Oct 162011
 

In one of my little excursions to Walmart, I was surprised to see the LEGACY EDITION ARKHAM CITY JOKER and ROBIN set for sale.  This is a collector’s set including the ARKHAM CITY Joker and the hooded version of Robin.  Here are some pics of the figures in question. This one will be added to the JOKER’S FUNHOUSE SOON!

LEGACY EDITION ARKHAM CITY JOKER and ROBIN SET

  • Retail Price $22.95  (Other places in the internet have been selling this set as high as $32.95)

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Oct 152011
 

I know…some of these might be old, but the truth is that there is so much out there to keep up it is easy sometimes to get lost on the whole thing.  Anyways, I found a source of more incentives added to the Arkham City Preorders and to the moment  I HAVE NOT HEARD OF ANY HARLEY QUINN SKINS being added to the game (but do not doubt they will come, after all they have the base with the Catwoman downloadable content). If anybody knows any different, please let me know so I can post it here, OK?

Anyways, here’s the latest scoop:

ROBIN PLAYABLE CHARACTER

  • Available in the SCANDINAVIAN TERRITORIES through GAMESTOP

ROBIN ANIMATED SKIN

  • Available in the SCANDINAVIAN TERRITORIES through GAMESTOP

STEELBOOKS

  • JOKER STEELBOOK availabe in AUSTRALIA through EB GAMES. Includes the Joker carnival map, Red Hood DVD, and Batman 1970 skin as well)
  • PENGUIN STEELBOOK available internationally through BLOCKBUSTER
  • TWO FACE STEELBOOK available internationally through SHOPTONET/PROPELGAMER

FULL LIST OF INCENTIVES (US and international) ALONG WITH SOME PREVIEWS HERE!

INFO ON THE SPECIAL EDITION ARKHAM ASYLUM GUIDE WAS POSTED HERE!

 

 

Oct 062011
 

Just at one week for the release of ARKHAM CITY, the much anticipated sequel to 2009’s ARKHAM ASYLUM, images of yet another two villains join the gigabytes of information already loaded the gaming media.  Here are they in a nutshell

1.  New Robin Character comes fully playable in two maps to be included in the preorder of the game. (no specific retailer was announced, but BEST BUY had been announcing a Robin skin incentive if you ordered the game with them, so I don’t know.  The Robins are in reality three.  The hooded ninja looking one and two additional skins: RED ROBIN and TRADITIONAL ROBIN

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Robin picture courtesy of HotBloodedGaming.com

NEWSARAMA HAS THE FOOTAGE HERE!

2.  Poison Ivy (that had a limited intervention in ARKHAM ASYLUM returns to ARKHAM CITY

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Ivy photo courtesy of Newsarama.com

3.  The MAD HATTER makes his entrance as the latest addition to ARKHAM CITY’S List of rogues that lately included DEADSHOT too

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Madhatter photo courtesy of Newsarama.com

Oct 062011
 

After the announcement that Cartoon Network (CN) plans on cancelling the series BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (It was about time if you ask me), it will not take them much time bring back the batman in a whole new series of  CGI adventures: BEWARE THE BATMAN (and the lineup of sidekicks and villains are causing quite a buzz it seems).  According to to COMIC BOOK MOVIES the announcement came from TIME WARNER:  Here is a pic and the transcript fromt he announcement.

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Batman: The Brave and the Bold is ending its three-season run
imminently, but DC’s iconic hero won’t be away from TV sets for too long.

Comic Book Movie is reporting that Warner Bros. Animation has announced
Beware the Batman, a CGI-animated series targeted for 2013 on
Cartoon Network. The news comes from the recently wrapped MIP Junior showcase in Cannes,
France.

Batman is described as “classic-looking,” fighting alongside a, wait for it,
“gun-toting Alfred Pennyworth.”  With the status of a Robin currently unclear, it
looks Katana will be playing the main sidekick role, a character currently
co-starring in The New 52′s Birds of Prey. The character has a recent
past in animation, showing up Brave and the Bold episode “Enter the
Outsiders!”

Along with the usual villain slate of your Jokers and your Penguins,
Beware the Batman will also feature newer and lesser-known
antagonists, with Professor Pyg — created during Grant Morrison’s
Batman run — specifically mentioned in reports.

(Sam Register said that they went deeper into the rogues gallery to pull new villains. Not that we are not going to see  Penguin and Joker, but we’ll see less of them.  In his own words…”we didn’t want to make another Joker story…there are too many out there…”  WHAT? There is never enough Joker stories if they are done right.  Well, we’ll have to check this one out by ourselves when it comes out.)

World’s Finest fills in with some more details on Cartoon Network’s DC-related
offerings, saying that the “DC Nation” block is scheduled to debut in spring
2012, with a Doom Patrol series in development, along with My
Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
(which has developed a surprisingly
strong online following among male “bronies” 18-35 ) showrunner Lauren Faust
working on a series of shorts starring Wonder Girl, Supergirl and Batgirl titled
“Super Best Friends Forever.”

