Welcome to our weekly update on all things Bat, and this was a week filled with announcements. Like they did for the announcement of Rebirth, DC promoted a panel at WonderCon this weekend to reveal their plans for the future. There has been a big elephant in the room for a few weeks regarding the team titles, and those were the main topics addressed at the panel. The only certainty we had up until this point was that Snyder was going to be writing the main Justice League title after No Justice, but the future of Titans, Teen Titans, Justice League of America and the Birds of Prey was uncertain. For the majority of those titles, we now have an answer: a new group of books called New Justice.
In this group will be old titles with new rosters, such as Titans, Teen Titans, and Justice League, plus two new Leagues: Justice League Dark and Justice League Odyssey. As usual, there will be bats spread all over those titles, but with the unexpected addition of Azrael to Odyssey and Man-Bat to Justice League Dark, which will be taken over by the current Detective Comics team.
Lest we forget, the 21st of March marks one of the many possible Dick Grayson birthdays. Here’s to many more but— I mean, years to come.
BATMAN
Tom King, Mikel Janin, Joëlle Jones, Clay Mann, Tony S. Daniel
And talking about elephants in the room, there is one little bird that has been missing from this specific room. Tim Drake’s absence in the one-shots leading to the wedding got noticed by many. Of course, Tom King got asked about Tim’s presence in the wedding, to what he answered that “what the wedding is and who’s coming is a really tightly kept secret. I think five people know: my editors, me, and the publishers.” In a follow-up answer, though, he admitted that Tim is a character that is currently out of his hands, saying that “Tim was my Robin growing up, and now that he’s back, it’s safe to presume he knows what the family knows. I wish I could write every reaction; there’s so much story there. But I only have so many pages. I have to leave Tim in the capable hands of others.” If I get what he is saying correctly than his answer tells us more about Detective Comics than it tells us about the wedding.
Another big question mark surrounding the Batman title right now is: what about Gotham Girl? King will frequently say that he has big plans for the character, but he can’t for the moment give any specifics. My own unsolicited guess is that she might be appearing in the Sanctuary project (which was also hinted at in last week’s issue of Batman), given how deeply affected by the trauma she seemed to be in her last appearance.
And now moving on to more solid waters, Mr. Freeze will be the central villain in LEE WEEKS’ – still unsolicited – issue (or issues) of Batman.
Also still unsolicited but surely coming are CLAY MANN and the Joker, poking his gun through your mailbox and being the king of all creeps.
And we are now one step closer to the dress – meaning, issue #44, which will feature art by both Joëlle Jones and MIKEL JANIN. From this tease, it is likely King will revisit the “it was the boat/it was the street” dilemma.
Right after that, TONY DANIEL will be depicting something that is indeed very rare: Alfred expressing his full discontent. I mean, he does get mighty pissed every once in a while despite his eternal straight face, but to get Alfred to actually yell at you? You have to be on Booster Gold levels of stressing (you see, this is me throwing yet another wild, flying guess right at ya).
DETECTIVE COMICS
James Tynion IV, Javier Fernandez, Raul Fernandez, Alvaro Martinez, Bryan Hill, Miguel Mendonça
Before we get to comments made by both James Tynion and Bryan Hill, I’d like to bring forward the recently revealed lineart for the cover of issue #979, penciled by ALVARO MARTÍNEZ and inked by RAÜL FERNANDEZ. It shows Tim being engulfed by… something. This, together with his complete absence in the main Batman title, and Tynion’s comment that “You’ll see where another team member is landing very soon is about all I can say on this front” has me believing his involvement with Doomsday Clock might not be over yet.
Regarding Tynion’s soon-to-be-over run, he took a while to answer a few questions and said that the one story he planned on writing and didn’t get to was Jean-Paul Valley Azrael vs Michael Lane Azrael. He also mentioned having “a big Scarecrow story in my head, but it’s a Batman story, not a Bat-Family story, so my TEC wasn’t the place for it. Some day.”
Bryan Hill, who will be taking over for a short time once Tynion leaves, once again came forward to show his appreciation for the fans getting in touch with him. He says that “I’m humbled by the kind words/follows from Batman fans. I’m still one of you. Batman was my lighthouse during really difficult times and I love him and his world as much as you do. Humbled to have a little stay in Gotham. Love and respect to you all. Cheers.” Right after this tweet, he made a thread about what Batman means to him, mentioning some rough times he went through as a kid, and how Bruce Wayne became a role model on how to deal with the pain. “I focus into the pain, and then through it”, a line from Knightfall, became his motto, he says. So I guess we’ll be saying goodbye to one big Batman fan and welcoming another one into Detective Comics.
BATGIRL
Hope Larson, Scott Godlewski, Minkyu Jung, Jose Marzan Jr., Shawn Aldridge
Coming this June, Shawn Aldridge will be taking over Batgirl for issue #24, joined by Scott Godlewski on art. His time on the title has not been confirmed but, given the number of transitional teams taking over a number of titles, it is likely it will be just for one or two issues. Shawn has teased that “No Batman does not appear in the book, but the Street Demonz do. Who doesn’t love the Street Demonz?”
BATWOMAN
Marguerite Bennett, Fernando Blanco
Bats. A lot of bats. A sky full of bats. So many bats flying around. With that many flying mammals appearing in one single Batwoman issue, FERNANDO BLANCO is certain he should get a prize.
RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS
Scott Lobdell, Dexter Soy, Ryan Winn, Trevor Hairsine
DEXTER SOY knows his Jason fans and he knows how to please them, as his “Have you read ‘Jason’s thighs and the Outlaws #20’?” tweet well proves.
