Category: Comics

Was the Biggest Batman the Best?

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So how big is Batman, really?  That, of course, depends on which Batman you’re talking about.

The comic book Batman was supposed to be about 6’2″ and 210 pounds.  Adam West came closest to that version at 6’2″ and 200 pounds.  All of the other actors who played the Dark Knight, except for Ben Affleck, were smaller.

So does size matter?  Who made the best Batman?

You can check out a larger version of the chart here.

Source: Bleeding Cool.

Midnight of the Soul by Howard Chaykin

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It’s hard to believe that it was almost four years ago when I first posted about a new series from Howard Chaykin called Midnight of the Soul.  There was just a cool shot of a guy on a motorcycle [not the same as above] with the following…

Joel Breakstone came home from the Second World War
with a Purple Heart, a German Luger, and
a desperate taste for alcohol.

In one long night, he’ll lose all three and regain
everything he gave up to get them, in a story of
redemption, in the only parallel universe
that counts… The Real World.

After that teaser appeared there was nothing… until today.

Bleeding Cool has posted a preview of the series with art.  Be advised before clicking over that the series contains adult language.  If you’re of age and not offended then check out “Midnight Of The Soul Is A Labor Of Love” New Miniseries From Howard Chaykin.

30th Anniversary Interview with Frank Miller: The Dark Knight Returns

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Although it’s hard to believe, this year marks the 30th Anniversary of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

CBR.com sat down for a short but informative interview with Frank Miller that’s worth a read.  Here are a couple of tidbits…

When did you realize that it really was something that people were going to be talking about for decades to come? Was there a moment where you thought, “We’ve created something bigger than I ever expected”?

It was an ongoing set of surprises. You go up to bat and you take your best shot. This one turned out to be a homer. But I didn’t expect it to keep on rewarding like this. Now, it’s become apparent that it’s going to be something that we can enjoy revisiting again in the future.

 

When you see how influential your original take on Batman was, and the kinds of things that stuck forever: the way you did narrative dialogue captions over thought balloons, a lot of the approaches to the character. And now we’re seeing things like “Batman v Superman,” where we’re seeing a lot of imagery that comes directly from your pencil. What has that come to mean to you over the years? You’ve seen just how much people embraced what you did, sometimes swiped what you did?

I mean, I’ve learned a lot since doing the first “Dark Knight.” I learned a lot about life too. Instead of resenting, as I first did, when they would take some of the stuff in the movies — I resented and I thought, “Oh I’m being ripped off!” — I’ve come to realize that what I did was a piece of an overall collective work that’s evolving and changing as time goes by. I didn’t make up Batman, I just contributed to the myth. And now they’re using some of my stuff to take it in their own direction. God bless them as well.

13 Riotous Facts About “V for Vendetta”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 13 Riotous Facts About V for Vendetta.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. ANDY AND LANA WACHOWSKI WROTE A SCRIPT FOR V FOR VENDETTA BEFORE THEY WORKED ON THE MATRIX TRILOGY.
The Wachowskis acquired the rights to V for Vendetta in the mid-1990s, then promptly wrote their own screenplay. After directing the three Matrix films, the Wachowskis weren’t interested in returning to directing right away, but they did make alterations to their Vendetta script, including moving the story forward in time and making Evey older.

5. ALAN MOORE DECLINED TO WATCH THE FILM, OR BE CREDITED ON IT.
Moore had read the screenplay and considered it “rubbish.” Moore believed DC Comics and the film industry had knowingly stolen from him. Conversely, David Lloyd praised the movie moments after he had seen it for the first time, declaring it a “fantastic representation” of the work they did, according to McTeigue.

4. IT WAS JAMES MCTEIGUE’S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT.
James McTeigue was first assistant director on the Matrix movies, as well as on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), and was picked by the Wachowskis to take charge. “A lot of the filmmaking process is about trust, and at the point that those guys said, ‘We want you to direct it,’ they were about trusting me to go off and give it the vision it needed to be directed with, so they kind of left me alone,” said McTeigue. “They were there if I needed them, and sometimes I’d go, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ and they’d put their two cents worth in, and I could either take it on board or leave it at the door.”