krinsbez

I wanna see more stories in the “Batman Nobody Knows/Legends of the Dark Knight/Have I Got a Story For You“ model.

Some Possible Variations:

-Native Gothamites trying to fill in a new arrival.

-A bunch of low-level crooks in Blackgate sharing stories of how Batman nabbed ‘em.

-A bunch of cops trading stories about sightings.

-Several doctors at Arkham, recounting what they’ve reconstructed from their assorted patient’s rambling.

-People on a cryptid website, none of whom have ever set foot in Gotham.

-A team of D-list heroes (actual characters) gossiping.

-A team of D-list heroes (invented for story) gossiping.

–Several academics share theories.

BONUS: At least one person in each case is an incognito member of the Bat-fam, lying outrageously.

The Batman Nobody Knows! is a short from the Bronze Age, in which Bruce, in his persona as a billionaire philanthropist, takes three under-privileged inner city kids on a camping trip as some sort of Big Brothers mentorship dealie. The kids, being kids from Gotham City, inevitably end up talking about the city’s most famous cryptid, with each having a very different (and to Bruce’s increasing dismay, very wrong) idea:

-One kid asserts that, being both a stone-cold badass and objectively cool, Batman has to be a Black man, painting him as hi-tech Blaxploitation hero.

-Another declares that no, he’s an inhuman monster, like Man-Bat actually is.

-The third relates a story he heard from an ex-con who’d been captured by the Bat. Bruce’s hopes for some accuracy are quickly dashed, as said ex-con embellished the story to make himself look better, depicting Batman as a ten-foot tall giant with ludicrously huge ears, who caught him more by dumb luck than anything else.

The story concludes with Bruce donning his costume, and claiming that that’s what Batman actually looks like. The kids tell him to stop making a fool of himself.

==============================================

“Legends of the Dark Knight“ is an episode of The New Batman Adventures, in which several Gotham City kids gossip about the latest criminal menacing the city, which segues into them talking about how Batman will inevitably kick said villain’s butt, and then segues into an argument about what Batman is like. One kid says he’s some kind of “pterodactyl monster”, but the substance of the episode is taken up by two other kids, who’s stories are depicted as homages to past takes on the Gotham Gladiator; one to the Silver Age Batman, in the style of Dick Sprang, the other a homage to The Dark Knight Returns.

After telling their tales, the kids manage to witness the final battle between the Dark Knight and the mystery villain, who turns out to be Firefly. In the conclusion, all of them crow at having been vindicated, prompting another argument.

===============================================

…



Screw you, Lincoln.

Haw haw haw. Yeah right. Whatchu do, man. You ain’t got a scratch on you. The heck you doing in D block if you ain’t the same lowlife you always been? Ha ha ha.

I said screw you Lincoln! Screw. You.

Ooh, I hit a nerve or somethin’? Come on, baby. I gotchu. You miss ol Lincoln? You miss Mama Blackgate???

It was the bat, you ass.

Psssh get outta here with that.

….

Even if the Bat was real, which he ain’t, what the heck he want with a schmuck like you?

I was throwin’ merch bound for the Iceberg. Hired me clean thru my PO. A dock job. 7 hours on, 1 hour for lunch, union, the works.

How’s a con like you get a gig like that?!

I know, right? But Amber just had Mikey Jr., and the money was amazing up front and no one was hiring.

Damn, dude.

Alls I gotta do is show at the docks around 11 on a Sunday night and throw some crates in a truck. I don’t ask. I don’t care. All I want is my biweekly and my PO to die in a fire.

So cut the bull, man. You’re back here in my loving arms.

SCREW. YOU.

Come on, baby. Don’t be coy.

Douche.

Come on baby. Sit on daddy’s lap.

Screw you, screw your dumbass kid, your whore wife, and your ugly useless damn dog.

Ante up, baby. It’s your deal. Gotta pay to play, sugar.

Here’s your ante. 5 stud…

I was throwing my crates man. Nobody getting hurt or robbed. Loading boxes is all. Next thing I know, the driver loses three teeth and get a dislocated jaw. All I see is flash of movement. The guy from the iceberg (forgetisname) sunglasses, a suit, and a gun at night like a jerk. Well, he’s down next. Black hand grabs him under the nose and slams him onto the concrete. I keep hearing that sound. 

Damn, bro.

Right? Like it was way beyond sickening. I heard it and it made me wince… anyways. I see this, I dunno, Black thing running around popping dudes. Each of them falling down screaming.

