Harvey Pekar's "The Quitter"

Harvey Pekar has been the definitive working-class hero of the comics world over the last thirty years. His autobiographical series "American Splendor" , which started in 1976, ignited the underground comics movement which brought to prominence a whole generation of talented writers and artists and inspired many, many others like modern-day superstars like Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware. "American Splendor" was noted because of its focus on Pekar's everyday life, often featuring the ordinary, even mundane concerns of Pekar, who worked as a file clerk all his life (even after he became famous), his family and his neighbourhood. Followers of the series lapped it up, fascinated as Pekar's no-holds-barred, bare-all approach gave the comics a hitherto unseen gritty edge, and a realistic feel which was conspicuously absent in the superhero-dominated mainstream comics world inhabited by giants like Marvel Comics. His divorce, his struggles with cancer, his exasperation with brain-dead Hollywood producers..... all these and more were incorporated into the books, delivered with Pekar's trademark bitter, satirical voice, and his fierce appreciation of the trials of the underdog.

"The Quitter" was released in 2005, under the Vertigo imprint of DC comics, a label which had been producing a judicious mix of conventional comics like Hellblazer and Swamp Thing, along with some seminal works like Neil Gaiman's acclaimed Sandman series, and Alan Moore's V For Vendetta. It focusses chiefly on the pre- American Splendor Pekar, (although towards the end, we are given a glimpse into the making of the iconic series) specifically on his own impetuous nature, and his tendency to take failure hard.

From the first panel itself, it's clear that this is Pekar in a different, more playful avatar. To this end, the decision to rope in young upstart Dean Haspiel (who has worked with Pekar in the past on recent "American Splendor" books) was a masterstroke. In the very first page, Haspiel shows a bitter, wary Pekar, seemingly making a hurried exit, but then stops on an afterthought and says, nonchalantly, "I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, five weeks after the start of World War II... for what it's worth to anyone.." and then disappears to let the story unfold.

Pekar's childhood is portrayed in a very evocative manner, as Haspiel's crisp, sharp caricatures while drawing Pekar's Polish Jew immigrant family, segue smoothly into free-flowing curves, and cinematic, wide-angle action portraits of the frquent scraps that young Harvey gets into. In fact, the latter reminded me a lot of Eduardo Risso's superb, hard-as-nails depiction of ghetto neighbourhood fistfights in the Vertigo series "100 Bullets" , with which he made his name. Pekar himself delivers a few resounding punches, like the scene where he admits to feeling a dark, vindictive pleasure at thrashing a kid, with little provocation; a sort of karmic payback for all the times he'd been beaten up by groups of black kids in his old neighbourhood.

Pekar has always been a huge supporter of comic books as an art medium, exemplified by his now-famous assertion (which makes an entry here as well), "Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures." He also has noted, on occasion, the many similarities between comic books and movies, asserting that comics could achieve everything that movies have, till date. This "cinematic approach" is prominently on display, both in the frequent appearances of the adult Pekar, offering bitter homilies about the many mistakes he committed in his youth. He serves as a narrator, a peddler of after-the-event wisdom as well as a kind of deliberate de-lineating device, pointing out among other things, that "things do not always change all that much" which has been a recurring theme of the American Splendor series as well.

In a particularly striking sequence, the young Harvey is advised by his mothers to apologize to the kids who'd been bugging him, and were subsequently beaten up by Harvey. She advises him to compromise because "sometimes it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, as long as you get along with your friends". The young Harvey notes the irony of the situation, because his mother was supporting Henry Wallace, the under-fire Communist-backed presidential candidate at the time, and zealously at that. His internal monologue in this regard (see picture) has been shown depicted brilliantly by Haspiel, who deserves full points here.

The pace of the book mirrors Harvey's growth as a person. At first the frequent rants against errant coaches, unhelpful parents or snooty kids get a bit repetitive, but the story gets a shot in the arm as Harvey starts his final year in high school, and the burden of the approaching future starts getting too much for him to handle. In one of his appearances as the present-day Pekar, he confesses that all these years later, he is still every bit as insecure as ever, worrying about bad reviews, the dipping sales of his comics... you name it. In a very interesting move, Haspiel draws a starkly different, wraith-like Pekar, eyeballs popping out, wrinkles grossly overdone, perhaps to show the effect negativity and worry has upon a man. This is just one of the many artistic flourishes which can be seen every now and then in "The Quitter", both in the writing and in the artwork.

