Batman: The Killing Joke

Illustrator Brian Bolland has touched the limits of what can be done in the mainstream comic medium, surpassing even Dave Gibbons in *Watchmen* (that undisputed *Citizen Kane* of graphic novels). I've counted roughly 230 individuated facial expressions in this book's 48 pages, every cameo and minor character penciled, inked, colored, storyboarded into life, the backdrops brimming with nuance and articulated detail, the coloring as lurid and suggestive as Steven Soderbergh's color-coded triple-narrative in *Traffic*. The Joker alone is granted 62 articulated facial expressions (19 during the course of his pre-Joker psychodrama), ranging from bright, sportive lunacy (each facial shot individuated) to an almost genuine grief and sadness towards the end. The spinal-paralytic Barbara Gordon, who appears in only 26 panels, is granted a dramatic reality remarkable given her minor role in the story. The portrait of her staring in bemused horror at the Joker (standing in the hallway with Hawaiian shirt, camera, and revolver), while the scene turns "orange" in anticipation of bloodshed, is the most memorable facial expression I've ever seen rendered in a comic book. As a close runner-up, the Joker's hang-dog look on page 41, as he asks Batman sincerely, "Why aren't you laughing?", is the only *convincing* moment of unfeigned sadness the Joker has ever given us, in any comic book.

The blocking and visual narrative is perfectly tuned, each panel calculated for sleek momentum and smooth dramatic economy. *The Killing Joke* is eye-candy from start to finish, and is over before you know it, leaving one to ponder the perfection of its design. As someone who once aspired to write for comics, I've meditated long and hard on how it might be "one-upped," while remaining in a commercial format, resisting the temptation for self-indulgent surrealist excess (i.e. *Arkham Asylum*). Needless to say, I've yet to come up with a solution.

There is no other comic book that's done so much for the Joker, that's made him as "real," as darkly appealing a figure (almost sentimentally so). The difficulty of representing so hyperbolic a personality, and making him seem refreshingly "human," is a testament to Moore's script and Bolland's incredibly articulated visual style. The duality between Batman and the Joker is a psychodrama I'm always eager to see re-rehearsed, but by 1988, in *The Killing Joke*, the leitmotif may have reached its limit. Even *Arkham Asylum* couldn't overtake it. (And let's face it, *The Dark Knight Returns* just prostituted the Joker for an uninteresting subplot.)

In the mad bacchanalia of our postmedia funhouse-culture, the Batman has become obsolete, an aging revenant that cannot keep up with the Joker's all-too-knowing take on media pathology and American theme-park culture. As Mark Dery points out, the Joker may be (superficially anyhow) Deleuze-Guattari's ideal schizophrenic, a de-centered whirlwind of morbid indulgence who never records "the same event in the same way." As the Joker confesses over the funhouse P.A. system: "Something like that happened to me, you know. I...I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha!" But now I'm just being cheeky. The reader must decide for himself whether I am "overstating" the Joker's case.

Moore's rough draft for the Joker was Edward Blake (a.k.a. the Comedian) in the aforementioned *Watchmen*. But despite the dramatic achievement of that character appearing drunk in Moloch's bedroom, confessing terror and obsolescence to his old enemy, Moore's Joker is far more chilling, far more suggestive, and as I mentioned, dangerously appealing. The duality between this harlequin in toxic greasepaint and that billionaire-criminologist who "dress[es] up like a flying rat" reminds me of a certain line from Cervantes: "Don Quixote is a madman and we are sane, yet he goes away sound and laughing while your Grace is left here, battered and sorrowful. I wish you would tell me now who is the crazier: the one who is so because he cannot help it, or he who turns crazy of his own free will?" Batman turns crazy to put himself on the wavelength of the villains he tracks and combats, and the consequences for him (and those he protects) are real and immediate.

If Moore's thesis is correct, then it would seem that Batman *needs* the Joker, if not to rehabilitate him, well, then, simply to *contain* him, as a talisman held up in uneasy triumph against the impending waves of fin-de-millennial mass dementia. In one scene, the Joker boasts: "I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day." John Wayne Gacy would be proud.

*The Killing Joke* succeeds because it is able to cloak its pretentions in a commercial format, allowing us to put our guards down just long enough for Moore and Bolland to hit us hard. It may seem silly to try and "intellectualize" comics, but as the medium develops, a more sophisticated criticism is required to play catch-up with its images and explorations, and Alan Moore has long been a figurehead worth catching up to.


