BATMAN # 623 pg 17

After Sale's art ,here is my second foray , even more extreme, into the noir/hard boiled . Azzarello/Risso paint a dirty, filthy city that not even the pouring rain can wash . In this " broken city" with no possibility of redemption, roam around characters with monstrous features to connotate their inner rot . Risso's art is perfect in capturing all of this . His Batman is a night's creature and it couldn't be otherwise. He embraces it ,but he hates it ,fears it because can't close his eyes...to waiting for him is the same terrible nightmare that has been haunting him since fateful day when he heard two " bang "...but not the third .
He is still searching for an answer to the guilt of having survived his parents or the sense of helplessness of not being able to save them . The child in him is still looking for a way to process/overcome all this .. but certain tragedies cannot be overcome.
They are part of us, they become us .
Risso puts all this and more into a single page .
A painted nightmare where the use of black&white is magistral and every line exudes remorse, regret and despair.
I loved this page from the moment I saw it and will be always grateful to Aleksandar for letting it go .