Batman: The Mad Monk #1, p.6

Who doesn't love an awesome Commissioner Gordon page? Truth be told, it was Matt Wagner's Gotham City landscape that captivated me with this one. As great as his colorists have been over the years, I always enjoy seeing his original pages when lots of architecture is involved (the amazing Grendel/Shadow pages here on CAF are great examples). Matt often seems to apply pencil shading and other techniques to really "three-dimensionalize" the city so the foreground characters pop and flow on top of the background - more like an animation cel than an original art page sometimes...

If I were the good Commissioner, I’d spend my smoke break up there, too; just look at the view...

On the 'Trinity' #1, p.3 write up, I mentioned how chuffed I was that the page had been produced when the captions and word balloons were still regularly applied to original art, as the writing really enhances the viewer's whole experience with the page, and I feel the opposite here; as good as the writing is (and it is), I love looking at this and feeling the city breathe without any other visual distraction. I could even do without Gordon... 😉

Once more, huge thanks to Jim Warden.