The Batmom

Batwoman #13; or In Praise of Letterers

Batwoman #13; J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman

Covergirl: I love J.H. Williams. I love Wonder Woman. It follows that I’d love this cover. And I do, though the buggy creature’s crawly legs make my skin creep. 

Ramble: Confusing astonishing brilliance. I grasped the overall story arc, but needed to re-read a number of pages to grasp the story. I would have revisited them anyway, as the art blew me away, even more than it always blows me away.

Perhaps Williams felt constrained by the linear visual/narrative structure of the last issue, because he’s busting out artistic moves the likes of which I’ve never seen in a comic book. Crazy breathtaking art: the undersea maze, Jake and Bette’s silent meditation face-off, and especially the dark exchange between Wonder Woman (small yellow retro – or traditional? - comic book font), Batwoman (white bubbles, black font), and ancient Nyx (evil bad-person grey font bringing to mind babbling letters from serial killers).

Todd Klein, who lettered this issue of Batwoman*, bears mention at this point.

Comic book fonts are subtle, powerful tools creators employ to evince a mood, an era, or the batshit nature of the evil residing in a new foe. Letterers play a crucial role in setting a character’s, and a comic book’s, tone. I don’t think anyone outside the hard-core comic book fan universe knows letterers exist (I didn’t), but in a graphics-focused universe, every serif or lack thereof matters.

Klein boasts a 35-year lettering career. Not sure how his peers found fonts, but Klein’s grandfather worked as a jewelry engraver and sign painter; serif sensitivity’s in the family. After a partial stint at art school, several boring jobs, and numerous art and writing submissions to fanzines and comic book companies, Klein landed at DC Comics in the late ’70s and stayed for a decade before becoming an independent letterer.

Klein’s lettered a number of greats, including Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and this here Batwoman we’re discussing today.

This is just to say NOT that I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox BUT to note that every detail in these books matters. Someone has obsessed over every component, including the letters. In Batwoman #13 and so many others (Wonder Woman #0 immediately springs to mind), the letters are not only vessels, but story elements in their own right.

I wanted to make sure you all appreciated that.

And now, I’m crawling into another writing project. Thanks to a tossing daughter and 2 feline tossers, I’ve been up since 3 a.m. I’m cranky. I’m crabby. And my brain is full of sludge. While I should probably edit the writing, which has been sitting on the page for months, I’ll probably just pull the warmest bits up over my head and go back to sleep.

* I've never written fan mail, but I wrote a fan e-mail to Todd Klein after this issue. Kind, he wrote back, to say thank you and also to give credit to Williams, who lettered Nyx's voice in the panel above.

Batwoman #0

Batwoman #0; J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman

Covergirl: See "Heroines Take the Mic.

 Ramble: I know most of you don’t read comic books, and aren’t going to start. But if you’d like, just once, a taste of what I’m having, go buy Batwoman #0.

A perfect book.

First off, the cover. All of the covers for the issue 0 books feature their superhero busting through a greyscale comic book page. My other superheroes strike typically heroic poses, but Batwoman is all FU Kung Fu. This is the pose I plan to adopt next time I walk into Market Basket. Out of my way, motherfuckers. I need some motherfucking organic skim milk NOW.

The thing I love about J.H. Williams – his art is smart art. He also writes Batwoman, with W. Haden Blackman, and his art speaks to me like writing speaks to me, which is saying something. I’m all words. I think in words and when I view art at a museum, I almost always need verbiage to bridge the gap between my alphabet-filled mind and the abstraction at which I’m looking.

Comics have been, on the visual front, a challenge. As I’ve written before, my instinct with a comic book is to jump from word blurb to word blurb, like a frog navigating a lily-pad covered pond. Earlier in my comic book journey, I had to force myself to slow down, to tear my eyes from the text they adore and consume the pictures, too.

For once, I listened to my wiser self and now I crave the art in both Batwoman and Wonder Woman (Cliff Chiang). Thank god, because all comic book artists are saying something with their pictures, and the best comic book artists brilliantly succeed.

The 0 issues DC released this month feature backstory on each superhero. A typical Batwoman book features genius, unique framing and her signature black-grey + red-orange palette. The narrative hip-hops around, sometimes too quickly for my liking, but always in engaging and original fashion.

For Batwoman #0, Williams created a very linear format that, at comic book’s start, is employed to present a very linear narrative: Kate Kane and her twin Beth share a special bond, Beth protects Kate from her darkest self even as a child, Beth and Mom are killed, Kate attends West Point and then leaves for refusing to hide her sexuality.