This is classic Pekar fare, enhanced both by his own increased maturity and his famed proclivity for taking artistic risks. In Dean Haspiel, he has a worthy partner-in-crime, and one can only hope that we see more of him in the days to come. It is important to mention here that "American Splendor" boasts of a tremendous ensemble of artists who made it big as comic book creators in their own right. Apart from Robert Crumb, who went on to become the patron saint of the underground comics movement, as well as a prominent counterculture figure, the series boasted of names like Alison Bechdel (whose 2006 graphic memoir "Fun Home" made it to the NYTimes Best Books Of The Year List), Gilbert Hernandez( co-creator with his brothers Jaime and Mario of the amazing and iconic "Love and Rockets" series, one of my all-time favourite comic books), Chester Brown ("Ed The Happy Clown"), Jim Woodring, Gary Dumm and Eddie Campbell (artist of "From Hell" , writer Alan Moore's magnum opus and one of the most important graphic novels of all time.)

Harvey Pekar remains one of the most important comic-book creators around, and in his own words, he hopes to "bring out "American Splendor" for as long as I can".

Amen.

“Unbreakable” and The Three Shyamalans

It has been well-established by now, that there are at least two individuals who go by the name of Manoj Night Shyamalan. The first is the maverick auteur, the Hitchcock of modern times, the writer-director of stunning films like “The Sixth Sense” , “Unbreakable” and “Signs” . Following the release of the latter, it is widely believed that aliens abducted said auteur and carried out horrific genetic experiments on him, turning him into the second Shyamalan, the peddler of cheap thrills, the maker of pseudo-profound commentaries on society( The Village) and fourth rate fantasy penny-dreadfuls like The Lady In The Water. This second Shyamalan liked to feud with Hollywood studio bosses who wouldn’t let him cast himself in key roles.

There are those, of course, who believe that the two Shyamalans are merely figments of the gullible public’s imagination, and that the real Shyamalan is the third one, the figure who has carefully cultivated an air of mystique about himself, with wild rumours ranging from the Hitchcockian (apparently a big black bird can be seen following him around), to the conspiratorial (they say that Shyamalan drowned in a childhood accident, and this one is really a ghost. So there.)

But I digress. No matter which Shyamalan you take to be genuine, I for one would choose to dwell upon some of his earlier masterpieces rather than curse him for his current sorry state.For me, Shyamalan reached his pinnacle as a writer and a director with “Unbreakable”. I know this might seem strange, given the long shadow cast by “The Sixth Sense”. The story basically involves a crippled comic-book collector(Samuel L. Jackson) trying to convince a security guard with a bad marriage(Bruce Willis) that he is, in fact a superhero. But as I shall elaborate, “Unbreakable” had quite a few remarkable things about it, which made it into a cross-genre, quirky-yet-believable SF film.

The first was the mythological aspect of the script. Shyamalan put forth a very compelling argument for comic-books as a sort of unbroken historical chain of information. At the time I saw the film, I was not the comic-book maniac that I am now. But when I saw the film again recently, some of the more daring statements about the art of comic-books resonated strongly with me. If you’ve ever read the so-called “Silver Age” superhero comics of the 60’s , you’ll know exactly what I mean. Take a character like Captain America for example. The story arcs of this hugely popular character have functioned as a virtual barometer of public sentiment over state policy down the years. While the Captain punched Hitler in the 40’s , in the wake of the outrage over Watergate, the Captain lay down his shield and helmet in shame. This was a masterstroke at the screenplay level, one which elevated it beyond the realm of the conspiracy theory or the urban legend. Coupled with the spooky dialogue delivery of Samuel L. Jackson, an inspired casting choice for the role of Elijah the cripple; the overall effect is chilling indeed. Elijah has been born with osteogenesis imperfect, a rare condition which causes his bones to be extremely brittle. He believes that there must be someone at the other extreme as well, someone who is invulnerable, unbreakable.

The second aspect was that of Shyamalan’s endlessly fascinating usage of light and space. The first scene of the film involves the birth of the Elijah character on a train. The claustrophobic nature of the train, accentuated with a huge mirror, serves well the template for the moment where the doctor announces that the baby was born with broken arms and legs. Also, late in the film, there is a scene where Bruce Willis, who is afraid of water, is almost drowns while struggling with a huge tarpaulin. The technical work and visual artistry on display here is simply staggering. Shyamalan is one of the great indoor directors of our time. He has a highly acute sense of the power exercised by the four walls, of the paranoia and the primal fear which can be depicted indoors(Signs is an excellent example of this, too, as is The Sixth Sense…remember the famous sequence featuring the young Mischa Barton playing a dead girl?)

