jonmcnallyblog

Personal Batman No. 2, 2008, ink with digital color.

Who says you gotta be grouchy to patrol the streets of Gotham?

In this design I tried to hint at the theatrical roots of superhero couture. Hopefully you see a bit of dancer or circus performer.

The addition of goggles is partly an attempt to afford Bats a more natural, manageable range of expression. Some can work wonders even with white, empty sockets but others, myself included, struggle with their application. I'm inclined to say this troubled application is more evident in comics than in cartoons.

Does Batman need a wider range of expression? Oh, that depends. Referring specifically to comics, I think the scary white sockets work best when Batman appears infrequently, like an an avenging spectre (not the avenging Spectre), or when his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, gets a fair amount of screen time. In my experience (again referring to comics), either scenario is an exception so, perhaps, another design solution'd be helpful.

I suppose only repeated drawing will prove any goggle merit!

Design aside, the grouchy Batman frequently depicted in comics doesn't work for me as a personal heroic archetype. He seems hardly admirable beyond his ability to put criminals behind bars.

Given his origin, the Batman who makes sense to me is much about hearth and home, hence the importance of Wayne Manor and the Batcave in the Batman myth. From his own place of safety, Batman ventures to safeguard all the households of Gotham. Further, he creates his own Bat Family, not (or, at least, not only) because he needs soldiers for his war on crime, but because it's what a person must do to flourish (surely what his parents would wish for him).

Batman created by Bob Kane. Batman, the distinctive likeness thereof, and related elements are trademarks of DC Comics.