Dave McKean

Batman Arkham Asylum - ASHoSE is a rare gem of a graphic novel that displays what the visual medium can do. The art works so well with the themes and tone of the story that’s its hard to imagine this version of Batman any other way.
In Arkham Asylum the idea of sanity at the heart of the Batman mythos is explored to its fullest. The inmates might be running the physical asylum but how this parallels the world-building is explored in every panel. Who are the sane ones and what does sanity show more mean - this is the heart of the message. It is an intensely interesting look at what Batman can represent to Gotham and what our interest in him can say about us. There is plenty of action in this comic but the true meat lies in how the author runs Batman through the meat grinder to see what comes out.

The art in this graphic novel would be annoying anywhere but here. It is all over the place. Sometimes it looks like a vivid painting, other times like a collage of photographed objects. But through the lens of theme, this approach is brilliant. It takes the idea of madness as an ever changing beast and amplifies it to a high-pitched wail. It is often phantasmagorical and complements the ideas so well that it only increases the impact. It is sometimes potentially intensely confusing as people and faces are often nothing more than cigarette burns on a melting page, but usually it is a wondrous horror to behold.

Arkham Asylum is an assault on your eyes and mind. Not an easy read: it can be disturbing, gruesome, and revolting. But I would recommend it. To see how well style and substance can blend, to feel the finger nails of insanity rack against your gray matter and to see the same theme play out in this way is a rare experience. Any fan of the bat should read this. It gives wonderful depth to his character and any fan of comics needs to see what visual story telling can really do when unleashed. show less

My God...

Horrifying, disturbing and yet so unbelievably good and unforgettable.

I had honest-to-god goosebumps and my heart was beating so hard from fear. Fear for Batman's sanity, fear from the Joker's insanity and fear from the painted pictures that looked so alive and ready to jump at me at any moment.

The Joker was at the heart of this story and Grant Morrison really outdone himself in this volume and I can't wait to read more of his works on the Dark Knight.

PS: DON'T READ THIS AT NIGHT! show more You'll have nightmares I'm not kidding.. show less

I’m generally not that into reading what most people consider the comic book canon (superheros, etc), but from time to time I pick one up because the author or illustrator is one whom I follow elsewhere and I’ll at least give a rarely read genre a try to not miss out on their work. Dave McKean was the obvious draw here, since I’ve been obsessed with his work since the Sandman covers, and boy am I glad I dipped into the Batman mythos to see his take on the caped crusader. Obviously show more writer Grant Morrison (whom I have seen elsewhere) gets a solid chunk of credit, since he’s written a Batman story that is dark, macabre, and perfectly suited for those of us who are into the darker side of the Gotham mythos. He tells a story where Batman must enter the halls of Arkham Asylum, in a ransom request by one of his biggest foes (the Joker), and rather than defeating his nemeses in the traditional manner he must face the darkness within himself. The story premise for the time (1989) would have been decidedly unexpected, but for those of us who cut our comic book teeth on the Vertigo lineup (almost exclusively) and Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of films it is far from surprising - though it is easy to see it as a solid precursor to the darker Batman franchise that we all know and love. What elevates the graphic novel (and novel it is, rather than a collection of singles) is McKean’s artwork. His style is like none other, and I can’t imagine that readers at the time were anything but absolutely astounded at his creativity, macabre layouts, and the overall visual depth that he lends the narrative. His take on classic Batman villains is unique, to say the least, and the sketch-like quality of the dual narrative lends a moody and surreal atmosphere that would have been absolutely wasted if DC had chosen a traditional line and colour-blocked artist to illuminate Morrison’s strange fever dream of discovery. This might be my favourite Batman story, if only because McKean elevates the visuals to a place that can’t be reached by others, even if, say, the story of Batman’s funeral (a Gaiman conceit) is technically a more nuanced tale. show less

I bought this on a pure whim today when I should have been doing other things. But, in addition to working on a resume and keeping up, barely, at a Sisyphean hamster wheel slog of a job, I do try to remain something like social.

So with a friend I suggested a brief sojourn at our local comics shop. And whereas he purchased a massive door stopping Jack Kirby omnibus I elected for this strange little volume. I hadn't known much of McKean outside of his cover work for Neil Gaiman and Morrison's show more Arkham story and, from the outside, his aesthetic always struck me as too particularly and strangely esoteric, too late 80's and early 90's for some reason, reminiscent of Peter Chung (of Aeon Flux) on a bender.

But, in a mood of ever expanding horizons, I purchased this. And after a two plus hour reading binge I can safely say that this is a masterwork. And the fact that this is a masterwork of English comic bookery without the name Gaiman, Moore, Miller or insert the name of any other of the 'bigs' just adds, for to its appeal.

This is a story of the creative process, all of it, told with the bare minimum but with an apex of sensitivity and brutality. McKean negotiates this divide, between showing and telling, with a consummate professionalism that would be cool and off putting if it also wasn't straddling the passion of the creative urge so adroitly well. Mortal men and women slaves of a universe that they can express, at times, through their work and justifying it to utter profundity. Not without pain not without loss, but like a chiaroscuro, it's all necessary because it has to be. And cats. So many writers have a thing for cats, that one always went past me.

This isn't an easy read. And it's not as pretty as Gaiman or, maybe, as profound as Moore or even as funny as the likes of Ennis; it's singular, it's its own, it's a work that deserves recognition. I hopefully have done my share. Read it, take your time, let yourself open to its strange beauty.

"Creativity is your God."

Indeed. show less