I didn’t really like “The Usual Suspects” despite the most famous plot twist in cinematic history. The reason being, a)You feel kinda cheated about the previous two hours and b)The “twist” doesn’t really chime well with the remainder of the plot, and is as such not integral to the ethos of the story. Five smartass minutes do not a movie make.

This is where “Unbreakable” works wonders. As I don’t want to spoil the story for first-timers, I won’t discuss it at length, but I will say is that the “twist” is, in this case central to the cascading mythos of the whole film, as well as being thoroughly satisfying on its own. The third aspect, then, is the ubiquitous Shyamalan twist which was better than ever before.

While Shyamalan’s film haven’t been typically known for exceptional performances(I think Mel Gibson’s performance in Signs was perhaps the best of the lot), Jackson and Willis bring in their experience into play, turning in solid outings. And who better to play an ‘unbreakable” man than Bruce Willis? The scene where Willis tries to lift increasing amounts of weight to try and test his limits is comical, with a dangerous undertone, something which Willis pulls off quite well, in the end.

Alas, this brilliance was to be short-lived, and the other two Shyamalans would soon take charge, leaving in their wake whispered dialogues, insipid plots, multiple Razzie nominations(and two wins, for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor for Shyamalan in “The Lady In The Water”) and bemused critics.
So, the jury is out on when the first Shyamalan decides to grace us with his presence once more. Watch this space for updates.

A Few Good Ones: Lit-Adaptation Wishlist

(Originally published here on passionforcinema.com)

“Thou, of the blogger’s faith, shalt not revert to the “list” post, ‘cept if ye haven’t banged thine keyboard for a while, or the Indian cricket team has been knocked out of the World Cup, or both….”
– The Underground Bible Of Bloggers

Seeing as both of the above criteria are fulfilled, I think I’ve got this covered. I remember reading in a PFC article about how “The White Tiger” was voted the most “filmable” among a host of recent books in a film festival not long ago.(There ye go, Danny Boyle!) That set me thinking about some of the books I read(or re-read!) in the past few weeks, which are on my silver-screen wishlist. This is in no particular order, with little rhyme or reason, except for an effort on my part to make the list as varied as possible, as far as genre is concerned.

1. Netherland- Critics around the world hailed Joseph O’ Neill’s 2008 novel as a post 9/11 masterpiece, or alternatively as a masterly post-colonial interpretation of “The Great Gatsby”. Call it what you will, but “Netherland” is poignant, precise and hauntingly effective at revealing the many pitfalls of relationships and the ultimately fickle nature of mankind. The story revolves around a Dutch banker Hans Van der Boek whose personal life takes a tumble after 9/11, and his uneasy frriendship with Chuck Ramkissoon, an entrepreneur with stars in his eyes, who wants to set up a cricket enterprise in New York. My choice for director would be Robert Zemeckis, with Ewan McGregor and Forest Whitaker as Van Der Boek and Ramkissoon, respectively.

2. The Reluctant Fundamentalist- Young American of Pakistani origin works in a hotshot financial firm, settles down into the yuppie shell…..and when the two towers collapse on the TV, he just laughs. Intrigued? Mohsin Hamid’s slim novel packs quite a lot of narrative punch in its 180-odd pages, and maintains to keep us all on the edge. Mira Nair has expressed interest in this one, and I hope she does get to be the one who dons the director’s hat for this film. As for the role of Changez, the Princeton-educated Lahore boy…. it is a tremendously subtle role, and one which requires some serious head scratching on the part of the director…as far as physical attributes are concerned, Neil Nitin Mukesh comes to mind.

3. The Zoya Factor- After two very literary novels, the next one on my list is firmly in the realm of what is popularly called “chick-lit” . Anuja Chauhan’s debut novel chronicles the adventures of Zoya Solanki, a girl born on the exact moment of India’s World Cup victory, the deal being, whenever she has breakfast with the team on the eve of a match, we win. So there. Despite such an obviously contrived backdrop and some pretty standard chick-lit set-pieces, the author raises quite a few laughs with its caricatures of Indian cricketers, bureaucrats and numerology-toting holy men. Following the release of Billu Barber, the Internet was strife with reports of Red Chillies Productions, SRK’s banner producing the film. Let’s hope Shah Rukh’s second innings with cricket goes slightly better than the first….till then “Korbo, lorbo, jitbo re!”

