Summary
The Dark Knight is DC Comics’ crown jewel, but no story is serving him better than the DC Black Label seriesBatman: Gargoyle of Gotham. This story is set in a radically different Gotham, one where the city lacks its usual cache of colorful criminals, but is still suffering from all manner of crime.
Protecting Gotham, as always, is Batman. But when he decides to abandonhis life as Bruce Wayneand go all in on living as his alter ego, he stumbles into things from his past that put the Caped Crusader in a brand-new light. Screen Rant caught up with the story’s creator, Rafael Grampá, to dig into his haunting and innovative comic.
Screen Rant: There have been so manyalternate takes on Batmanand his mythology. Talk about the process of creating one from the ground up, particularly under DC’s Black Label imprint.
Rafael Grampá: First of all, it’s very difficult to create a new Batman version because there’s so many good ones. The first thing that you need to think is “Don’t attempt to present something that I think it’s a better version.” Don’t go for it. You ruin the journey. So my point was create something that I believed could be fun for me. I started to revisit, revisit his origin some years ago. Like “What if I drew a Batman story? What would be the approach?”. Some of the things about his origin…I started thinking and thinking about this.“What happened with a child like that with a lot of resources and money, lost his parents?” I thought they will send him for treatment and I never saw that in comics. It was like “He would have some treatment. Maybe in Arkham. Maybe they have a children’s wing. So I started from that.
Rafael Grampá: That was part of my pitch. They were like “Okay, we want it.”. But when we pitched the story for the press, we couldn’t we couldn’t spoil that. So DC decided to take an element of the story that could be interesting. That is: Batman decides to kill himself. But it wasn’t the idea. Batman deciding to kill himself is part of his journey. He thinks like that part of his story doesn’t matter. He thinks that because he doesn’t know everything. And the moment he started to know, maybe he would change his mind. You know, but the pitch was “What if Batman was treated in the Arkham Asylum today?”.
One of the things I really love about your story is how Gotham feels. We actually see how awful the city is. It feels sick, like it really means a Batman. How did you how did you like work that into Gotham when crafting your story?
Rafael Grampá: I live in São Paulo. This is the experience that I have of a big city. That was easy. I just brought some the worst elements of São Paulo to Gotham and also the one of the some of the nicest elements. But this is a Batman from the point of view of a person that lives in Brazil, a South American person. Actually, I’m the first Brazilian artist to write a Batman story. That became something for our country. The things maybe you’re seeing that makes it different is because of my point of view about a big city.
I think most Batman fans have a real connection to the villains. But you chose to eschew the classic rogues gallery for brand new villains that were connected to this conspiracy that runs through your story.
Rafael Grampá: I think you need to be bold to avoid working with the classics because I love them and the fans love them. So we need a bit of courage. Actually you need big courage to just say “I’m not using them”. Because they’re part of the good stories. You need to see the Riddler in action. You need to see Joker, all of them. But because I added something to his past all that all those characters wouldn’t fit in the moment I pitched it.
Rafael Grampá: I had ideas for villains for Batman stories but with inspirations from Silence of the Lambs. And I thought we’d be strong, bringing those inspirations for Batman stories. Because back then, the classic Batman villains have that origin based on films and posters. And posters, Two-Face was inspired by the Jekyll and Hyde poster. So when I realized that I needed new villains, I started thinking about those ideas and references that fit.
In my opinion, it worked really well with Crytoon. It’s clear he’s the stand out. I could see him in a regular Batman universe. I could see him in this universe. He’s just that good and creative.
Rafael Grampá: Crytoon has his aesthetic because when I was a kid, I was afraid of that kind of animation. Whenever I saw it for the first time I was like “Ahhh!”. So I took that feeling that it could be creepy, if it changed to a different context. That could be really, really horrible. I also love that idea of a character playing you with those cartoon violences. Imagine if you see someone trying to do that!
I want to talk about the animations you guys have had in coordination with the every every issue that’s been released. It’s such an innovative way to market the series and I think it’s a step above what we see from other books.
Rafael Grampá: I work with Justin Townsend, He’s my producer. And we have a studio called VSIONS. We have a lot of experience working together and making films, animations and events and all of this stuff. And when DC asked us to do the press and the marketing of the book, they suggested some of the things they wanted to do animations. They wanted to do videos about the making of the book. They wanted me to talk about things and I said “We can do this because we have a big network with people that are really good in animation.” Why not work with them? What I really like are movies. Before the movie, the event, the excitement. I love it because I remember when I was a kid and we had that big event waiting for the Batman movie. So I wanted to bring that to my Batman story. We are really happy that that DC allows VSIONS to do so we are working very close to them. So I’m not just working close to the to the editorial department. We are working with all the departments and that made the project really, really special for all of us.
We’re in the last half of your story, what can you say about the last couple of issues and where it’s taking your version of Batman?
Rafael Grampá: That’s a good question, actually. My Batman, my version of Batman, you see in these two new chapters. What I did was start with a version of Batman that DC delivered to me. At the beginning of the story, this Batman is a mix of all the variants that I like and that I know. I have these tense captions in the narration, because without that, for me, it’s not Batman. The visual is a mix of a lot of Batmen that I like, some things I wanted to see in a Batman to suit his personality and the things he knows about himself. So I’m presenting some new things. I will deliver my version of Batman then.
Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #3is available on September 25th from DC Comics.
