Sam Kieth's best work but still really good, His art is, as always, spectacular and haunting, The idea is a fantastic one it's set in a prison mental hospital for all the villains Batman has put away, It's a little predictable, but Sam Kieth puts his spin on the characters and I think anyone working in an underpaid overworked hospital IRL could relate so thats disturbing.
Went back to reread to see what Kieth did with Harley Quinn after seeing the movie Birds of Prey, Shes more classic comic in this version, less nuanced than in the movie, but shes also a minor character here, This is never leaving my shelf, so Im dang glad its a hardcover,
Im not that familiar with Batman and the world of Gotham or Arkham, My first exposure was reading Jonah Hex,
Hex gets around a lot,
So Im getting off point, . .
Instead of ruing the entire book with a detail description, its much easier to write that Batman is NOT the main character,
This is a psychological thriller, The art pushes the limit,
The story is brilliant in simplicity and its viciousness,
Viciousness, you read
Im not writing about gore,
Im describing the everyday victim, The victim of choice. The victim of necessity. The victim of chance.
And, of course, Im writing about the perpetrator, The perpetrator can be the vicious criminal, the psychologically impaired individual or the every day humdrum of life, The tick tock of life, as it were, like a clock,
Humans seem to manage their lives around time,
The characters are incredibly well thought out,
Its a very well written, well edited, beautifully artistic and terrifically put together book!/stars
sitelink
. said no Arkham worker ever,
"She will always belong to Arkham Asylum,
And she will always be a part of the madness, " The Joker This book started off kinda slow, and never really picked up the type of speed of a normal Batman title, But this isn't your ordinary Batman book, specifically this is a book about Arkham Asylum, The overall tone of the story is to
convey the weight of being around the most dangerous psychopaths in Gotham, It was sorta anticlimactic, very much in the the way that H, P. Lovecraft would approach his writings, Use the weight and worries of the situation to help convey a slow descent into madness, Overall it was a good read, a bit of a slog at times, But a decent story none the less, The art is horrendous, I just cant get past it or in to it, Story seems over the top, with the level of homesickness the nurse displays her family drops her off at work and shes whining and crying about missing themminutes in.
Gonna be a hard pass from me, Stars, that's awful drawing! Just look what they did to my beloved Harley,
She looks like an old hag, She's not even pretty. She's plain ugly.
Everybody in this comic is ugly,
And the story makes no sense in the end, The conclusion is weird for both sides, the Arkham staff and the inmates,
Two bad ones in a row already, gt. lt Does that mean something to myreads An inside look into the Asylum, . . interesting artwork and interesting story, Really enjoyed this one. I love Arkham Asylum as a whole, the creepy Halloween vibes I get from just seeing the iconic building and the gated entrance, I was first exposed to Arkham in thes animated series, but it wasnt till the release of Batman Arkham Asylum inthat I fell in love with the lore of Arkham Asylum and how spooky and hellish the haunted place really is.
So getting a book that is based solely on a day and night shift at Arkham Asylum Sign me up,
What really enhances it even more is that I work in the medical field, so this at times felt like very realistic scenarios when it comes to situations you are put in that are outside the realm of the normal for most people and what that does to you mentally and the ever ticking clock that seems to only make it worse at times.
Overall, I gave itbecause I did enjoy it, but while I love Arkham and it being connected to a profession I have experience with elevated it even more, the overall story was just okay.
Its a really short read that follows a newer nurse at Arkham as well as the Jokers POV throughout with the occasional switch to the other staff members and super criminals.
But at times the pages can be so dark its hard to decipher what is going on or itll jump to a new staff member/villain and you have to take a minute and digest what is actually happening if you can.
Overall not the greatest, but also not a bad read and something I wouldnt mind reading on a spooky fall night,
Word is we are getting a possible HBO MAX spin off show of The Batman based on Arkham Asylum so fingers crossed it follows this tone mixed with the films tone.
It seems like most of Sam Kieth's work is very polarizing, I find that I like his later work, although sometimes not so much his early stuff,
In this case we get a fairly deep story about Arkham Asylum, It's done as a "day in the life" type story, just showing a typical day in Arkham, But there's something deeper here in the way of a haunted house type story showing that Arkham Asylum may just be cursed, Or is it
I liked Sam Kieth's art here even though it can be hard to follow at times, I thought the coloring was well done, His art has never been realistic, and has always been a bit cartoony for some readers,
Overall I thought this was a great read for something different, Even though there was very little action, it held my attention the entire way, This isn't for everyone, but if you like Sam Kieth's artwork and are looking for something different, maybe it is for you,
This one follows a day in the life of a nurse, Sabine Robbins, who works at Arkham Asylum and I think Batmans mentioned twice in passing, so welcome to Batman week, Gothamites.
Working at Arkham Asylum, home to Batmans rogues gallery, has to be one of the more stressful ways to make a buck in comics, Between jobs as a Male Exotic Dancer and a Riverboat Pilot, I once worked in a mental institution which had its own wing for the criminally insane.
They didnt have any super villains housed there, but every time I went into the wing, the air was always leaden with tension, Imagine not only working in this environment, but having to deal with The Joker, Killer Croc, ManBat and the Scarecrow on a daily basis,
Sabine gets dropped off early in the morning by her husband and young son and my dreadometer started going off,
You find that Arkham isnt that much different than any other workplace: people complain about the work, people complain about management, coworkers play practical jokes on one another with a fake bloody foot, coworkers grabbing a quick one in the broom closet and the Joker offs one of your coworkers on a biweekly basis.
