Batman Panel of the Year

I have fallen in love with this panel from Scott Snyder and Jock's first issue on Detective, #871. I don't even know exactly what it is about it, but it has now been permanently imprinted into my very tiny brain. I am calling it now, this is going to be an epic run. If for no other reason, Jock was absolutely born to draw Batman. I honestly can't think of anybody else I'd rather see drawing a Bat-book right now, in fact some of my long time readers might even remember me calling on DC to give him a regular gig on a Batman comic after seeing his cover to Batman #650. Well here we are just a couple years later, and finally somebody at DC grew a brain.

Jock's not only an extremely talented, and brilliant artist, but he's also a very down to Earth, genuinely nice guy to chat with. I have no doubt that he has no recollection of it, but he took the time to chat with me on a "MySpace for comic artists" website called ComicSpace that started up a few years ago. At the time I believe The Losers was still coming out, but all I wanted to talk to him about was why he wasn't drawing a Batman book yet. He said he'd jump at the chance if DC were to offer it to him, so I of course began an email campaign to make it happen. And yes, by "campaign" I totally mean I emailed DC twice and never got any response to either of them. All has worked out in the end though, and I am one supremely happy fanboy. I hope this Detective run is one that will last for a good long while.