4. The Plot Against America- Philip Roth imagines an America where Charles Lindbergh has defeated Roosevelt in the 1940 elections, and the resulting rise of anti-semitism in America. The lingering questions posed by the master novelist are tough to answer, as Roth turns his microscope towards the America which voted for George W. Bush not once, but twice. (If you ask me, this is almost as outrageous as the alternate history devised by Roth.) To capture the escalating paranoia and tension, I would go for Steven Spielberg(this has nothing to do with his being a Jew). On an unrelated note, another Roth adaptation to hit the screen recently is “Elegy”( starring Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz) based on Roth’s 2001 novel, “The Dying Beast” a poignant tale about love, the fear of ageing and its inevitable physical toll.

5. After Dark- In a world of acolytes and factory-made zombies posing as writers, Haruki Murakami is a bona fide original. He has his influences, but he leaps beyond them to create a dazzling palette all of his own. This eerie tale of two sisters, one of whom is mysteriously in a month-long coma-like sleep, is a classic Murakami tale, with themes of urban loneliness and a gripping sense of unease and alienation. For this film, I would choose stylistic chameleon Ang Lee as director, or alternatively, David Lynch, because as I was reading the novel, scenes from Mulholland Drive were flashing through my head, for some strange reason I am yet to fathom…..

6. The Sandman- I could go on for ages(and pages) talking about this comic-book series….and it still wouldn’t be adequate. Suffice to say that British writer Neil Gaiman revolutionized the way comic-books are perceived(with all due respect to Alan Moore!). Erudite, complex both visually and literally, and constantly pushing the bar ever higher, Gaiman helped usher in a new wave of “comic-books for intellectuals” as Norman Mailer, the grand old man of American letters described Sandman. On the surface, Sandman is about the adventures of Morpheus, the Dream Lord who controls the Dreaming, and his siblings Death, Despair, Destiny and others, known as the Endless. But really, Sandman is about the power of the human imagination, and the myriad landscapes the mind draws to often blur the line between fact and fiction. Drawing on mythologies and historical figures of several lands, as well as Western canonical literature, films and pop culture, Sandman is as “essential” as Lord Of the Rings. No surprises, then that my choice for director would be Peter Jackson. (Neil Gaiman himself stated that he would like the potential director to be “as obesessed as Peter Jackson was with Tolkien’s works.)

7. Preacher- Irish comic-book writer Garth Ennis wrote this mature comic-book series under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics, known for its quote-unquote serious titles. But for once, the hype was justified. The series is a scathing critique of religious conservatism, and the modern uber-American identity. Stylistically influenced by old-school cowboy westerns(it even has John Wayne as a character, which is an apparition guiding the hero, who in turn is a very Waynesque character.), Preacher kicks some serious ass, and is among the wittiest comic-books I’ve read. In January, Columbia Pictures finalised the film rights, with Sam Mendes, whose work I greatly admire, directing!

To round off the list, I would like to draw the reader’s attention towards “Between The Assasinations”, Aravind Adiga’s second book, a collection of short stories set in a fictional South Indian town called Kittur, and as is obvious from the titles, chronicles the time between the assasinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. These sketches from small-town India, often characterized by Adiga’s acerbic wit and black humour, manage to capture the zeitgeist of the mid 80’s India very well. I found it a kind of a twisted riposte to “Malgudi Days” which had charming little vignettes which were gentle even in their criticism. In my opinion, it is a far superior work than “The White Tiger” which had periods of brilliance marred by hackneyed, myopic portrayals of rural poverty which strove for cheap thrills rather than insightful examinations of the lives of its subjects.

I would love it if “Between The Assasinations” is adpated for a television miniseries, inviting some of our top directors to make 40-minute episodes, a la “Star Bestsellers”. Alternately, three or four of the stories could be taken to make an ensemble film, much like “New York Stories” which had Scorsese, Coppola and Woody Allen at the helm, or Boccaccio 70, which had Fellini, de Sica and other Italian directors. I scarcely need to point out the need for quality made-for-TV works in India, although I admit I haven’t seen the much touted “Specials at 9″ series with names like Madhur Bhandarkar, Anurag Kashyap and Mahesh Manjrekar to boast of. Let’s hope that we, too can see something like “John Adams” or “Angels In America” on our telly screens soon!

I would really appreciate your own ideas for books which you think will make for some compelling cinema :)

The Year Of The Graphic Novel

[Originally published here at passionforcinema.com]

(It’s been a weird kind of semester. Starting off at full steam, it seemed like it’ll all be over and done within two shakes of a dog’s tail… but it’s ended up dragging on and on. Mercifully, it’ll be over soon… my exams are starting in a week, and this will be the last entry in this blog for 15 days.)

