Minichan

I'll post it anyway. Feel free to offer pointers if you know the story.


From the author of The Watchmen, Alan Moore, comes the harrowing origin tale of the arch nemesis of Batman, the Joker, in The Killing Joke. The story details not only the origin of the Joker, but also to explain the Joker’s motives and the dynamic relationship between Batman and himself.
The story begins with the Dark Knight arriving on scene during a rainstorm to Arkham Asylum, a well known prison hosting most of Batman’s rogue gallery. He is directed past many of his other enemies to an interrogation room with a man with white hands playing cards. Batman begins to speak to him about their never-ending relationship of cat-and-mouse; he says that they are in this cycle of trying to kill each other and how he wants to end it. The Joker doesn’t respond, causing Batman to grab his arm and reveal paint on his gloves. The man is an impostor; the Joker planted a copycat in white paint so he could escape, leading Batman now on the hunt for him. Unfortunately for Batman, the Joker’s plans are already in action, having bought a dilapidated carnival.
Meanwhile, the story pans back to a struggling comedian conversing with his wife. He says how he is attempting to get a job doing stand up to support their soon to be born child, but that ever since he quit his old job at his chemical plant that things have never been the same. Without many options, he decides to consort with mobsters about breaking into his old chemical plant. Unsure of himself, they convince him he will get rich quick, but he hesitates. During this exchange the police arrive to inform him that his wife has died from an electrical short. Returning to the mobsters, he grieves and says he doesn’t want to do it, but they tell him he has no choice and present him with a red-domed hood. Later that evening, the comedian (Now in Red Hood) and the mobsters arrive at the Ace Chemical Plant, but are intercepted by security. A get-away ensues but the arrival of Batman soon stops them. The Red Hood jumps into the chemicals below, emerging in the sewage outside. Burned by the chemicals, he removes his hood to see his face in the water; his skin has stained white and he has red lips. Instead of dismay, he begins to laugh maniacally – the Joker has been born!
The story picks up with Batman continuing his search. Elsewhere, Commissioner Gordon and his daughter Barbara are cutting clippings from the newspaper about Batman and the Joker and putting them in scrapbooks. Suddenly a sound is heard at the door which Barbara believes is her friend Colleen from yoga class. Surprise! Instead it is the Clown Prince of Crime himself holding a revolver. He shoots Barbara while his thugs pounce on the Commissioner, knocking him unconscious and carrying him off. The Joker stays behind to take gruesome and lewd photos of Barbara. Back at the carnival, the Commissioner is stripped and put in chains and lead through a horror ride to break his sanity. Batman shows up in the nick of time to free the Commissioner and pursues the now fleeing Joker. Led through a hall of mirrors, the Joker and Batman discuss his how he had “one bad day” and that is the cause of his insanity. After a brawl ensues, the Joker is knocked down and admits defeat. Batman says he won’t kill the Joker like their original conversation – instead he keeps his promise to have him arrested “by the books”.

The key element of The Killing Joke is the usage of the panel to present the reader the narrative in a way that flows from one panel to the next. Firstly, the panel needs to be defined: it is a single event within a comic book/graphic novel which is surrounded by borders and separated by gutters. These events are representative of timing within the narrative by allowing the reader to interpret the action contained within. Similar to The Watchmen, Alan Moore’s work has straight lined panels with thin borders. Many of the panels are presented in a 3 x 3 fashion on each page, although this varies according to emphasis. For example, when we first encounter the Joker in this work, we notice that there is a small panel angled with only a purple glove and cane showing. The next panel grows to show a much larger scene of a carnival, however the figure’s back is still turned. The next panel is the largest on the page; a huge close-up of the Joker’s devilish grin lights up the entire page and prepares the reader for the next sequence of events. This sort of timing procedure shows how one action move to the next and creates a sense of realism for the reader. For example, the man whom the Joker is purchasing the carnival from is seen standing and then on a carnival ride. The Joker is seen in one panel approaching him, the next shaking his hand, then the next with his back turned as he walks away. This scene is shown in such a way that it’s intended to produce a dramatic effect. From the previous page of panels the reader first saw the Joker’s wide-mouthed grin, whereas on this page the reader sees that after he shakes the man’s hand, the man has become mad himself and sports a loony grin of his own. Another example of how this timing is achieved through panels is the scene of Barbara being shot. In one panel the reader sees her putting her hand on the door knob. The next panel shows a stark contrast in color: red representing Barbara and violet representing a change in expectation (instead of it being Barbara’s friend, it is the Joker!). The next panel becomes smaller to place emphasis solely on the gun the Joker is holding. In the following series of panels the reader sees the bullet striking her, then her falling downward, then finally crashing into a glass table.
The Killing Joke also uses a variety of angles to achieve perspective. Although many panels are angles at eye level, there are several upward and downward views at off center to create intensity. This can be seen when Batman returns to his Bat cave to research the Joker. An angle where the reader is looking up at Batman bestows upon him this kind of godlike aura. Oppositely, seeing downward as his butler Alfred is descending the stairs contrasts his character. Not ironically this panel is very large in comparison to the rest of the panels on the page; this also demonstrates to the reader the vastness of the Bat cave which helps in determining size. A Dutch angle (an angle titled to the side) also shows perspective in the panel, such as Batman looking up at his monitors of the Joker’s face everywhere gives the impression that Batman is facing a wicked and bizarre menace.