Tell me you ain’t no rat. Tell me my celly baby ain’t a damn rat.

Cool it, Lincoln. I didn’t rat. I just didn’t fight.

Pussy.

Yeah, because there’s some nobility in doing a dime with a broken nose and no teeth for the first year?

Haw haw haw, that’s damn true. So what’d you do, baby?



I sat my happy ass on crate and surrendered.

Welcome back, sugar. Haw haw haw.

-Legends of the Dark Knight #94, “Viewpoint”. Quoth mirrorfalls:

It’s been more than a decade since I read it, but I can still distinctly remember the plot: a bunch of people get trapped in an elevator and share anecdotes of Batman to pass the time. 

Unlike the stories you mention, this one is more explicitly a tribute to different points in Batman’s history (Golden Age, Silver Age, etc.) 

(which I guess makes it like the B:TAS episode?)

-Batman #423, “You Shoulda Seen Him…"  Quoth mirrorfalls:

This one is told from three cops’ viewpoints; I’m not too hot on it because it was written by Jim Starlin at the height of his “be Frank Miller except worse in every measure” kick, so there’s a fair bit of Reagan-era brainrot, but for completionism’s sake… 

-The BTAS episode “P.O.V.” Quoth mirrorfalls:

It’s prooooobably stretching the premise to the breaking point to include BTAS’ “P.O.V.” (and you’ve likely already seen it), but give that an honorary mention as well.

(I have seen it, though I don’t recall it well. However, I’m pretty sure it’s really more of a Rashomon-type dealie, so mirrorfalls is right on both points)

-Detective Comics #719, “Sound and Fury”. Quoth mirrorfalls:

theoretically a tie-in to Cataclysm, but the earthquake stuff is solely in the last two pages. Before that it’s a charming (if childish) tale of a petty con exaggerating his encounter with Batman.

-Batman #584, Quoth mirrorfalls:

“The Dark Knight Project”, is about two student filmmakers going around making a documentary about Batman. They do interact with the man himself at the end, which might spoil the fun a little, but I remember it being a pretty good story.

(There was a fan-film of the same title made after Batman Begins; no idea what that’s like.)

Thanks again to @mirrorfalls!

Nancy Garden’s Devils and Demons (1976) is another entry in the excellent Weird and Horrible Library from Lippincott. Let us pause a moment to appreciate the unsettling cover art by Stephen Gammell (of Scary Stories fame) and the use of the classic comic book color code for villainy: green and purple. This is another book I got out of my public library on the regular (well, once I convinced my mom to let me get a book about demons at all).

 The book is as good an overview on diabolical folklore and its intersection with history as you’re liable to find, for young readers or no. One of the recurring rhetorical themes Garden uses is lamenting just how many devils and demons there are, but somehow, she manages to mention so many I don’t notice any major ones missing. And in addition to that, she tackles proto-devils from Mesopotamia, European witch hunts, the Knights Templar, possession and exorcism, demons outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, Goetic magic, the Faust legend and even Aleister Crowley and the modern Church of Satan. At the end, I can even squint and see the glimmer of the sensationalized murders that would eventually flower into the Satanic Panic. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but Garden ends with the long shadow of The Exorcist (1973) and I can’t help but wonder if that film’s success and permeation of pop culture didn’t spark the Panic. Perhaps that’s an obvious observation, but it hadn’t occurred to me previously.

Dealing with the Devil (1979) is Daniel Cohen’s entry into the diabolical catalog. It’s one of his books written to more of an adult level, but his ability to plainly explain complex topics, his enthusiasm for the subject and his reasonable skepticism make it fit for any age reader.

More than anything, he presents the Devil as a ridiculous figure. Sure, he can be fearsome in some legends, but he is just as often an easily duped dope (Saint Dunstan grabbing him by the nose with a smith’s tongs is really just the tip of the iceberg). Much of the book is dedicated to charting the origins of the figure, who is notably absent for much of history and only appears as a dealer in souls and pacts relatively recently, in the last four or five centuries. There’s a lot to be skeptical about and Cohen ends by expressing the concern that we’re taking the devil too seriously. By 1979, the Satanic Panic was bubbling up and Cohen’s own Curses, Hexes and Spells had showed up on banned book lists two years earlier.

As if to underline his point, Cohen serves up the best author photo of his career, dressed in a Halloween costume consisting of a long black hooded cloak, with a miniature skeleton dangling from a cord around his neck. He’s the very picture of a nefarious Satanist!

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.