awesome ( )

I'm a relatively new fan of comics (thank you Maus and Watchmen), and I find myself drawn to Alan Moore's work. That said, this isn't the best that I've read from him; it's not even close. I would probably give the storyline 2.5 or 3 stars.

I've never been a "Joker fangirl" by any stretch of the imagination (which surprises me, since I usually love the psychos), but I don't particularly think this backstory fits him very well. In The Killing Joke, he has A Very Bad Day, and maybe that is the point of Moore's story - one bad day can make you go quite mad. But it falls flat for the Joker. It just doesn't fit him.

Oh, but the art! That's what really saves this comic for me. It's gorgeously colored, and the Joker's facial expressions are just perfect. It may be a short book, but I spent several hours drooling over the panels (figuratively, of course). It deserves more than five stars.

It certainly doesn't hurt that the deluxe edition is simply beautiful. ( )

This was the first Batman story I truly cared about, and the one that stuck with me the longest. It's not so much its notoriety that makes it one of the most enduring stories in Batman lore, it's the fact that it depicts The Joker, one of the most often used villains in Batman lore, as not merely a cold-hearted evil clown who commits terrible deeds, but as a broken and utterly irredeemable man. He gets your sympathy, only to twist the knife into you in the end, refusing to be rehabilitated, perhaps out of malice towards Batman, or perhaps out of fear that he will be controlled. Alan Moore wasn't satisfied with how this story turned out, but it's certainly my favorite Batman story ever.

Having read both the original printed version of this story in a trade paperback of Alan Moore's DC stories, I have to say that this version of The Killing Joke will either win old fans over with its much darker and eerier colouring washouts, or confuse them about why the old art wasn't touched up and they'll like the original version better. However, since the original art is in the hands of collectors, touching up the original art was impossible, and I have to say I like both presentations of the tale for different reasons. I like this one because it's in hardcover, but I also like the original colouring job because of its retro feel.

Still, since this story's been out of print for years, pick up this hardcover and read it for yourself. ( )

I bought this book when I was a kid, and had no idea who Alan Moore was. As an adult, being re-introduced to great comics I had missed as a youth, I was thrilled to find this still sitting in my box of old books. A short story that doesn't leave much room for the typical Moore-ish threads and diversions, but instead focuses directly on the relationship between Batman and the Joker in a way that has been as definitive a character study as Frank Miller's Dark Knight stories. ( )

I bought this book when I was a kid, and had no idea who Alan Moore was. As an adult, being re-introduced to great comics I had missed as a youth, I was thrilled to find this still sitting in my box of old books. A short story that doesn't leave much room for the typical Moore-ish threads and diversions, but instead focuses directly on the relationship between Batman and the Joker in a way that has been as definitive a character study as Frank Miller's Dark Knight stories. ( )