The wonderful thing about Batman comics in general, but specifically The Killing Joke, is how it employs symbols into its imagery. The most obvious one in the story is the joker card. Several elements of it are shown in such a way that it is synonymous with the Joker as his calling card – the Joker impostor is playing cards, Batman is staring at a joker card as he is doing research in his Bat cave, and the discovery of the joker card on Barbara after being shot are all examples. To enhance this symbol, Batman crushes the card in his hand to indicate that he will eventually overcome the Clown Prince of Crime.
The splash page used in The Killing Joke is extremely important to the overall narrative. A splash page, as defined by Will Eisner, is a mega panel which encompasses the entire page. Typically a splash page is found at the beginning of each chapter; however in The Killing Joke it is also used at the end to tie the narrative together as a whole. The splash page used here is a scene of raindrops hitting the ground – this sets the tone for the action in the story to be told, which is a dreary and dark one.
All of these elements of imagery create an environment for the narrative of The Killing Joke which is dreary but also extremely realistic. The usage of angles is also important in the panels to communicate the ideas behind the Joker’s transformation. Two great examples of this are between the action in the present versus what is happening in the flashback. This is orchestrated beautifully from one panel to the next, such as the struggling comedian reaching out to his wife; the reader also sees his face in the mirror behind her. In the next panel, the Joker is seen reaching towards a coin-operated machine, where his reflection can be seen in the glass. Both are angled to give perspective, however it also accomplishes the goal of tying the two panels together to communicate the concept of his transformation. The second example occurs when the comedian is told his wife has died. In his grief, he buries his head and crosses his hands. Similarly, in the present, Commissioner Gordon is being taunted with pictures of his shot daughter. His head is also hung in grief. The way this is presented to the reader shows the cruelty of the Joker, yet also puts him in a sympathetic light because of his own misery which he could not control.
Perspective plays a great part in showing this transformation from good to evil. Not only is this shown between panels as mentioned above, it also segments well between the two separate plots. In one panel the action is pointed downward where the reader can only see the Joker’s legs and a puddle of water with his reflection in it. The next scene shows the comedian’s legs and him looking down at sewage effluent with his reflection in it like the previous panel. The splash page’s raindrops are shown in both panels, which plays on the other theme of the narrative: this never-ending cycle the Joker has with Batman. It is this theme which is important for understanding why the Joker does what he does and why it is Batman that he has chosen to be his arch-nemesis. The Joker purposefully taunts Batman by doing things solely for his attention, such as giving the Gotham Police two tickets to his carnival. It is clear what his intentions are: to lure Batman and probably inflict the same kind of grief on the Commissioner to break his sanity.