Every year, around this time, I have a lot of reading to catch up with, (as the summer approaches) and as I start to look back at all the stuff I read, I notice a pattern. There are typically one or two writers/schools of writing to which I get attracted… and then I start to read up most or all of their work. And although I try to be as heterogeneous as I can while buying books, these writers inevitably end up on my list.

So,while the period around my tenth standard was mostly about magical realism(Rushdie, Marquez, Grass… the whole shebang…), after giving the Engineering Entrance Exams a couple of years later, I buried myself and my I/Me/Myself pangs into Camus and others of his absurdist ilk. Going even further back, I recall that I more or less saturated the Wodehouse rack at the local library in the summer vacation when I was in the seventh standard, before proceeding to do the same to the Asimov and the Stephen King racks.

Looking back at this year(Yes, being a student, I tend to treat an year from April to April) if I have to label it, it would undoubtedly be the Year of the Comic Book/Graphic Novel . I’d read some pretty good comics before, but the credit for introducing me to this wonderful world goes to my friend Arvind Sowmyan here on campus, geek extraordinaire, and brilliant artist himself. One day, when we were sitting in his room trying to beat the sticky Kharagpur heat, I commented on the drawing he’d made of a hooded, goateed figure (curiously resembling Colin Farrell!) he’d drawn on the wall, something which I thought had clear manga influences. He remarked, “It’s closer to Sandman than manga….”

It was then that I discovered Neil Gaiman’s stunning Sandman series, a huge, sprawling achievement in every way, something which has the density, maturity and texture comparable to the best of modern literary fiction. After that, there was no looking back. Afte completing Sandman, I quickly moved on to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which is considered the definitive graphic novel of our times. By now, I’d well and truly caught the bug. I read up everything I could by Moore, including the massively entertaining LXG(League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) series and From Hell the stylistical masterpiece set in Victorian times. Later this year, I read dozens of prominent writers like Frank Miller(Sin City and Ronin are my faves). Among standalone graphic novels, I read “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi and “Maus” by Art Spiegelman, two memoirs about different childhoods in different parts of the world, both of which are throbbing with poignance and utter beauty, as is the magisterial “Blankets” by Craig Thompson. Honourable mentions go to Sarnath Bannerjee, whose witty and ambitious novels “Corridor” and “The Barn-Owl’s Wondrous Capers” I enjoyed immensely; and also to Amruta Patil, whose dark and shadowy “Kari” serves as an intriguing advertisement for her future work.

I feel that as visual artists, graphic novelists have a lot to offer to the world of cinema. While it is a bald and mundane topic that the comic-book medium is inherently similar to the silver screen, things cannot be put in such a simplistic manner. The stylistic innovations brought to the genre by messrs Moore, Gaiman and Miller are testimony to the fact that comic books today can be as challenging as the best offered by Scorsese, Stone or the Coens. Read any “Sin City” title or any of Gaiman’s Sandman books , and you’ll know what I mean. Iron Man was the film which started pushing the barrier last year, before Christopher Nolan set the cat among the pigeons with The Dark Knight. Inspired from classic Batman titles like Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”, Alan Moore’s “The Man Who Laughs” and Jeph Loeb’s “The Long Holloween”, he made what is sure to be an enduring classic among movie-goers everywhere, helped generously by a hauntingly macabre performance by the late Heath Ledger.

And yet it wasn’t good enough for the pundits. I won’t start a tirade about the quibbling idiots at the Academy Awards.(I loved Hugh Jackman’s song-and-dance routine “How come comic-book movies never get nominated/How can a billion dollars be unsophisticated?!”) What I’m surprised about is the people who’ve actually been lavish with their praise have managed to make it patronising and ultimately holier-than-thou. Roger Ebert is a critic I admire immensely, not just for his forthright reviews but also for his often self-deprecating humour. Now, he gave the Dark Knight four out of four stars, recognising the brilliance for what it was. But even his review came with a rider.

Towards the end, he says that The Dark Knight is “a haunting film” which “leaps beyond its origins” and that it “redefines the possibilities of the comic-book movie” , the implicit argument being that the origins of the film were inherently inferior because they were, at the end of the day, comic-books. The air smells of intellectual snobbery when people like Ebert come up with stuff like this. I dare these people to see “Persepolis” (the film version was co-directed by Marjane Satrapi, the writer of the graphic novel, herself) and not be moved to tears by the end. The power of comic-books as a storytelling medium was explored by the Manoj Shyamalan thriller “Unbreakable” which had some pretty cool theories about comic-book sensibilities.

