Finally I get an opportunity to revisit something by Grant Morrison, in an early blog I recommended a Horror book by him called Nameless. I was going to look at All Star Superman but after listening to Tony Esmond chatting with Helena Edwardson on his, Never Iron Anything podcast, about Arkham Asylum I just had to read it. Helena explained that she wasn't a massive comic book fan but the art in this book really spoke to her.
A bit of History first, the actual title of the book is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth with the subtitle being taken from a poem called Church Going by Phillip Larkin. Written in 1989 this was Morrisons first time writing for The Batman and what a debut. It's now considered by many to be Grant Morrisons finest work and one of the best ever Batman stories.
The story begins by giving a background as to how Arkham Asylum came into existence and it's creator Amadeus Arkham. Of course we know that Arkham goes on to be the venue of choice for the incarceration of so many of Batmans arch enemies such as Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Harvey Two Face and the daddy of them all Joker. It's those inmates that have rioted, taken over the Asylum and called upon Batman to join them in Arkham before they release hostages.
Joker wants Batman to suffer and undergo analysis, to plumb the depths of his dark psyche, as he puts it "I want him to know what it's like to have sticky fingers pick through the dirty corners of his mind". Batman does indeed suffer along the way, both mentally as he faces his own demons and darkest truths and physically as he fights some of the inmates he put into Arkham. Most notably a battle with an incredible looking Killer Croc.
Much like Frank Millers Hard Boiled, that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, the story as good as it is, plays second fiddle to the amazing artwork from Dave Mckean. Interestingly, Morrison said that his first choice for the art duties was Brian Bolland, following his success rendering Alan Moores Killing Joke. Following Arkham Asylums publication Morrison stated that he felt the art distracted from his story.
In my very humble opinion I believe that Dave Mckeans art is the thing that makes Arkham Asylum so special. I think that Bollands clean sharp images would have been too perfect for this story. The sometimes scratchy artwork combined with painted images and his use of mixed media gives the whole book a very surreal and nightmarish feel throughout. I particularly enjoyed his images of Batman and Gordon using (I'm guessing) pencil to give a smokey ghostly image. His Joker is one of nightmares, with his crazed bulging eyes that seem to have no eyelids. Amid all this one of my favourite images comes from Batmans meeting with Killer Croc where we see the reflected image of Batman that grows with each of three frames.
But amid all this story full of symbolism and incredible artwork we cannot forget the work of the letterer Gaspar Saldino. Saldino earns his money by giving each character their own lettering and speech bubble style. The lettering is also one of the things I enjoy less about this story, in particular that of Joker. His speech is done without speech bubbles in a red scrawling font, I found this really difficult to read and at one point even resorted to using my phone camera to look at and enlarge the font. But that is a minor quibble and perhaps is more of a reflection of my now poor eyesight.
I will definitely revisit the book again soon, there is so much going on, in art and story, it demands multiple readings. If you've not had the chance to read Arkham Asylum before I'd definitely recommend it to you.
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