On a new Hard NOC Life, Shawn and Keith are joined by Detective Comics writer Bryan Edward Hill to discuss all things Batman!
Continue reading “Hard NOC Life: Outside the Batcave with Bryan Edward Hill”
Hard NOC Life with Shawn Keith return from a brief hiatus to share what’s Nerd Poppin’ this week.
Continue reading “Hard NOC Life: A New Era of Representation”
In Part One of our conversation with Michael Uslan, the Batman movie uber-producer recounted his decades-long journey to bring a “dark and serious” version of the Dark Knight from the comic pages to the movie screen, a journey that is the foundation of his memoir, The Boy Who Loved Batman. After a string of Hollywood studios and financiers initially rejected the idea, the Batman film franchise has gone on to earn billions of dollars in box office and merchandising and solidify Batman as a cinematic legend, with even more big screen adventures on the way.
After the jump, Michael and I continue our discussion of what makes the Batman such an iconic — and enduring — character.
Continue reading “Legend of The Dark Knight: More with Michael Uslan”
I’m supposed to explain how and why I became a nerd, but I’m currently in the middle of James Gleick’s Chaos: Making a New Science so you’re going to have to bear with me wrestling with my own half-baked attempts at understanding what I’m reading and my discomfort at presenting some particular event as the discrete cause of my nerdy predilections. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So here’s a moment: At some point in late 1993 I, or maybe my brother, purchased Detective Comics #662. Batman vs. Firefly. It has a rather evocative Sam Kieth cover of a Batman on fire. Our hero is exhausted because an unknown entity (we later learn to be Bane) has released the entire rogues gallery from Arkham Asylum, and Batman has been ceaselessly fighting to bring his greatest enemies down. But in this issue, we only get to see Batman take down the pyromaniacal Firefly. ‘Tec #662 has a second number designation to it, #8, as in part 8 of a massive 90s Batman crossover event called “Knightfall.”
Perhaps I could have left it there. Batman fights and defeats Firefly. I could have walked away. But I didn’t. I had questions and, suddenly, a quest. If there’s an 8, there must be a 7 and a 9. Who does Batman have to stop next, and who did he stop before?
Continue reading “The Ideal and the Infinite Batman, or Why Fractal Narratives Matter”
