Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth
Arkham Asylum has been a mainstay in the Batman myths for more than thirty years, but it has never been explored so deeply until modern master Grant Morrison gets his hands on the asylum that has housed almost all of Batman's villains over the years. Arkham Asylum explores the dirty depths of the institution, showcasing the darkest side of Batman's rogues gallery such as The Joker, Two-Face, Killer Croc and Clayface just to name a few.
Morrison is able to make very sympathetic figures out of the incarcerated villains and subsequently reveals that Batman is just as disturbed and insane as the inmates of Arkham that he fights to keep in the institution.
Dave McKean's art in this book is simply incredible. McKean eschews the typical style of the comics and explores mixed media such as painting, found objects, photography and even computer graphics to compose a brilliantly twisted vision of Batman and his sworn enemies.
The combination of Morrison's surrealist leanings and McKean's wildly experimental style create a book that is completely distinct from anything else out on the shelf as well as a deep and thoughtful consideration of what insanity really means and why society is so willing to accept insanity if it's for "the greater good."
Comic info
- Author: Grant Morrison
- Artist: Dave McKean
- Brand:DC Comics
- Price: $17.99
The sprawling epic From Hell (which inspired, but bears little resemblance to the 2001 Johnny Depp film) tells the story surrounding the murders committed by Jack The Ripper and the investigation that followed. At 560 pages, the book has plenty of opportunities to delve deeply into the panic surrounding the murders as well as the various conspiracy theories that proliferated.
Alan Moore is a top-tier master of comics, and From Hell proves this as Moore weaves an intellectually stimulating, dense, and at all times suspenseful tale of one of the most notorious serial killers of the western world. Eddie Campbell provides a distinctly sketchy black and white style for the book, and it works well, with the illustrations evoking a good sense of dread and terror as Moore guides the reader into the underworld of 1880s England.
Another interesting thing about From Hell that sets it apart from other mysteries and other tales of Jack The Ripper is the fact that Moore presents the reader with the killer in the very beginning, an English nobleman named William Gull, a man who has been a prime suspect in various revisionist explorations of the murders.
Even though the true, irrefutable identity of the killer has been likely lost in the annals of history, Moore is convincing as he presents the evidence and shows the reader how and why Gull did those terrible deeds on the streets.
Comic info
- Author: Alan Moore
- Artist: Eddie Campbell
- Brand:Top Shelf Productions
- Price: $35
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