Part of the problem is that filmakers in Hollywood are still not ready, for the large part, to think of comic-books of anything other than huge, flashy colours and “Kaboom” sound buubles. The “Wanted” comic-book series by Mark Millar was a brash, in your-face crime thriller, with plenty of spunk and bold brushstrokes all over the place. But the movie turned into an excuse to show off every last one of Anglina Jolie’s curves in devout super-slo-mo sequences. Later in the year, “The Incredible Hulk” too, disappointed on most counts. Ed Norton, an actor I like immensely, gave a shockingly ineffective performance. Neil Gaiman has expresed his disappointment at several abortive attempts at making a Sandman movie… but he also said that a project like this was only possible with a director who was as obesessed with the subject matter as Peter Jackson was with the LOTR saga. This is one of the reasons why writer Alan Moore distanced himself from “V From Vendetta” , which was actually a pretty good effort in the end. He had faced bitter disappointement earlier with the film adaptations of his books “From Hell” and “The League of Exraordinary Gentlemen” (I think we can all agree that we never want to see Naseeruddin Shah beat up people with his boots again!).

I fervently pray and hope that there’ll be a brash maverick out there somewhere who’ll replicate the magic of people like Moore, Spiegelman and Gaiman. I haven’t yet seen Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” , but the initial rushes look very impressive indeed. Remember Watchmen was called “unfilmable” ….. Closer home, I’m eagerly waiting for the silver screen adaptation of “Doga”, one of Raj Comics’s more enduring titles, a Punisher-like ruthless vigilante wearing a dog-mask. At the helm of the project is Anurag Kashyap, who is currently the toast of the town with Dev D and Gulaal.Kunal Kashyap is said to be playing Doga. Having read a bit of Doga comics, the dog-man does kind of fit the bill as a typical Kashyap character…. Let’s wait and watch :)

Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns"

When Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" was published in 1986, the Batman franchise, owned by DC Comics was not in good shape. Ratings were steady but never competitive with those of the rivals, Marvel Comics. Miller was a young superstar whose work on the Daredevil comic strip had already drawn rave reviews. The onus was on him to resuscitate the dying series.

So what does he do? He begins by making the Batman an old, bleeding, fading man grappling with his own inner demons. We are told that the second Robin, Jason Todd, died in combat, which caused, among other things, the caped crusader to call it a day. Where lesser men would have brought fresh villains for Batman to bash up, maybe even exaggerated the Batman's skills, Miller opted to tone them down. And then trained his eye on Gotham.

Miller's Gotham city is eerily disturbing and fascinating in equal measure.It is a city which doesn't have huge arch-villains, it has 15-year olds committing acts of unthinkable violence. Where the cost of a human life is shockingly low. It is a city where anarchy is always waiting in the wings, just in case..... Above all, it is a place ridden with paranoia and ignorance.During a news broadcast, it is actually suggested that "the heat wave in the city has led to the recent spate of violent crimes"

Batman's old foes Harvey "Two-Face" Dent and the Joker have both been locked up in Arkham Asylum for years. Harvey's half-burnt visage and his twisted alter-ego have both been apparently put to rest by a duo of doctors who seem curiously keen to let him loose among society again. At the same time, a gang of nihilist young goons calling themselves the Mutants are growing in power and influence on the streets of Gotham. Meanwhile, veteran cop Jim Gordon(Batman's old ally, one who apparently knows his identity has Bruce Wayne) is nearing retirement and contemplates the fate of Gotham in the days to come.

Clearly the stage is set for a comeback. For me, here's where the novel transcends the genre. Bruce Wayne's monologue about the bat, whom he describes as "the ancient one, the purest warrior, the ultimate survivor..." is chilling. Here's what he has to say about the revival of the bat within "You are puny....you are small....you are a rusty trap which cannot hold me......feel me within your soul......for I am your soul....smouldering, I burn you....burning you, I flare, hot and bright and fierce and beautiful." All this is set accompanied with images from Bruce Wayne's past.....with a series of stunningly vivid black-and-blue ink sketches, the incident of a young Bruce falling down a bat-infested cave; as well as that of the brutal murder of his parents, is reconstructed in breathtaking fashion. On an unrelated note, I couldn't help but notice how faithfully Christopher Nolan has followed Miller's sketches while filming the aforementioned scenes in the stunning "Batman Begins" !

