![]() Dave McKean's work is undeniably impressive, as he twists and morphs the Dark Knight's rogues gallery into terrifying funhouse mirror versions of their regular selves, and we've definitely enjoyed Grant Morrison's work before and since. We're not total philistines here - we went to an art gallery once and very much enjoyed the gift shop - but we have our limits. In Arkham Asylum, neither really fulfils that promise, instead leaving the reader to navigate a series of impressionistic paintings and scrawled missives that lack any sort of structure of logical sense. The idea of sequential art is that words and pictures tell a story in tandem. And yet Batman barely figures into it, and neither do the promise of "graphic novel". Arkham Asylum was published as a graphic novel in 1989, was an instant critical and commercial hit and today frequently sits atop lists of the best Batman stories ever told. ![]() ![]() But hey, the title has a quote from a Philip Larkin poem, so it must be clever! Or pretentious. ![]() The combination of the two is less heavenly for readers, however, since it lead to a Batman graphic novel that's so difficult to follow that it's nigh-on unreadable. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On A Serious Earth was the first mainstream American comics work by writer Grant Morrison and artist Dave McKean, a match made in heaven in terms of the pair's unconventional and experimental styles. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On A Serious Earth You can say a lot about Kick-Ass and Sin City, but at least they're legible. ![]()
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