Batman Special page 32 by Michael Golden

I was delighted to find yet another page of this seminal Batman story from the 80s by the incredible Michael Golden, produced during what many consider to be his prime period.

Most comics fans or art collectors prefer his Marvel work during that period, and I may also, but you have to recognize that his Batman work was quite striking.

I love the layout of this page.

Pay close attention and you will see that the Wrath figure remains in center stage while the focus on him slightly progress from left to right.

The panels devoted to the girl and those to Gordon being shot are inverted and mirrored in a triangular way. And again both the girl and Gordon’s panels progress on their own pace while reaching the end of the page where both character are slightly out of their respective panels. The last 3 panels are all moving to the right, subtly inviting the reader to turn the page. Also notice that all of the action on this page barely takes a few seconds in the story. Quite clever defragmentation of time here and it makes for a very dynamic page layout and a nice progression of the story visually.

And you can clearly feel the impact of the bullets on Gordon. Him losing his glasses is a nice touch and his body squirming under the impact is another.

This is brilliant storytelling at a time when it was not theorized so much (no McCloud or Eisners books yet).

Mike DeCarlo was credited as an inker for this story but many pitched in uncredited, including Golden himself, with sometime multiple inkers on the same page, so if you have precise info about the inks, let me know.

Update: please enjoy the pure pencils as provided by Gary Martin who also contributed to the inks of the page. Thanks, Gary!

This is part 11 of my 2017 CAF b-day party.