Fellas, another great episode, and for one of the all-time greatest comics. Proud owner of this volume myself. I've been studying TDKR for 36 years and you pointed out some stuff I never noticed. A note about the art board sizes; my understanding is that two-up (or larger) art boards were more common before the 90s. If you look at the Ronin artist edition the same paper is referred to as "Camelot-sized". Comico boards from the same era have similar dimensions; the standard comic book boards were 18 6/8 x 13, and their graphic novel boards were 18 2/8 x 14 (which, for some reason, were on a higher quality paper than the comic book boards). A visit to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library reveals early newspaper strip boards that are significantly larger. It would be fascinating to do a study of the varying board sizes throughout comics history. If you're so inclined.
From an interview with Bisley in 1993 where he talks about what got him into comics (It was censored like this when printed, but I think that makes it funnier): "I went to art school, and didn't learn very much there, and forgot about comics. I was in a bookshop looking around and saw this 1940's style graphic image of Batman standing over a city. It was Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, and I picked it up and looked at the artwork and saw this picture of Batman with a bullet in his side and blood all over. I started flicking the pages over and I saw this woman with a big $#! and swastikas on each arm, and I thought "$#&! me! What's happened to comics! "
I've always wondered if Miller intended Batman to be seen from the front or the back on that Dark Knight silhouette cover... Mystery solved! Although I still think it works both ways...
13:55 last bottom panel - the hand almost looks like the separation of the mask at the nose and how batman looks with cowl on..done purposely or just a happy accident? those bomb dolls i always imagined were cabbage patch kids or Chucky from childs play but it didn't come out till 1988
Same, count to think of it. I first read Sin City too before The Dark Knight Returns. I remember my high school classmate returning the first Sin City collection that he borrowed from me and saying sorry because his dog chewed on it. And that I bought the 10th anniversary edition of the Dark Knight Returns when I was already in College because there were added illustrations with Miller's new Sin City noir style.
I too own this amazing book.... thank you guys for adding so much detail and analysis! You have sooo much insight and it’s an utter joy hearing you filling in the blanks :)
Re pasteups: in the days before digital imaging the artwork would be photographed with a special camera. This camera would reduce the image to final printed size and create the right contrast for the inked (black) layer. Camera lighting would typically bleed out any edges of paper in a pasteup. Also, the pre-press people might manually touch up the film to fix any dust spots or paper edges. This pre-press work may have been done in-house at DC, or outsourced.
Every time I see the Street Angel cover I'm thinking-nolie kickflip or fakie flip? But it looks so nolie. So I had to look up her stance: regular foot. I knew it! It's so sick how you made it look nolie with that steezie front leg.
The Cyclops glasses that the Mutant gang wears is everywhere in pop culture in the 1980's. You can see it on a blonde woman in the opening of the first season of moonlighting here. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7EXFZXKgiLYI.html at :49 I do remember being able to buy cheap sun glasses for kids that had that Cyclops look around 1985.
You guys went a little quicker through the Janson/Miller inking differences than I would have liked, but I don't think any of Miller's re-inks are an improvement. And he left out Superman's belt buckle in the tank splash page!
@ around 13:10 the two page sequence of thomas and martha's murder, the (long) establishing shots are of the wayne family, they are then in close up and separated by the the frames of the panels as well as the turning of events. we don't even get the year one image of bruce between his dying parents in the alley, just the pearls falling.
I'm actually kind of surprised you guys glossed over Issue 3, p. 34 around the 50:45 mark. The differences between Klaus's approach and Frank's final is WILD. Frank completely drops every background from three of the first four panels. That was a page I really focused on hard when I was going through my copy. Either way, this was an incredibly video. Keep it up!
I know DKR is a certified classic now, but was it considered polarizing at the time? There are so many weird and bold flourishes in this comic that I can't imagine going over that well with people who I imagine were used to reading Batman comics that looked like they were drawn by Neal Adams jobber clones or something.
Small detail, but: all the pages in book 2 seem to be signed by Janson... so I'm guessing that means his inker's share of the original art was all of book 2 ?
I'm almost certain the signature was from the owner(s) bringing them to a con to have them signed. I don't know about the '80s, but Klaus certainly does more shows than Frank currently, and I imagine that may've been true then as well, hence Klaus's sig but not Frank's.
One of the most beautiful comics ever. By the way, you keep using "kayfabe" and “kayfabers” like it's supposed to mean something. But when I look it up, it seems to mean "to pretend that pro wrestling is real". So. Uhm. Whut?
