Better joke

There's an impression that emerges from interviews and various citations, that as a body, artists and writers working in the US comic industry weren't particularly pleased with the 60's Batman television series. In fact more than once I've read something like, I  hated that show, in connection with the topic. This attitude must be tempered, I would've thought, by some appreciation of just how much interest in the Batman character and comics in general, the show stirred amongst the broader public.

Any successful entertainment enterprise will draw the attention of the moral entrepreneurs and the Batman television show was bit of a 60's phenomenon, so there were a fare few such individuals scrambling for attention on the back of that success. So it's one of those ironies, that what actually killed the show was not the moralising of its critics but rather the weight of its own success. By the second season a case of cameo infestation was apparent, the most notorious of which is probably the Otto Preminger incident.

Catwoman disappears by the the third season or at least the real Catwoman, but the Lycra quotient is maintained by the advent of Batgirl. And what a marvelous job Yvonne does in that department, flippin' 'eck Yvonne Craig in Lycra, even I think that should be illegal or at least tightly controlled in the manner of a dangerous narcotic.

Opps, how did that get there?

Despite Miss Craig's--er talents, the batman television show couldn't quite negotiate the pitfalls of the the third season curse. The plethora of showbiz notables drawing their cheques, was no match for the more modest but earnest efforts of the not quite so illustrious staples of the cast that made the show a success.

I think it's fair to say that many Batman readers and creators working with the character, find the legacy of the television series a bit of an embarrassment. After all it's quite hard to reconcile the flouncy, possibly closet gay Batman of the series, with something like the hard nosed possibly psychotic individual, in something like The Dark Knight Returns. That's a bit of a shame really because when it worked, the series was quite a faithful adaptation of the character and the flavour of the comics. So it is with some anticipation that I greeted the news the television Batman would be returning this autumn, in the guise of an animated feature with the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward as the principle characters. It should be a bit of fun I reckon and it's got to be a lot better than the recent Killing Joke. Let's face it though, pretty much anything is going to be a better prospect that the animated Killing Joke, even the predicament facing the dynamic duo in this trailer.

A really really bad day

So you've heard the news about the animated version of Batman Killing Joke and you're a little incredulous that anything could surpass Snyder's Batman and Robin in it's level of rubbishness? Well don't be, it really is that bad, it's so bad, that even after watching it, you're left doubting your own senses. There's the extra bit of course, which takes up a full half hour and bit of the, just over one hour, sixteen minutes running time. And my god, is the added material awful, it's not just tedious, it's a travesty, a festering appendix begging the immediate attention of a rusty scalpel blade. It not just that I'm afraid though, when it came to the actual Killing Joke part of the animated Killing Joke film, you know the bit that actually deals with the story from the book and not something spawned from the mind of a juvenile after they've awakened from a wet dream, is wholly inept. They couldn't even get the most basic elements right, those visual mnemonics that link the flashbacks are missing or unrecognisable; how does that happen for flip's sake?

Something went badly wrong here, the prologue embodied in the new material is so badly plotted and scripted, it's almost as if it's a case deliberate sabotage. I don't just mean the editorial interference, which is just so woefully evident and completely undermines Alan Moore's narrative but the execution is like an episode of Scooby Do or something you read on the back of a chewing gum card. No one writes that bad, not unless they're an underpaid scribe chained to a desk in the cellar, who only gets to see daylight once a year.

The iconoclasm is unrelenting, they don't even leave the ending alone, there's that little respect for the source material. Those responsible for this catastrophe should beg the forgiveness of everyone who ever bought a copy of The Killing Joke, just before being stripped naked and beaten with birch twigs that have stood marinating in chilly for a year.

Ever had one of those days when...

Oops, there was a video here, unfortunately it seems it was published without permission
The Killing Joke
Alan Moore was one of those comic-strip writers working in the eighties, who brought the broader mainstream narrative technique to the fore in the comic industry. the Killing Joke is a slight departure, in that the narrative is more comic-strip orientated. An example of this is the scene where Barbara Gordon encounters The Joker and its traumatic consequence. They just don't do things that way in other media, that's especially true of dramatic mediums like film and television. So, it was a bit of a surprise to learn they've actually made an animated feature out of it, then I watched this video teaser for the production and what did I learn? They've filled out Barbara Gordon's role of course, giving her a broader foundation in the drama. That's a bit of a shame really,  because although I wrote, they just don't do that way..., it's not quite true, there are occasional examples, things like McGoohan's The Prisoner.

There's also that controversy over the ending, that's garnered some attention in recent years. I do recall, when I first read the book, a friend stated categorically that the joker dies, I don't see it myself and I've looked really hard for the clues in those panels. It'll be interesting to see how they interpret the ending in this feature.