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Kao, go pick up both volumes of Batman: Black and White.

Mike Mignola
Bruce Timm
Paul Dini
Warren Ellis
Katsumori Otomo
Paul Pope
Harlan Ellison

and more.

I only scratched the surface, believe me. Have you read Batman: Year One Hundred?

Finally someone else that doesn't worship Tim Sale. He's decent alot of the times, but alot of his Batman stuff bugs me. I hate how he does lips.

My Batman reccomendations:

Batman Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley
Batman Year One Hundred by Paul Pope

You should also check out Grant Morrison's current Batman run and Paul Dini's Detective Comics. There's never been a better time to be reading Batman as long as you ignore the existence of All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.

If you liked the Fugitive arc of Batman you should dig back and find Chuck Dixon's Birds of Prey run. Definately one of the best superhero comics of all time.

The only blasphemy in my book is disliking Grant Morrison. Well that and worship of The Watchmen.

Miller's early Batman work is some of his best, it's much better than DKSA, Sin City, or anything since 1998. I think by far his best work is Elektra Assassin followed by 300, but Batman Year One is a great pulse pounding recconnection with Batman's pulp roots. Oddly enough Jim Gordon has nearly as many great character moments as Bruce. There's a couple brilliantly white knuckled chase sequences too. Batman Year One is to the Batman mythos what Casino Royale is to James Bond. It was was also extremely influential to Batman Begins.

The Dark Knight Returns is really the only time that Miller really connected with the zeitgeist of eighties comics. It's a scorching criticism of Ronald Regan and the Cold War in general, and for my money it does a much better job of putting the iconic characters in the context of the Cold War than The Watchmen did.

DKR is definately where his criticism of the American media is both most heavily felt and most effective (Todd McFarlane would later sloppily plagiarize it in the pages of Spawn). Other than the massive exception that is Elektra Assassin, this is also where he's most effective at thinking outside of the box in terms of layout and panneling.

Oddly enough Miller strikes to the very heart of what Superman is in a brutally poignant scene where he tries to intercept and stop a soviet nuclear weapon being launched at Gotham City. Miller's Superman in DKR is what Doctor Manhattan would have been if he wasn't a cold, insensitive a*****e.

On the topic of Batman as a whole though, as you probably know Timm and Dini have been massively influential on me (being Gaia's #1 Harley Quinn fan), so I have a couple more reccomendations for you:

Karl Kessel and the Dodsons (Terry and Rachel) launched a Harley Quinn solo series back in 2000 or somewhere around there that should be fairly easy to track down as back issues. It's amazing. It's everything Harley should be. Also, Timm and Dini did a three issue Harley/Ivy mini three years ago that is too cute for words.

Dark Knight Returns is probably my favorite Frank Miller work. it's so much awesome. as is Year One.

*hits Frank Miller with a rake*

Personally, my favorite Batman villain is Ra's Al-Ghul. (And having checked them out, the first Ra's Al-Ghul run of the comics was relatively solid. Okay, so he deduced that Bruce Wayne is Batman from basically nothing. He's immortal, cut him some slack.) But I was never rly into the Batman comics, I liked the cartoon more.

You know the one I mean.

Also the '60s series, which needs to go back on television.


You should see Toei revision Spiderman. Or as he's known in the biz, Supaidaman.

He has a giant robot, and a car.

Hey, issue four-up is solid.

Also, Magneto gets beheaded by Wolverine while he's whacked out on street drugs.

My understanding is that he does not actually enjoy superhero work, so he's not at the top of his game. I don't know, though. When he isn't doing noir I sometimes fall asleep partway through.

WHAT!!