Gotham After Midnight by Spooky Sean

Back today with the second half of the blog swap between Spooky Sean of Sinful Bloggery fame, and myself. Some of you who have been with me for a while might remember my going on and on....and on about Gotham After Midnight by personal favorites Steven Niles and Kelley Jones. Seriously, I talked about the series a LOT. But when Sean approached me about the blog swap idea, and he told me he wanted to write a review of the series, I jumped at the idea. You all know I'm going to be biased due to my love of the Dark Knight, so the idea of someone else who is reading strictly because of an interest in the story and the creators appealed to me. Enough of my rambling though, read on for Spooky Sean's review.....

Batman Gotham After Midnight review

By: Spooky Sean

"Batman comic books get no better than this."-John Carpenter

First, a very special thanks to Mister Bones for letting me into his

Batcave. Surprisingly small amount of guano in here.

Howdy, and welcome to my review of Batman Gotham After Midnight. It is

written by one of my favorite comic book writers, Steve Niles, whom

you may know from 30 Days of Night, or from his character Cal

McDonald, from the Criminal Macabre series. The art is by Kelley

Jones, who has collaborated with Niles before to write Criminal

Macabre: Last Train to Deadsville. By the by, if you haven't read any

of the Criminal Macabre collections, and you like noir style

detectives and monsters, get on tracking it down. I know I'm hooked on

Steve Niles. He has an extremely engaging style, and wastes no time in

getting the action going.

I listed the Carpenter quote at the top of this article, because what

better proof do you need of a good story, than for it to be personally

endorsed by John Carpenter. I'm here to tell you, this is one epic

graphic novel.

I hate giving a synopsis for my reviews (mostly because I'm a lazy

bastard) because, among other reasons, I really hate to spoil a story

for people. So, I won't talk about the plot specifically. I can tell

you that I haven't read a tremendous amount of Batman. I only read a

TPB every once and a while. I have no idea what the ongoing story arcs

are. So, I'm reviewing this, as a casual Batman fan, I guess. And as a

casual fan, you won't have any trouble hopping in and chugging away.

However, there are enough references to baddies in Gotham that even

the most devoted of Batman fans should be pleased. There is a villain

that looks just like the cliché version of Jack the Ripper you so

often see in Hollywood portrayals of the serial killer.

The art pops right off the page, bright colors, and whole page panels

(is that a splash page, need to research comic terminology...) yet

it's still is dark as midnight. It's extremely creepy looking, but

would you want something called Gotham After Midnight to by anything

but?

If you like Batman and horror comics, definitely pick this bad boy up.

Oh, did I mention Batman fights in a big ass robot? How could you not

read this, it has Batman in a robot?!

That's good stuff, eh? Thanks again to the Spookster for stepping in on this one. I gotta say this was one hell of a successful blog swap in my opinion. Hope you guys enjoyed it!