For Thursday: The Complete Vision & Wednesday Recap

Be sure to read The Vision for class tomorrow, and of course, respond to the Template Questions! Also don't forget about the Short Paper and Presentation assignment in the post below this one (I gave you this in class as well). 

In class today, we discussed the Film Noir origins of Batman: he was the first comic book hero who was directly inspired by the emerging art form of film, and specifically, film noir--crime movies, suspense movies, etc. Batman was literally a combination of a gumshoe detective (like a poor man's Sherlock Holmes) and Dracula (which was the big hit of 1931). Batman's stories were much more like crime stories than superhero tales: he was supposed to fight the darkest elements of society and cater more to violence and suspense than someone like Superman. 

As writer Jules Feiffer, who was a kid when Batman first came out, explains: 

“Batman was not a super-hero in its truest sense…If you pricked him, he bled—buckets. Whatever was done to him, whatever trap laid, wound opened, skull fractured, all he had to show for it was a discreet patch of Band-aid on his right shoulder. With Superman we won; with Batman we held our own.

What made Batman interesting, then, was not his strength but his story line. Batman, as a feature, was infinitely better plotted, better villained, and better looking than Superman. Batman inhabited a world where no one, no matter the time of day, cast anything but long shadows—seen from weird perspectives. Batman’s world was scary; Superman’s, never." --Jules Feirffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965)

Joker, too, was inspired by the silent film, "The Man Who Laughs" (at right). Both hero and villain represented extremes that had never been seen in comics before, and which The Killing Joke tries to capture in its combination of terror, obscenity, and ambiguity. 

We also discussed whether or not the comic went too far in its depictions of graphic violence. Should kids be reading comics like this? And is it more harmful to see violence than to read about it? Even its creator, Alan Moore, regretted the graphic nature of the book, as he writes:

“it was meant to be something that would liberate comics. Instead, it became this massive stumbling block that comics can’t even really seem to get around to this day. They’ve lost a lot of their original innocence, and they can’t get that back. And, they’re stuck, it seems, in this kind of depressive ghetto of grimness and psychosis. I’m not too proud of being the author of that regrettable trend…Actually, with The Killing Joke, I have never really liked it much as a work – although I of course remember Brian Bolland’s art as being absolutely beautiful – simply because I thought it was far too violent and sexualized a treatment for a simplistic comic book character like Batman and a regrettable misstep on my part”--Alan Moore, Interview 

So this lead to a discussion of 'pornography' in art, and what it means when art crosses the line of morality and good taste. How much is too much? We didn't come away with any easy answers, but comics is a great way to discuss the taboos of sex and violence in society, and start a conversation about what is permissible in art--and whether or not sex and violence can be used to moral ends. We came away with the idea that the ambiguous nature of The Killing Joke  is both an artistic strength and a problem: you can read the book as a warning, or as a celebration of violence. It doesn't tell you how to read it, just as it's hard to say WHAT happens at the very end of the comic (see at left). 

Why does Batman laugh? What's so funny? Has he finally cracked? Does he end up killing Joker (is that why the camera pans away?). Or does he finally just see how pathetic Joker truly is? Does the bus in the background run them down? Is that the final joke? Etc.