Pushed by her father, who is no doubt tormented by the same demons fighting for his daughter’s soul, Kate dives into darker and darker territory, growing stronger and more alone. As she transforms into Batwoman, the paler, lighter colors of the early pages are replaced with the darker fire-punched palette we associate with this book.

The second-to-last page takes the simple format Williams employs for much of the book (six rectangular panels per page) and busts it wide open, shoving Batwoman and deranged Beth into the linear format that no longer fits their violently heroic and violently villainous selves. They literally spill out of an ordered world that no longer holds space for them.

Sandwiching the story are two typically Batwoman, typically beautiful Williams pages featuring the Batwoman we’ve come to know – as much as she will ever be known – and, in my case, to love.

This book is triumph. Go buy it.

Batwoman 11

Batwoman Battles Maro the Shapeshifter on the cover of #11

COVERGIRL: Just shy of loving it. Full-on love the pale green python circling the action and the red-and-white-film-negative look on the right, but the monstrous face looks cheap. If that makes sense. Everything is as sharp and crisp as a new dollar bill except Sir/Madam Melty. Perhaps that’s the point. Let’s flip it open. 

INSIDE STORY: Sir Melty. The skully melt-head is Maro, or is it Sune, or is Sune Maro and Maro Sune, or are they everyone or at least a lot of someones?

The last one. Sort of. Maro is a shapeshifter. He’s also, thanks to Falchion’s demise, leader of the subterranean band of creepy misfits plaguing Gotham. He sets his freak minions to the task of smiting Batwoman and the rest of the city and delivers Gotham’s kidnapped children to a scaly green She named Mitera.

Batwoman battles the creepy misfits, saving her DEO partner Agent Chase in the process. But because Batwoman stopped Chase from killing Maro/Sune, Chase thinks she’s a traitor and tells Detective Sawyer the same. As Batwoman watches Chase and Sawyer from afar, she vows she will save the children.

Also, Kate pushes her relationship with Sawyer forward, sharing pictures of her dead mother, dead sister, and estranged father. Sawyer does the same, revealing she has a daughter she lost in a custody battle.

Also, with some encouragement from Uncle Jake, Bette Kane wakes up!

RAMBLE: Beautiful issue. Art art art let’s talk about the art: the contrast between Batwoman’s black + fire red and Maro’s nighttime-teal + black; the similarities (significant?) between Maro’s palette and that of Undersea Chase; the spread with sea-green Llorona and her tsunami shriek splitting the Batwoman-saves-Chase segments; the page immediately following, all oily blacks and ocean blue-green.

While I admire Batwoman’s character and enjoy the (often overstuffed) story, I go ga-ga for the book’s art. Bonkers gaga. Lady Bonkers Gaga Overtired Overcaffeinated Batmom Getting Silly for the Art.

Also, not sure why, but this issue I kept noticing the cool sound words. (Is a word onomatopoetic if it’s mimicking a sound but isn’t a proper word? They are:

SKEECH • SKIRCH • RRRMMMBBBLEBBBLE • RRRUUUMMMBBLLE • BAKOW • THUNK • KKRRINNGGK • DRNNGHKSHOOM • THOOOTH

WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE?

Kate Kane: Survived a brutal kidnapping by terrorists that killed her mother and turned her sister into a crazy villain. West Point student, expelled under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Dating Detective Sawyer.

Batwoman: Kate’s awesome superhero alter-ego. Currently working with Agent Chase and the DEO, who will arrest Kate's dad if she doesn’t help them.

DEO: Department of Extranormal Operations

Jake Kane: Kate’s dad and military big-wig. Kate won’t talk to him, though he’ll talk to her. He's been sitting vigil at Bette's bedside for several issues.

Bette Kane/Flamebird: Kate’s cousin/Batwoman’s mentee, member of Teen Titans/tennis star. Has been unconscious for several issues.

Agent Cameron Chase: DEO agent. Currently working with Batwoman.

Detective Sawyer: Police detective. Kate’s love interest.

Falchion: Medusa kingpin. Dresses like a Roman centurion. Recently slain.

Llorona: Cursed ghost of an alcoholic mother whose children drowned; unwilling serving Medusa/Maro

Maro: Medusa second-in-command-turned-first-in-command.

Medusa: Mysterious, evil organization.

Sune: Mid-level Medusa management now working for DEO; sister of Maro

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Batwoman is trying to bring down Medusa, a vile organization presumably responsible for kidnapping numerous Gotham children.