The original artwork for this pioneering story is easy. The Dark Knight was the electric strike that revitalized the Bat’s place in the DC Universe. Hertiage Auctions.Īny original from this series is among the most desirable original comic art, but a cover of this magnitude - the key introductory image from a series with so much influence on the entire comic industry - has never before been offered at auction. In the process, Miller’s deeper, more adult narrative paved for the comic cinematic universe that has taken over worldwide popular culture. Poised to possibly break the record for the most expensive American comic cover ever sold, Miller’s 1986 graphic novel redefined the depth, tone, and range of storytelling possibilities for the Bat, and, subsequently, the entire superhero genre. Offered for sale on June 16, New York’s Heritage Auctions estimates a $2 million windfall for DC Comics’ super rare Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 original art cover. Case in point, Frank Miller’s black, shadowed image of Gotham’s protector is going to bring its owner a hell of a payday.

Indeed the image of the joker dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with a camera around his neck is universally recognisable to any Batman fan.The economy might be hurting, but vintage comic book art is still booming. There is page after page of beautifully rendered panels here, any of which could be considered works of art in their own right. In classic Alan Moore style the flashback sequences juxtapose wonderfully with the central story as they illustrate the Joker’s descent from a going-nowhere everyman to the comic book world’s most popular villain.īrain Bolland’s art is viscerally brutal in its realism, whether it is the violence of the Joker towards Barbara Gordon or the psychedelically insane use of the same incident to break her father. Interspersed throughout the story is a mostly black and white retelling of one of the Joker’s many possible origins. In a brutal sequence involving Commissioner Jim Gordon’s daughter Barbara, the then current Batgirl, Joker sets out to break the Commissioner’s spirit and subsequently prove that not only is his own madness justified, but logical. The central concept – subsequently borrowed heavily by Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight – is that nobody is ever more than one bad day away from madness. Here the Joker has, yet again, escaped from Arkham Asylum and this time he’s got something to prove.

Alan moore dark knight