was so filled with flying babies that you never knew whose kid was whose.
On the other hand, Pa Kent not being able to recognize his son through the frosting does establish the precedent that people in the Superman universe are easily bamboozled by really stupid disguises – like, oh, say, a pair of glasses or something.
While we’re sorta on the subject, now that the Smallville TV series has established in its most recent episode that time travel is theoretically possible in its particular milieu, we are now one step closer to getting this on a future show:
from Adventure Comics #321 (June 1964) by Edmond Hamilton, John Forte, and Sheldon Moldoff
Just a couple o’links.
1. Here’s a brief note from cartoonist Steve Purcell regarding Lucasart’s recent cancellation of a new Sam and Max computer game. (via pal Andy)
2. According to this site, September 25th is National Comic Book Day. Um, did I miss something?
Addendum.
I never want to type the words “Batman” or “Joker” ever again.
Thinking too much about The Killing Joke
Am I the only person who reads the end of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke as the death of the Joker?
Why do I think this?
1. The constant assertions by Batman during the story that either he and the Joker will most likely die by the other’s hands.
2. The focus of the story is the Joker believing “all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy,” and his unsuccessful attempts to prove this with Commissioner Gordon. “Maybe ordinary people don’t always crack” asserts Batman to the Joker – “maybe it was just you all this time.” Despite Batman’s attempt to differentiate himself from the Joker, constantly stating that he wants to do things the right way, he very obviously did crack…otherwise he wouldn’t be, as the Joker says, “dress[ing] up like a flying rat.”
3. When Batman releases Gordon prior to going after the Joker, Gordon insists to Batman that Joker be “brought in by the book” – showing that Gordon has not cracked under the pressure applied to him. Batman’s response? A mostly noncommittal “I’ll do my best” – not exactly an ironclad promise.
4. Batman tells the Joker at the end of the story that “maybe this is our last chance to sort this bloody mess out…if you don’t take it, then we’re locked onto a suicide course.” The Joker doesn’t take the chance…he resigns himself to the fact he can’t escape the “suicide course” the two men find themselves on, that “it’s far too late for that.”
5. The last page of actual story, where the two characters are sharing their laugh over Joker’s “two lunatics in an asylum” joke (the joke obviously referring to Batman and the Joker themselves, thus reinforcing their similarities)…between panels six and seven, the loud laughter that had been present in the previous panels suddenly stops, though we can still hear the siren from the approaching police car (which doesn’t appear to be any louder, or enough to drown out the laughter, given this page’s sound effects convention that “bigger = louder”).
It’s at that point, between panels 6 and 7, that I believe Batman kills the Joker. It’s even possible, given the “suicide course” talk, that they kill each other. We don’t see them in the final panels, leaving their fates vague.
Or I could just be reading too much into the story. Besides, the point is completely moot since we’ve obviously had more Batman and Joker stories than we can stand since this was published…Good Lord, 16 years ago? Oy. Also, given events in the most recent issue of Batman: Gotham Knights, the Joker’s family backstory from The Killing Joke (heavily implied to be the actual “origin” though Moore gives the possible out of the Joker remembering multiple pasts) is now officially part of DC Universe continuity. So there you go.
Another observation made by pal Dorian, flipping through The Killing Joke…”how many of these Joker panels have since been…’borrowed’ by other artists?”
(post updated 8/2016)
There *was* an Alan Moore interview there, I swear.
Alan David Doane has posted a big ol’ Alan Moore interview. Read and enjoy, won’t you?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Comic Book Heaven is ending with issue #10!