Breaking Batman

Breaking Batman
or: Whoever Knows Fear...

I killed it. The Batman commission I gave you a peek at last week is dead. Muerte, food for worms, sleeps with the fishes, dead. Don't cry for me, Argentina, I'll get back on it in the morning and show it who's boss. Until then, let's say we dig in the vaults for the last time I killed the Batman, Batman Annual #9. My one and only Bat-story.

I took this job primarily out of fear. I didn't think I could draw the Batman. It was time to find out. Turns out, I was right... d'oh! The problem was, I draw a little inside-out. I can't just draw an icon and slip a well muscled chest underneath. I need to know who they are first and draw out. I'd never given Bruce a second thought. Not that DC gave us much to work with. Bruce just didn't "exist" in the same way that, say, Clark Kent did, and certainly not like Peter Parker did. Bruce was... panel ballast, a place holder like 0.

The story didn't help either. This is not a dig, it's a great little Mike Barr story. In a spin on Rashoman, our hero saves personnel and patients from a burning hospital and we get our story in pieces from four different people (a doctor, a child, the arsonist and the Batman himself) Each presenting a completely different character than the others. Oh, great, I'm not just drawing one character I don't know, I'm doin' FOUR! eek.

From Bat-Annual #9, "Perspectives"

Happy Trails,
Smitty