Batman: The Killing Joke defines Batman's and Joker's bond!   March 3, 1999
26 out of 29 found this review helpful

Batman: The Killing Joke is the greatest story ever told about the origin of The Joker. What make this story so brilliant is how Batman, by accident, created his greatest foe. The art in this story is perhaps Brian Bolland's greatest achievement. (No one can draw The Joker better than Bolland. ex: The cover of the Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told). Alan Moore delivers a dark story about Batman and his relationship with the Joker. From the first page when Batman visits The Joker at Arkham Asylum on a dark stormy night, to exactly 24 hours later when Batman confronts The Joker at an abandon carnival is brillantly told by Moore in the format of The Dark Knight tradition. I thought it was brillant to begin and end this story with the same panel (rain falling on the ground) which shows no matter what fates happen to everyone else, Batman and The Joker will always end up where they started..."There were once Two men in a lunatic asylum..." This one-shot format for mature readers is also exceptional how it can merge two stories (Joker's origin and Batman's hunt for him) together. For example, When the Joker's hand is outstreched toward's the clown in fortune teller machine, the panel before shows The Joker reaching for his wife, with the same expression on her face...while his expression is reflected in the backround. It is almost as if he were having a flashback to his orgin. It is also interesting to see Batman confront The Joker and offer to help him, despite all The Joker has done. On the panel where The Joker glances at Batman before he says no to Batman's help is very scary in the fact that The Joker is actually considering to accept help from Batman. I guess the best example of Batman's and The Joker's relationship is on the back cover, with both of them on the same playing card...Forever together and forever apart...like different sides of the same coin...


Killing Joke finally out in Hahahard cover   April 3, 2008
Andre Heeger (Germany)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful

Blurbs on a cover always tell you that whatever book you're holding in your hands is better than the best, that you'd probably die if you'd put it back to where it came from, and more of that kind of nonsense.
In this case (in 1988) they had Tim Burton saying it's his favorite and that it's the first comic he ever loved. The poor fellow. Don't get me wrong: I adore Tim Burton. I love everything he did (after Batman), but there definitely are other great comic books out there.
But still, he is right in saying that this one counts among the best. That is, now it does. Now that Brian Bolland himself has redone the original coloring (by John Higgins). I love Brian Bolland. He is one of my all time favorite artists, a genius in black and white (which best brings out his fine and detailed pencils). And he did a great coloring job here, too. The colors are more pastel and thus bring back a balance to the book I missed in the 1988 paperback.
The original coloring looked as if Mr. Higgins had just bought himself a new set of colors and went for it. There was so much yellow, green and red dripping off the pages that it stopped me from entering the storyline. It looked seventies cheap. Also, to my taste it almost destroyed Brian's genius penciling.
Which is a shame, cause it's a masterpiece (yes, another one) written by Alan Moore. Not for kiddies. The Joker is too brutal for that here. A dark tale about insanity, true insanity, the ways of getting there and what it can lead to. The Joker is meaner and deeper than ever. Batman isn't weak, after all he's Batman, right?! But then, why is it so hard for him this time to deal with the creep? That is, can he?
As a small extra there is a bonus story of a few pages, a few sketches and instead of the tpb's first page with the splattering raindrops, you get a set of bloody eyes staring at you out of the dark.
Highly recommended. Buy this new version and enjoy Mr. Bolland's genius artwork and Mr. Moore's timeless tale.



The greatest Joker story ever.   March 1, 2002
Batfink (USA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

I remember first reading this astonishing book about ten or so years ago around when I first got into comic books. Up until that point I had just read typical mainstream super-hero fare with stories where a bad guy is introduced, commits his crime, and the good guy takes him out. status quo remains in place and everybody goes home happy.

Then I chanced upon this book, not even yet knowing who Alan Moore or Brian Bolland were and was completely blown away! This was a story that mattered. The event's of this book changed the character's in ways that they could never go back, and that's a very rare and good thing in comics. Never has a comic book so brilliantly dug so deep into the nasty bowels of the Joker's mind like this. You see the events that lead up to him going over the top and becoming the criminal who would one day be Batman's arch foe. Then we have Joker's confrontation with Batgirl which would forever change the character's in the Bat books and go on to really show just how insane and demented the Joker actually is. Personally, every time I read it, I can't wait to get to the end of the story when Batman get's his hands on the clown for one of my favorite fight sequences ever! You know a man can write when he get's you feel that much hate for a fictonal character!

A first rate story, from a first rate creative team. This story is only second to The Dark Knight Returns.