By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/15/2016
Few creators can claim to have a lasting legacy on just one aspect of the entertainment industry. Even fewer can say their legacy spans through different mediums. Paul Dini is one of the distinct few who have a storied body of work in comics and television. From his generation defining animation work on Tiny […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 12/1/2015
The best works of fiction usually have some basis in reality. Paul Dini is teaming up with Eduardo Risso to tell a Batman story inspired by a mugging in 1993. Dark Knight: A True Batman Story is an original graphic novel told by the two storytellers. The book will be published via DC Comics’ Vertigo […]
By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/9/2015
The pioneering African-American animator is the subject of an in-depth exploration of his life and career.
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/18/2015
Abraham Riesman continues his excellent series of “hero histories” with a look at Harley Quinn who has become perhaps THE stand out mainstream character of the current comics era. (I’ll have aphoto gallery opf Harley toys from Toy Fair in a bit.) (Deadpool vs Harley Quinn, I’m saying it until it happens.) And she’s had a strange history, with most of her development taking place outside of comics, from her origin in Batman: The Animated Series to her Arkham Asylum re imagination.
Over the next seven years, Dini, Timm, and Sorkin built Harley into one of the most memorable Batman characters of all time. That was no small trick, given that the Batman mythos was already more than 50 years old and had featured the same general cast of archetypes for decades. It was made all the more remarkable by the fact that she didn’t even exist in the mainstream Batman comics of the time — it was all happening on a kids’ TV show and its spinoff products. And even though children were the target audience, Harley’s story lines were provocative in ways no other Batman tales had been.
Anyway, the current Conner/Palmiotti version is also discussed as well as the many various feminist interpretations of Harley. It’s a good piece about a complex character. What do YOU think makes Harley so popular?
PS: Also the success of Harley means everyone can acknowledge what we’ve been saying all along: Amanda Conner is a great cartoonist!
There is NO “K” in the title of the book — it is, in fact, DARK NIGHT: A TRUE BATMAN STORY. You uniformly spelled it wrong throughout the body (and title!) of the post.
If it’s any consolation, Diamond made the same mistake, resulting in 2+ weeks of not being able to place reorders for it until I called them and had them fix it….
(And it IS a really superlative book — we’ve got Paul Dini appearing 7/6 to support it! https://www.facebook.com/events/1008958229188725/)
-B
“Dark Knight: A True Batman Story is on the cultural level of Pygmalion, Catcher in the Rye, Beloved, or Gone With the Wind.”
Hyperbole, thy name is Davey…