What the Joker describes towards the end is that he lives in a mad world, and that he and Batman are not so different. The Joker’s “one bad day” which made him insane is paralleled by the one bad day for Bruce Wayne (that being the murder of his parents). The Joker reinforces this similarity by saying “You had a bad day and everything changes. Why else would you dress up like a flying rat?” The way the imagery aids this dialogue is that Batman finds himself at the Joker’s carnival, inside of a fun house. The hall of mirrors around him all show the Joker’s face menacingly glaring at Batman as he runs through it, showing a parallel to the madness that the Joker himself has. This sets the stage for the rest of the events to follow. As Batman prevails through traps and illusions, his cape flows in the air as his shadow can be seen as the Batman symbol, meaning that he will prevail in his fight.
The ending leaves on somewhat of an open note but reinforces the secondary theme of as to the Joker’s madness. Instead of being your typical “the good guy always wins at the end” closer, when finally subdued the Joker begins a soliloquy. He doesn’t straightforwardly say why he is so mad and what his “one bad day” is. Instead, he tells a story of two men who want to escape from an asylum. As they cross the rooftops, they encounter a narrow gap. The first crosses but the second one doesn’t, to which the first says he will shine a light on the beam with his flashlight so the second can cross. The second says “No” because the first man would turn it off as he got halfway. Suddenly, the Joker begins to burst out into laughter and the panels begin to focus on the ground between the Joker and Batman’s feet, finally stopping on the rain puddle seen on the splash page. What is interesting about this story is that it says something about the relationship between the Joker and Batman. It is a moment of mutual recognition with each, in their own way, being as insane as the other except they express it differently. The symbolism through the art conceptualizes this perfectly – the final panel being the gap between their feet in the same way the two men are in the Joker’s story. Although Alan Moore leaves it open to interpretation, I think this symbolism serves its purpose. However, if we use this story as symbolic of their relationship, which one is the first man and which one is the second man? In my opinion I would place Batman as the first man who makes the jump since he trusts in the flashlight beam and being able to make the gap. This in itself shows that even with “one bad day” that people can still be sane and trusting of the good in the world. On the other hand, the Joker is the second man because he cannot in good faith go about letting others possess control of his fate. Instead, he chooses his own path and that’s by refusing what he is told. This is why he pursues a life of crime – purely to disrupt the harmony of the system that rejected him on his “one bad day” and drove him to be utterly insane.
Overall, The Killing Joke has to be one of the best pieces of DC literature I have had the privilege of reading. Although I am already a fan of Alan Moore’s works, this one stands out to me as one of his better pieces because it draws on the fantastical nature between the Joker and Batman as well as providing some possible insight into how the Joker came to be. The artwork is craftily done; the coloration used to set up each panel draws on very dramatic color tones and are oftentimes used in contrast to each other, giving each panel its own uniqueness and intensity. The pace within the graphic novel is a little bit fast, but it is easy to keep up the speed with what is being read so long as one doesn’t skip details. The subtlety of the symbols and the attention to detail are really worth admiring, and are much more noticeable on a second read. The transitions between flashback and the present action are handled well and flow nicely with how the origin story is told. However, I believe that this material would be extremely confusing to someone who is completely unfamiliar with anything in the canon or these characters. It requires some prior knowledge of the Batman franchise to be properly enjoyed or understood.
The artwork might be considered by some as somewhat “aged” but it is done well and it is for its time – it exists entirely as its own standard. The beauty is in its simplicity which can be seen with the fact that most of the panels are lined up as straight-lined rectangles that don’t intersect. It reads very linearly in this fashion. The other enjoyable thing about this piece is it also deals with some fan service – at the beginning we see Batman passing through the halls of Arkham Asylum and we see Harvey Dent/Twoface and later on we also see the Penguin. It is small details such as these which help create the universe we are seeing.
What is especially enjoyable is the beginning of the graphic novel. In the first three pages there is absolutely no text (minus the engraving on the cells) and it’s straightforward action. The raindrops on the splash page appear throughout many panels in the novel; it serves as its opening and its conclusion. It sets the overall tone of the work: a dreary and intense one. The panels serve this sort of intense rigidity purpose to the narrative, while thin borders keep the flow pattern very clean. Timing is used in such a way to illustrate the events that occur in the present, which was carefully done by layering it with events in the past. This keeps the action flowing and the reader interested, which is important for a graphic novel. All of these elements combined make the narrative a great piece of fiction and an enjoyable experience to DC fans as an origin story, but leaves the opening to interpretation so the reader can draw their own conclusions.