How to make "Death of the Family" REALLY creepy

[icon_uk]

An artist by the name of ABVH over on tumblr felt there was something missing from Greg Capullo and Patrick Gleason's art...


It's a.... moving experience (See what I did there? Huh? Huh? ;) )










And this is perhaps the creepiest of the lot.... IMHO of course



He has examples of other comic covers (from Superman to Judge Dredd), and the likes of "guerilla artist" Banksy up on his site too, well worth a look.

Comments

[nightauditguy]

Great, thanks for the nightmares.

[onceaskrull]

GUH! Seconded. And since I originally read the title as "How to make 'Death of the Family' really CRAPPY" (never mind me, it's early here), I was especially surprised.

"HOW IS THIS CRAPPY I DON'T -- Ooh..."

[icon_uk]

I SHOULD feel guilty, and yet.....

[icon_uk]

Mission accomplished!

[silverzeo]

Huh, when they move, they do seem silly... more so...

[captainbellman]

Mmm. It's the obvious points of articulation. They seem like shadow-puppets, or those bad info-animations you see in Museums and badly-made kid's educational videos.

[icon_uk]

Some do, but I think others really, REALLY work.

And Another Thing...

[captainbellman]

I realised recently why that "Joker! I know who you really are! Doesn't that BUUUUG you?" scene was so annoying: The Usual Suspects.

That there is a movie which - and these are pretty goddamn colossal SPOILERS - is about a man who goes to almost any length to erase knowledge of his identity. It recently got mentioned on Cracked.com because it supposedly doesn't make sense - why would Keyser Soze go to extreme lengths to eliminate all of those who had seen his face, then spend two hours handing his identity over to the FBI?

The answer is, of course, that Keyser Soze - to use a turn of phrase - has no face. He's a myth, a boogeyman, used to scare criminals into silence. Perhaps Spacey's character once answered to that name, but since then he's become more than just one man. When the film ends, the FBI has the face of "Keyser Soze", and his fingerprints and a recording of his voice - all things which a man as intelligent as himself can easily have altered in a matter of months. Aside from that, they also have a story he made up on the spot and no solid evidence of his existence except for rumours and the testimony of a dying man suffering from heavy burning and extreme mental trauma.

What has this to do with the Joker? I'll tell you: the ending of The Usual Suspects is the catch-me-if-you-can cycle that he and Batman are in, eternally. Soze is an anti-Batman, an urban legend in criminal circles that hires them rather than beating on them. The same with the Joker. Trying to pin him down to one name and face and backstory is impossible, because even he doesn't know for sure if he has one. Look for instance at that scene in The Dark Knight: "No ID, no wallet...nothing in his pockets but knives and lint".

That's why the Joker shouldn't really be affected if Batman tells him he's found out his real identity. In that situation, it's ludicrously out-of-character for him to say anything but "Are you SURE?", and cackle maniacally. Maybe even pull of his gloves to show that his fingerprints have been chemically burned off.

Soze wasn't afraid to let Agent Kujan see his face because he knew Kujan would only realise whose face it was - if he ever did - when it could no longer do him any good. By the same principle, the Joker knows that even if Batman did achieve the miracle of finding out his real name (which I doubt he could do), that information would be useless. He wouldn't have found out who the Joker really is. Just who the Joker might have been, once.

(See Also: that scene in Batman R.I.P. where the Joker confronts Bats about doing an experiment to understand how Mister J sees the world, and taunts him that trying to boil down his persona to one simple point-of-view was like trying to study him via Wikipedia.)

[captainbellman]

(Also, the whole "Homoeroticism = Creepy and Wrong" vibe that the entire story arc seemed to keep returning to was in incredibly poor taste, I thought. The first cover is an example of that. It was like a panicky fear-reaction to the thought of legalising Gay Marriage - "Oh no! What if the Joker starts calling Batman his HUSBAND?!")

[icon_uk]

As a gay guy I just got "Creepy and Wrong = Creepy and Wrong". from those moments.

[captainbellman]

Fair enough, maybe I'm just overly defensive. They haven't really tried an approach like that since Morrison's "Arkham Asylum", and even then the editors insist that they tone it down so that Joker was dressed in an overcoat instead of a female dominatrix's outfit as representative of "The Madonna", and a certain singer of that name.

[icon_uk]

Not really, it's been referenced a few times, with Wally West assuming that the Joker was gay (Which led the the terrific coming-out scene where the Pied Piper points out that the Joker, being an insane homicidal maniac, probably doesn't have anything akin to an actual sexuality, and that the only supervillain he can think of who IS gay is, well... himself)

Then there was the scene in the Outsiders where a captive Luthor's taunt to the Joker (his captor) was that he was just annoyed because he knew, deep down, that Batman would NEVER take him to the prom.

[rainspirit]

Morrison's idea that the Joker's sexuality is "whatever makes you most uncomfortable" seems bang on to me.

[icon_uk]

Everything about the Joker should be "Whatever makes you most uncomfortable". :)

For some reason I'm reminded of the comment in the Big Bang Theory where Penny asks the question I think a lot of us had wondered, when a girl appears to be trying to seduce an oblivious Sheldon.

Penny - What’s his deal? Is it girls? Guys? ... Sock puppets?

Leonard - Honestly, we’ve been operating under the assumption that he has no deal.

[mrstatham]

I think I just got that full stop; I don't think Snyder's trying to say anything against homoeroticism or gay marriage, but.. It's the Joker. It was creepy and wrong when he was trying to foist marriage (for whatever reason) on Barbara for a couple of issues, and any hint of that kind of thing with Batman is creepy and wrong because he's an insane mass-murderer with his increasingly rotten face hanging off, not because of the undertones.

[cyberghostface]

Never got that impression. I think Joker was just being Joker; even the usage of "darling" I don't think was meant to be intended as sexual. I mean whether or not Joker is gay for Batman is a matter of debate but if so it wasn't any more overt here than it usually is.

[rdfox]

Yeah, I look at that third one? All I can imagine is Richard O'Brien belting out, "Michael Rennie was ill the day the Earth stood still..."

Don't think that's what the intent was...

[icon_uk]

I keep hearing "Dinna-Dinna-Dinna-Dinna-Dinna-Dinna-Dinna-Dinna-BATMAN!" a la 1966 TV theme.

[ar_feiniel]

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

[theflames]

Glad to see you stumbled upon this as well! Really made the these covers even more enjoyable...

[cyberghostface]

The mask ones are the most effective with just the way the flesh is dangling or moving up against Joker's face.

[big_daddy_d]

...Awe. Some.

[bloomingroses]

I am creeped out and fascinated at the same time.

[icon_uk]

That's how the Joker should ALWAYS be, no? :)

[nomore]

Oooh holy shit why did I click, dnw terrified.

I mean it's amazing as *art* as it managed to top iconic character with something new, without parodying and without altering just a few details etc. But still. Why did I click this.

[endis_ni]

Welp, that's my nightmares suitably populated for the next week!

[blackruzsa]

I saw these on Tumblr one evening.
DAMN IT.