The art is a combination of expressionism and whatthehellisthatism i, e. It resembles something my wife put on the refrigerator when my then five year old brought it home from school, and almost undercuts the writing,
Fun fact: The Joker is a big fan of Antiques Roadshow, Who knew
There was one guy who had an abnormally huge head who looked like a cross between Hector Hammond and The Leader, Whos to say whether he was scheming about plans for world domination
Debido a una oleada de homicidios especialmente truculentos, Batman tendrá que abandonar las inmediaciones de la gran ciudad para ampliar su radio de acción.
Abarcando zonas menos céntricas del Condado de Gotham, el Caballero Oscuro seguirá la pista del responsable de tan atroces crímenes, viéndose obligado no solo a afrontar sus miedos más profundos, sino también a presenciar una serie de acontecimientos que desafían cualquier análisis racional.
Incluye Arkham Asylum: Madness y Batman: Country Liney, DC, which, unlike Marvel, still releases original graphic novels every once in a while, released this one, which is written, drawn, and occasionally colored by Sam Kieth, colored the rest of the time by Michelle Madsen and Dave Stewart, and lettered by Steve Wands.
Its a slim volume not quitepages long, and it retails for,.
The basic plot is simple: A nurse named Sabine arrives for her shift at Arkham Asylum in the morning and ends up staying forhours when shes drafted for the night shift as well.
It is, of course, a strangehours, The Joker is doing weird things, and everything kinds of comes to a head while Sabine is there, Kieth is concerned far more with Sabine and the way she and the staff reacts to the weirdness going on at the asylum, so the plot is somewhat inconsequential.
In many ways, this book is a nice companion piece to The Killing Joke, in that the Joker is trying to drive many people mad, and instead of turning a carnival into a madhouse, he simply uses the madhouse in which hes confined.
In some ways, this is a far more disturbing comic than The Killing Joke, because Kieth leaves the ending more ambiguous than Moore did, We think that the Joker is proven wrong and that not everyone loses their sanity when confronted with the insane, but then Kieth forces us to reconsider what happens.
The idea that Kieth is toying with is an interesting one, Sabine needs the job shes a young mother and she and her husband dont make much money but does she need it to the point where it destroys her soul Is her love of her son enough to resist the insanity that surrounds her Will defending her child against the Joker drive her to the point where he wants her to go anyway Kieth brings all of these themes up throughout the book, and although they dont always work perfectly mainly because Sabine remains somewhat of a blank slate, emotionally she reacts to things as we expect her to react, and so we dont really get a sense that she might swerve, Kieth is good enough to make the ending fairly gutwrenching.
Its a decent psychological horror story, and theres nothing wrong with that,
The problem with the story is that Kieth doesnt really do anything new with any of the characters, I know that he cant really do too much because this is, presumably, “in continuity” and so he cant change too much, but he doesnt really give us new takes of the old chestnuts.
The book that this is obviously hearkening back to, Morrisons Arkham Asylum yes, I just compared it to The Killing Joke, but I can compare it to two different books, right, at least gave us an odder version of the Joker than we usually see, but Kieths Joker is just the Joker.
Even Killer Croc, a malevolent presence on the top floor, is similar to many other versions, Because of this restriction, its kind of difficult to care too much about what theatrics the maniacs in Arkham pull, even when it directly affects Sabine, Kieth toys a bit with the Joker his obsession with Antiques Roadshow and old toys in general ought to become canonical but in the end, hes just the Joker.
Kieth also hits all the common notes about Arkham he brings up the idea that something deeper lurks within its walls, for instance but its still Arkham.
In other words, its still ridiculously understaffed even though the greatest concentration of evil in the DCU is concentrated inside it, and its still a wreck of a building that, even in an economic recession, is an embarrassment in a major American city.
The idea of Arkham is always more interesting than the reality, and Kieth doesnt do much with the reality,
The reason I can mildly recommend this is because the ending really does work well, as Sabine comes to understand her warped relationship with Arkham and its patients and why she acts as she does at the end, and because Kieths art is always fun to look at.
His character design is wonderful, as he draws people as slight caricatures that reveal much more about them than if he drew them straight, He shifts from cartoony and benign to cartoony and violent very easily, making the violence stand out and more disturbing, While his Joker looks like the Joker and even Killer Croc, as malevolent a presence he is, is still a big crocodile, Kieths visual portrayal of Harley Quinn is brilliant, wearing her hair in dreadlocks and laconically jousting with her replacement at Arkham, while Jonathan Crane, with his stitchedup lips, is a creepy demon haunting the halls.
Kieth always does a good job moving from relatively simple line work in certain panels to fully painted panels in others, and his range is breathtaking, Kieth doesnt quite earn the final image of horror which breaks the tension that has been building up inside the asylum, but its a tremendous visual, While Kieths writing has been better than in this comic, its always a treat to look at his artwork and see what fun stuff hes up to these days.
Arkham Asylum: Madness isnt quite great, although its not bad, Kieth shies away from really delving into madness, giving us the standard insane characters of the DC Universe and not going too far into Sabines psyche to make a grand statement.
Her struggle is a gripping one, but theres a sense that Kieth had an opportunity to really dig in, and he passed it up to give us stories of characters we know far too well.
Still, its a fascinating book because, like Dave McKean, Kieth is an artist who can make madness visually interesting, Its a decent read, just not a brilliant one, But its still nice that DC actually publishes stuff like this every once in a while!,
Start Reading Batman: El Lado Oscuro (Batman La Colección #63) Penned By Sam Kieth Formatted As Bound Copy
Sam Kieth