Batman does manage to quell Dent, who though cured of his scars, has found out that some scars are too deep to heal..... In fact, in the scene where Batman finally confronts Dent, he says "At least, now both sides are even ...." and the frame shows Dent with both sides of his face scarred. Batman, realising this is how Harvey Dent sees himself, thinks....."Not fooled by vision, I see him as he is..." and then "A reflection....." as we are shown two adjacent frames, one of the Batman, and one of the fierce-as-ever bat.... this intelligent juxtaposition of words and art is sometimes hard to follow, as the visual tricks keep getting more and more subtler.

The next issue of the four-part novel deals mostly with how Batman takes down the Mutant gang and also the emergence of a new Robin, thirteen-year old Carrie Kelly. Frank Miller, in the tenth-anniversary special edition, says in the preface, "One of the first things we decided was that Robin has to be a girl." However, the underlying problem addressed is not about the mutants; it is "escalation" , the idea that Batman's presence might actually increase crime and attract criminal sociopaths from all directions. We are shown a visibly aged and watered-down Joker quietly watching television at Arkham asylum. When there is news of the Batman's return on the news, something seems to wake the Joker up from his lull........the gleam in his eyes his back, and he slowly breaks into the same old ear-to-ear grin......A pompous psychiatrist, Dr. Wolper, who is treating both the Joker and Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, comes on television to go on a long-winded rant against the Batman.

"Every anti-social act can be traced to irresponsible media input. Given this(the Batman), the presence of such an aberrant, violent force in the media can only lead to anti-social programming. Just as Harvey Dent, who is recovering fine,thank you, assumed the role of ideological doppelganger to the Batman, a whole new generation, confused and angry will be bent to the matrix of the Batman's pathological self-delusion. Batman is, in this context, a social disease....." In the climax of "Batman Begins", Commissioner Jim Gordon explains the problem of escalation to the Batman, introducing the character of the Joker which was portrayed memorably by the late Heath Ledger in the sequel "The Dark Knight"Gordon says "This guy, for instance......he has a penchant for theatricality not unlike your own..... leaves a calling card..."
The weakness of the media and the blinkers-on attitiude of the government are also key themes Miller addresses here. The government, in Miller's universe, is openly and notoriously cares only about "public perception". The newsreader on the TV says, "The Political Performance Commission has just awarded the President an unprecedented five credibility points for his handling of public perception during the recent economic crisis..." Here, Miller dons the hat of an unlikely prophet as he introduces the President, a pandering, bumbling guy who speaks almost entirely using cowboy metaphors. The President explains to Clark Kent/Superman (who has now become a government agent) why Batman must be reined in.

"Son, I like to think I learnt everything about running this country on my ranch....it's corny, I know, but I like to think it. And well, it's all well on a ranch, I mean, for the horses to be of different colurs and sizes.....long as they stay inside the fence.....it's even okay to have a crazy bronco now and then.... does the hands good to break him in.....but when that bronco kicks out the fence and drives the other horses crazy....well it's bad for business...."

Clark Kent(yes, nowhere has the word "Superman" been used....apparently the Government has kept the existence of the Superman under wraps. Bruce Wayne refers to him simply as "Clark" ) then is kept in the shadows for a while as the Mutant leader is captured and put in a jail cell, where the mayor goes to see him " for negotiations, with all the ceremony befitting a military procedure..." as Jim Gordon puts it.The weakness of the authorities is sensed by the Mutant leader, who brutally murders the mayor in his cell. The seething outrage of Gordon is captured beautifully in the next scene where he is restrained "by some idiot, who stops me from doing the obvious thing..." Very soon, there is a broadcast by the local authorities who literally plead the Mutants to reconsider negotiations.

Eventually, Batman manages to overpower the Mutant leader.....seeing their leader maimed, the Mutants disband into different splinter groups, among them the "Nixons" who wear Richard Nixon masks! Ironically, one such group becomes the "Sons of Batman" who resort to extreme violence against even petty crime(like breaking up an illegal card game with napalm). By now, the Joker is gearing up for his first public appearance in years, and something big, blue and fast is flying towardsGotham City....