And now. Now Dexter brings what might or might not be a chili dog vendor (called Roy and I’m dead) to the book. Chili dogs, legend has it, are mentioned as Jason’s favorite food in Gotham Knights #43, a trait now widely accepted by his fandom. So widespread, in fact, that this Nightwing girl knows it.
And talking about intertwining fandoms, Dexter also likes to play with our feelings and use captions that may or may not be misleading, like “Hello, Dick.”
HARLEY QUINN
Frank Tieri, Mirka Andolfo, Mauricet, Christopher Sebela
After leaving Nightwing, editor Chris Conroy announced he will also be leaving Harley Quinn after issue #42, just as the current creative team says its farewell to the title. Harley being Harley, they are all going out with an absolutely insane tale of Old Lady Harley in a dystopian future. Tieri warns: Expect mayhem of Mad Maxian proportions! A bunch of art got teased, including AMANDA CONER’s cover for the issue.
Tieri also shared MAURICET’s character sheets for Harley and Red Tool, and also a number of preview pages.
DARK NIGHTS: METAL
Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo
Coming out next week will be the sixth and final issue of Metal, and Snyder says they used up all 42 pages of the comic. No ads inside this one. And since we’re at it, TONY DANIEL shared a picture of his comp copy, featuring his variant cover for the issue.
GOTHAMITE
This week’s Gothamite is of a specific specimen. As I wander around the jungle of the web, I’m always on the lookout for artists producing Batman content, and every once in a while I will stumble on artists that, I feel, should really be considered as part of the Bats despite not being so deeply involved with the fandom. We’ve had a few of them in the past, and we’ve found one once again. This week’s Gothamite is GEORGE KAMBADAIS.
The first work of his I ever came across was a Guppy-Nightwing warmup from a couple of months ago. Me, in my adoring of the new character, promptly went digging around Kambadais’ work. George is the co-creator of The Double Life of Miranda Turner and Grave Lilies and is currently working on a number of projects, including a dark, alternate take on the Trinity. And this is when I was convinced he was, in fact, a bat. He has already shared a number of Batman pages for the story, and they had me deeply intrigued because they did not look like they belonged to any known DC world. And I was right, as he explains the project “has 3 parts. The first is about the new Batman, a short chubby detective, the second about a washed up Wonder Woman, and the third part, about Superman who, on our story, became one with the sun.”
Kambadais forte is redesigns and alternate takes. He recently worked on a Deadman redesign that is completely different from the traditional but is still undoubtedly, well. Dead. Along the lines of death and redesigns, our featured art by Kambadais is a Killing Joke poster. He recently shared a close-up of it, but the full art is actually even better than what that detail lets show. Exploring the open ending of the comic, Kambadais uses graphics to tell us what the story is about, one of the essential elements of good covers and posters. Despite being tiny figures, the way the piece was composed still leads our eye to Batman and Joker in this awkward situation that is to find archnemeses sharing a laugh.
George has an official website, and his work can also be followed on Twitter and Instagram. Our short interview went as follows:
You’re currently working on a Batman fan comic. What is the story behind that? It seems to be an entirely different universe.
Oh, yes, it is a dark story, it’s a “what if” kind of story. My girlfriend and I wrote it. It has 3 parts. The first is about the new Batman, a short chubby detective, the second about a washed up Wonder Woman, and the third part, about Superman who, on our story, became one with the sun. I’ll definitely send it to you when I finish working on it!
I saw that you’ve been posting some new character designs, but I imagine that is a secret project, right?
I am working on a couple of projects, but we are at a very early stage on all of them. Working on character designs and figuring out the stories. Hopefully, we’ll move forward and I’ll be able to share more than just character designs. Also with Cullen Bunn, we are trying to figure out what are we going to do with the future of Grave Lilies, issues 1 and 2 are published by Z2, a small publisher, but we don’t know what happened with issue 3. So, hopefully, issue 3 will be published soon and we’ll be back on track again.
On a more broad topic, could you comment on your trajectory with comics? From how you got into them to when you decided to work professionally in the industry.
Well, as almost everyone in this industry, I wanted to be a comic artist since I was a little kid. Actually, I realized that this is what I wanted to do after I read one issue of The Life and Times of Scrooge Mc Duck by Don Rosa. But I live in Greece and it was extremely difficult to even think about doing it as a profession. My parents pushed me to another direction and I worked on many many jobs until the crisis hit our country and I lost my then job back in 2012. And that’s when I decided to follow my dream. I created social media accounts and started posting my artwork regularly, trying to get some attention to my work. Some of my very first jobs were back-end payment jobs, so I haven’t got any money yet and I don’t think I ever will, but that’s how this thing works. When you are at the beginning you’ll do a lot of things for free and sooner or later you’ll get a better gig with better money.
My favorite book so far is The Double Life of Miranda Turner. I created her, and her sister Lindy and I gave them to Jamie S. Rich who wrote a beautiful story. I have a long road ahead of me, I still am at the beginning of my career but, thankfully, I worked with many people who I admire and respect and I’m grateful for it. I love this job.
What and who are the influences on your style?
I grew up reading a lot of different comic books, European, like Spirou and Fantasio, Asterix, the Incal, American superheroes, like all of the Marvel and DC comics I could find in my hometown, Italian Disney books, some of Osamu Tezuka’s books and Akira. So all these definitely influenced me at some point.
As for artists, I think, Don Rosa, Moebius, Franquin, Steve Rude, Alex Toth, Mike Wieringo, Kevin Maguire, Darwyn Cooke, Carl Barks, Eduardo Risso, Tim Sale, Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko and Osamu Tezuka are my major influences.
