Thursday, September 17, 2009

The cover to Batman and Robin 3

This blog entry has nothing to do with the comic itself and everything to do with how good Frank Quitely is.

Take a look at the cover to Batman and Robin #3:


Pretty nifty, eh? All these trippy colors, a bunch of scary hands in the foreground and a bunch of Dollotrons for Batman and Robin to POW! PAFF! and BOP! (The SCT and BANG made of blood in the hospital scene? A perfect demonstration of Quitely's ability to adapt the TV show's aesthetic to the new title.) I did, however, wonder why two of the baddies seemed to be looking backward - looking at us, maybe? Looking at Professor Pyg? But that wouldn't make sense because he didn't wear those gloves. Weird.

But I put it down on my desk and when I came back the cover was upside down. Not only did I notice some now conspicuous design choices, but those two backward glancing characters made sense - because the cover is actually face:


The faces are eyeballs, the logo is a maniacal grin, and the white gloves a face, with Batman, Robin, and the throng in the background being a nose, of sorts. And those conspicuous details that now make sense? Well, green and purple can't possibly be random choices. And there's also a curious green glow on the thumbs of a Dollotron in the foreground - cast on them from the background, I guess, though it doesn't make physical sense. More likely it's a purely aesthetic choice, and when we reverse the cover it suggests green eyebrows for this face.

And the owner of that face: can it possibly belong to anyone other than the Joker? Very cool.

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