The action hots up when the Joker announces his arrival in style, killing hundreds of people in the television studio at one go, with his killing gas(including the insufferable Dr.Wolper). The Batman shows a twinge of regret at not killing the Joker, "I'll count the dead, one by one. I'll add them to the list..... of all the people I've murdered by letting you live...." Meanwhile, Clark Kent(yes, if Miller doesn't use "Superman" neither will I!) comes to warn his old ally Bruce that sooner or later, he will be forced to take the Batman down. This encounter between the Man of Steel and Bruce Wayne is a treat.....there is the gratuitious page-length sketch of the Adonis-like Clark Kent, albeit minus the costume.Watching him, Bruce thinks to himself , "There he is...there's the sun and the sky and him. Then he ruins everything by talking..."
Clark Kent saves America from a Soviet nuclear missile, harmlessly exploding it in a desert, weakening himself considerably in the process. He is rueful of how Bruce was "ruining it all" with his obesessive ways.....I thought this was Miller's way of cocking a snook at other, more "conventional" heroes like Superman himself.

"The rest of us learned to cope.The rest of us recognised the danger-- of the envy of those not blessed.....Diana went back to her people.....Hal went to the stars..and I have walked the razor's edge for so long now. But you Bruce......with your wild obesession.....". (For the uninitiated, Diana and Hal refer to Diana Prince and Hal Jordan, alter-egos for Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, respectively. They were both part of the Justice League, which also featured Superman and the Batman.)
Later on, even as Superman is finally unveiled in all his red-and-blue glory, he says " We must not remind them that giants walk the earth...." It is hinted that superheroes have been all but stamped out due to public outrage against the growing vigilante justice,and that Batman was one of the major culprits in this. Clark says,

"You were the one they used against us, Bruce. The one who played it rough....when the noise started from the parents' groups and the subcommittee called us in for questioning......you were the one who laughed....that scary laugh of yours... "Sure we're criminals" , you said... "We've always been criminals....we have to be criminals..."

Make no mistake, the operative word in the title of the novel here is "dark" , not "knight". Bruce Wayne is darker, more violent and even cold-blooded at times. He has no qualms about his methods and is a powerful allegory for rule of anarchy.
The Batman finally subdues the resurgent Joker, but not before he has killed dozens of children at a fair. Oh, yes, the bloodtrail is ever so thick right throughout the novel. The final action sequences between the two arch-enemies are superbly scripted and drawn. Reading those pages made me realize some of the madness comic-book aficionados are associated with.....it was just so thrilling and sheer fun! Being a recent convert at the comic-book-cum-graphic-novel cult, perhaps the effect was more pronounced for me. And finally, it all boils down to Armageddon, the final battle, the last showdown between the two titans: Batman and Superman.

The settings are spectacular: Gotham has descended into anarchy as the disbanded splinter groups of the Mutants are wreaking havoc on the streets. Meanwhile the entire police force of Gotham, led by a new commissioner, is after the Batman. When a 747 crashes into a skyscraper(again, eerily prophetic) it's the last straw: ordinary people are at each other's throats, clawing, fighting for food..... Bruce Wayne must rally around the people of Gotham to sanity, and gear up to face the Man of Steel.....
Without giving up the ending, I'll say this: in a novel which steers clear of the cliches of the genre while embracing its strengths, the ending is true to form. Who prevails in this clash of titans? Grab your copy to find out! For "The Dark Knight Returns" is undoubtedly one of the landmarks of its genre and paved the way for a grittier, smarter and denser brand of comic-books and graphic novels, as the same year, Alan Moore released a brand new series called "Watchmen" .....and there has been no looking back since.

Millar and Miller: Graphic Novels rule!

I have been reading three books simultaneously for the past few days....... Orhan Pamuk's "My Name Is Red", along with two graphic novels, Mark Millar's "Wanted" and Frank Miller's iconic 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns". Will soon post reviews of the latter two(Pamuk's book is about 500 pages.......and I'm reading this one at a leisurely pace).While "Wanted" was very loosely adapted into the Angelina Jolie starrer recently, Miller's unforgettable work was one of the key inspirations for Christopher Nolan's " The Dark Knight" , which was undoubtedly the film of the year for me.

Graphic novels, as a rule, are more difficult to review than regular novels, because there is just so much to take in with every page.....and when you have someone like Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman or the inimitable Alan Moore at the helm...best of luck! Visual tricks, cultural allusions, mythological overtones and modern-day allegories fly thick and fast. I still can't bring myself to review Moore's "Watchmen" which I have read thrice....maybe someday I'll split the thing into a series of posts. So far, I've reviewed Amruta Patil's "Kari"(here) and Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis"(though that was a kind of a clubbed review along with that of the film). But given the amount of graphic novels I've been reading of late....something's gotta give!