The Schauerroman

Not too long ago I was on the Toronto Public Library website browsing through various Batman comics at my disposal. I went hold happy, so once again I have a slew of comics on their way to me. I pointed out how funny it would be if I also ordered this one "How to Become Batman" (or some title along those lines) along with the huge Batman order in itself, the librarians'd think I was nuts.

So I ordered it too.

In front of me now is Batman: Gothic, a tome written by Grant Morrison with art by Klaus Janson.

I was originally expecting it to be what it turns out is a separate book, Batman: The Cult, a Jim Starlin penned (just learned that) story of a brainwashed Batman featuring the second Robin, Jason Todd in what I've heard as one of his breakout appearances. For Todd, those are few and far between, so I was sorry at my mistake, but Batman: Gothic is still a very interesting book.

A word on the books pedigree- Grant Morrison is one of my favourite comic writers; chiefly for his fourth wall shattering Animal Man, his revitalizing take on the Justice League (which has yet to be equalled, with the noted exception of Mark Waid and Joe Kelly who managed to maintain the style with aplomb before the series degenerated to what it is today), and his exalted work on Batman with his current run on the title collected as Batman And Son, Batman: The Black Glove, Batman: RIP, Batman and Robin and some collections that aren't even collections yet, but they'll be around shortly, a series that, as I'm sure I've said before, does the impossible and legitimizes all aspects of Batman's career (even ESPECIALLY the campy 50's and 60's Batman stuff) while also playing with its comic book reality (more of that 4th wall breaking) chiefly through the Joker as a combination Oracle and Jester that's aware that as long as it's Batman's comic, Batman will surely win out.

Yes, I'm a fan.

As for Klaus Janson, he's best known as the inker on Frank Miller's Daredevil work and of course The Dark Knight Returns, but it's a relatively rare thing to see him as the sole artist (not to forget the colourist Steve Buccellato. or at least, not to forget him entirely. Sorry dude.)

Gothic was originally published as Legends of the Dark Knight #6-10, not really that important of a point, except Legends was for many a fan favourite book, and it just so happens one of my earliest comics was Legends of the Dark Knight #3 if I've got that right, so there's a bit of nostalgia on that front. As ever.

The book reveals plenty of my own inadequacies, using lines of verse that I'm unfamiliar with or just flat don't know. I wish Morrison included a bibliography with this book, that'd be sweet.

Ah I just got a killer craving for shepherds pie. Anyways.

The introduction by F. Paul Wilson leaves me pretty cold. He wants to be poetic, he wants to be literary (citing "The Castle of Otranto", "The Monk", "Mysteries of Udolpho", "Frankenstein", and "Faust", I've, unfortunatly, only read "Frankenstein", so maybe I should be grateful with the possible source of Morrison's references in the book itself? I'd rather be sure before I jumped into any extra 18th century reading), but he ends up sounding more like what's that guys name...uuuh that guy everyone hates... ahhhh help me out internet: OOOH yeah Glenn Beck. Man that was hard, where's my TAB?
I am indebted to him for this new term though: the 'schuerroman'. Even if his italicizing of the word made it near impossible to see how it was spelled.

Basically everyone has heard of the bildungsroman, but this was a new one on me. Wilson tells me "it's a German term for the gothic novel (literally, a "shudder-novel")".

Hoping to flesh out the information I turned to my old friend dictionary.com, but there was no result. It was answers.com which said "the german term for a gothic novel or horror story, literally a "shudder-novel""

So basically the exact same thing. I didn't think there'd be much to add, but I was hoping for something. I didn't do the wikipedia thing what with that article being in german and everything.

Oh, you wanted to know how this book was? Pretty good, a few too many mobsters that could have either been dropped from the story or else fleshed out for the purposes of a mystery. Morrison also pulls the old "and after that thing happened in the past we decided to celebrate by going to the movies..."

Oh, so THAT'S what happened to Bruce Wayne immediately before his parents were killed!

Writers tend to lay claim to the time just before the Wayne family goes out to the movies to try and add that extra significance to their story when it isn't needed and sticks in the mind when everyone else is fighting for that same percieved bit of historical significance.

Janson does some great stuff with the cityscape and capes using an excellent roughness, but there are times when his anatomy is weird (the perils of having been done originally in a monthly book format- well, I think it was monthly at the time) and certain characters, again the mobsters, could have been designed with a better eye towards delineating one from the other so we could keep them straight. But again, that's also on Morrison to give the mobsters a memorable part to play.

And they really should have shown us HOW Batman got out of that one trap at the end, like a little Bat-knife or something. Ah well.

So good news: those comics I'm getting from the library- I'll probably talk about them here!

Isn't that great?!?

...

Don't everybody thank me at once. (Han Solo)