The next DC animated series to premiere will be Green Lantern: The
Animated Series
, with a sneak preview airing in November before its proper
debut in spring 2012. An even earlier preview can be had next week at New York Comic Con, where the first
episode will be screened on Saturday, Oct. 15.

To see the original NEWSARAMA report and video from the MIPJunior shocase in Cannes, click HERE!

Oct 052011
 

Checking on this week’s DC releases, I was thrilled to see they had a little preview of the upcoming graphic novel BATMAN: NOEL by JOKER artist LEE BERMEJO.  The graphic novel is due in November.  Here is the sneak peek published by DC this week. And if you had any doubt there was going to be any Joker on this one…check the last page of the preview. This preview came from RED LANTERNS #2:

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Oct 042011
 

Well, after the blow that Joker might actually die at the end of ARKHAM CITY, I tried to lighten up the atmosphere with a pic of the new NIGHTWING from the game.  I don’t know.  I think I don’t like the way he was modeled.  I prefer the one in the comics, especially the one in NIGHTWING #1 (see thumb at the bottom of page). Here is the ARKHAM NIGHTWING preview”

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Picture courtesy of Eagle Eye

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Oct 032011
 

So this is my  second post on the new Bolland book, with art that is not Joker-centric.

The Book is really awesome.  So much art to enjoy….the pages are populated of as many graphics as his other book THE ART OF BRIAN BOLLAND.  First I have to say that I love the art on both the dustjacket and the actual hard covers. While Joker is in both the back and the front of the dustjacket, the front of the hardcover has a beautifully done inked portrait of Sgt. Rock (see thumbnail below),  and on the back the inked cover of THE INVISIBLES #4.

The art is organized by character for the most part. There are anecdotes for each project, told by Mr. Bolland himself that are quite enlightening and entertaining, adding to the dimension of his work.  Here are just a few previews of the art in the book.  To enjoy them all, please buy the book.  You will not regret it.

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Visit BRIAN BOLLAND’S OFFICIAL WEBSITE for more wonderful art.

 

NOTE:  All material in this post is copyrighted by BRIAN BOLLAND and DC COMICS and is presented here for entertainment purposes only and as a promotion of Bolland’s book which contains much more beautiful art to enjoy.   If you’re a serious Joker or Bolland fan, go and grab a copy of the book. It will enrich any art collection.

Oct 032011
 

batman01-cvro2Probably all of you have a copy of the new Batman #1 in your hands right now.  Good.  Keep it safe because that was one of the fastest selling titles from the new DC 52 reboot.  They are talking now of a third printing, since 1 and 2 have sold out.

Anyways.  You probably know as well that the Joker in this issue is not the real one, but still counts as an appearance.  I personally I’m surprised by the nice clean style of Mr. Capullo’s art.  It contrasts dramatically from his dark and heavy style  years in IMAGE (SPAWN, ANGELA) and it’s good to see that he has grown to become such a strong storyteller.  I think his Joker is more of a mixture between Heath Ledger, Bermejo’s Joker, with a little bit of Spawn, but its kind of refreshing look.  I just hope for more refinement of the face as time goes by and we see more of his Joker.  The storytelling is also  intriguing, but  amusing at the same time, combining the mystery with some humor (so difficult for a character like Batman). The turns and twists will leave you asking for more.  Hope there is much more to see in the future and it is as good as this first issue ( many times titles slack after the first two issues and fall into the same monotony and shortcuts cheap comics present).

Here is a sneak peek of the Joker appearance:

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Oct 022011
 

I just finished checking out Brian Bolland’s new book,  COVER STORY: The DC Comic Art of Brian Bolland, and when I thought that Mr. Bolland could not impress me anymore, I am proven wrong.  THANK GOD! The book is really awesome and presents multiple facets of Bolland’s DC art covering every character he has worked on for DC Comics, even some of his earliest art.  Since this is mainly a Joker-centric site, I will begin highlighting his Joker art on the book as well as some trivia and then I will present his non-Joker art in another post.  Now for my  psycho Clown.

There are a few Joker articles covered in the book.  All of them include awesome art, sketches and descriptions in Mr. Bolland’s own words.  Along with that, Mr. Bolland adds intersting trivia and anecdotes.

BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE

As everybody knows this is Brian Bolland’s pet project.  He was asked by Dick Giordano what he wanted to do next for DC and Bolland sparked the idea of a Batman Joker graphic novel (a very new term that was just starting to be used in the late 1980’s) and he said that he would like Alan Moore to write it. After negotiations, Dick Giordano got Alan on board and the project started to take shape.  Here is what Bolland says on the subject:

He (Dick Giordano) asked me what I had in mind.  To be quite honest, I’d been drawn to the Joker even more than Batman.  My character Judge Death had been a kind of forshadowing of the Joker for me.  I told Alan that I’d like it to be more of a Joker story with Batman as a less defined background character, and he said okay.  During the writing of it he rang me up once to talk through a dark place he’d reached in the story—the maiming of Barbara Gordon, I think.

I talked in other places about the drawing of the story and my reaction to the finished book, so here I’ll stick to comments about the cover.  What the Joker does to Barbara in the story was, at the time, a darker thing than was usual for DC Comics.  The fact he also takes photos of her also provided me with  the single obvious cover idea. I was never in doubt about the cover.  To push the idea I drew a pencilled , inked and colored version and presented it to Dick

There is something very likable about the Joker.  He smiles at his victims – and the viewer –  before killing them. There is something seductive about that face,  with its slutty eyes and lipstick lips.  He emotes and plays with his audience drawing them in.  Batman doesn’t. He under emotes. He disguises his humanity. He doesn’t want to be your friend.  On the cover to the KILLING JOKE, Joker uses his charm to woo you into liking him, and it’s not until you’ve fisnished the story that it becomes clear that you the readers, are the victim of one of the most henious crimes. Only the ones who have read the story are in on the “joke”!

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Some KILLING JOKE Joker Trivia (or technical points as Bolland calls them):

My Joker was the Neal Adams Joker, specifically from Batman #251 (Sepbtember 1973)

Around the camera lens are the words for “Joker” in German and Polish.  (This, friends I had to see for myself  so I pulled my KILLING JOKE copy, checked it out and….HOLY CRAP! There they are: WITZMACHER and KAWALARZ.  Here is a close-up scan.)

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Look at the birdie!

I used to ask people to guess how many times the actual word “Joker” appears throughout the book. The answer is…NONE!

 

THE GREATEST JOKER STORIES EVER TOLD

The collection first came out in a hardcover edition in 1988 with a very nice Kyle Baker cover.  For the later soft cover, I have Denny O’Neil and the late Marshall Rogers to thank for my voer idea.  They crafted the memorable series of stories that featured the Joker poisoning  Gotham City’s fish stocks.  The Joker always had something up his sleeve (or in this case, his inside coat pocket0– something that he crealry found quite amusing but was actually a bit fishy. 

Of all the Joker covers that I’ve drawn, this is probably my favorite.

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WONDER WOMAN #96-97

To some extent, I felt that I had made the Joker my own–so I was pleased to see  him in a Wonder Woman story.  In #96 he turns up the scen and opens his coat to reveal an explosive vest.  The best visual gat I thought, was in my first rough where he appears to be flashing Wonder Woman. That was judge to be too risque choice (and my least favorite).  The “flashing” rough proved very popular, however, and I’ve been commissioned a couple of times by comic art collectors to draw fisnished ink versions with Wonder Woman wearing her original costume.

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Unfortunately none of these covers made it to the final issues.  These are the final covers to WONDER WOMAN #96-97

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JOKER: LAST LAUGH

During my GOTHAM KNIGHTS run I was asked by DC’s Bat-department to draw the covers for a 6- issue miniseries entitled JOKER: LAST LAUGH.  The Joker hadn’t turned up for me to draw in GOTHAM KNIGHTS and I was feeling a bit possessive of him, so I took the assignment even though the tight deadline meant that I’d  have to miss an issue or two of GOTHAM KNIGHTS.  I like doing unbroken runs on covers if possible, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices.  For the first issue we went with a big pin-up shot.  After I’d sent in the artwork an email came back to me containing a version of my cover with the almost black background replaced by bright yellow.  I’m glad they took my answer “NO!” to heart.

Scripts and reference images arrived for the rest of the issues, and I discovered that there was something about the characters.  All of them where new to me, which didn’t fit into how I saw the world of Batman and the Joker.  I just couldn’t find the willpower to draw the cover of #2.  It’s always a very bad time for me when , having said I’d do something, I have to take it back.  I agonize about it for  a day or two and then make the call, feeling a failure. I imagine that people must see me as unreliable, a prima donna, that the trust between myself and my editor has been eroded.  In this case, however, I was asked to round off the series with the cover to #6.  A simple two-head shot.  The original artwork I sent in was consisered too bloody, so I supplied a slightly cleaded up version.  You can see them both here.

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Visit BRIAN BOLLAND’S OFFICIAL WEBSITE for more wonderful art.

 

NOTE:  All material in this post is copyrighted by BRIAN BOLLAND and DC COMICS and is presented here for entertainment purposes only and as a promotion of Bolland’s book which contains much more beautiful art to enjoy.   If you’re a serious Joker or Bolland fan, go and grab a copy of the book. It will enrich any art collection.

Oct 022011
 

scan_pic0000I just finished reading my copy of Aquaman #1 and I have to say that I’m really impressed with this first issue.  I loved the writing, brought to you by the very talented Geoff Johns (GREEN LANTERN) and  illustrated beautifully by  Ivan Reis (BLACKEST NIGHT). In my humble opinion, Johns and Reis brings back the old classic grandeur of the King of Atlantis and the same time, add a little of fun trying to fit this outsider into our modern crazy world. In a way I think Johns uses Aquaman to give us an image of ourselves and our own little obsessions and kind of make fun of us…in a good way.  Loved the writing and the art is just as impressive.  Aquaman looks as regal as always.  Here is a preview

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