Batman #663

Batman #663
WRITER: Grant Morrison
(art: John van Fleet)

Grant Morrison, you've put me in an awkward position. I'm trying to make sense of your controversial return to the Bat-fold. Yet in order to do so I need to come to an immediate conclusion. Is issue #633 a comicbook? Thanks to the wonder of wikipedia i have a host of definitions at my disposal to help me come to terms with this quandary. Our first contender...

Will Eisner (1996): Comics are "the printed arrangement of art and balloons in sequence."

Eisner's definition implies a marriage of text and graphics to the extent that text supports image. Words are seconday to the point where they are marginalized into balloons. Issue #663 has a shit-ton of words--words words everywhere and not a drop to ink (hehehe, er, ugh). Words filling up every last square inch of page. no 'negative' or 'dead' space at all which now that I think about it makes me think even more poorly of this product than i already did. Van Fleet's illustrations (and they are just that, graphic renderings of a text complete enough that it does not need images to exist) seem tacked on. So by Eisner's definition we have a definitive no. Round two, fight!...

Scott McCloud (1993) Comics are "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer."

Now things get more complicated. Four main points. Juxtaposition, sequence, information conveyance and aesthetic response. Did Issue #633 manifest an aesthetic response in me? Yes, enough to make me think it's a fucking trainwreck. Is information conveyed? Yes, in the form of a bad prose poem in dire need of an editor. Is there a sequence? yes, there are even 'chapters.' Juxtaposition? ah, there's the rub. There is juxtapostion but it is completely ineffectual and boring. Part of the greatness of comics is inference--inferring meaning through gestures, conduct, repetition, etc. There is none of that here. As I said above, Morrison's shoddy prose can stand by itself. It needs no pictorial accompaniment to function, to complete McCloud's latter three conditions. Is Issue #633 a comic then? No. Definition number 3, c'mon down!...

R. C. Harvey (2001) "...Comics consist of pictorial narratives or expositions in which words (often lettered into the picture area within speech balloons) usually contribute to the meaning of the pictures and vice versa."

Now we're getting somewhere. Here in Harvey's definition we have a slight hint at hierarchy, more specifically the lack of hierarchy between words and picture. Both inform one another, and it is the interesting and unexpected ways that they do so which make particular comics 'ground-breaking' or canonical. I have a feeling, okay, I know for a fact, that Morrison is trying to do something new here. But by Harvey's standards he is completely unsuccessful. He has outstepped the bounds of the genre. Issue #663 a comic? A resounding no. last but not least...

Eddie Campbell (2001) "the term graphic storytelling is defined as "the art of using pictures in sequence and its attendant language of forms and techniques, refined over many centuries."

Eddie clearly preferences pictures to words. Partly because Harvey's definition completely excludes the fact that wordless comics exist. Damn good ones in fact. So Pictures occupy the highground, with words lending 'attendant' meaning. Issue #633, survey says! No.

I'm afraid the dread might of wikipedia has forced my hand. I am sad that I must give the lowest possible grade to Morrison's literary experiment (or as it is more popularly known, Batman #663). And it's not just because it fails as a comic. Morrison's prose is bad. Every four sentences or so he hits the mark, something unexpected happens, a delightfully anarchic metaphor works, but most of his sentences are over or underwrought. If he's going for stream of hallucination/consciousness he needs to push things even further. Maybe he tried and DC reigned him back. I dunno. But he ends up in some no-man's land, a middle ground that is unexciting and banal. If i want to read up on the New Wierd I'll find me some Meiville who accomplishes much of what Morrison wants to by using sentences that actually function as sentences and aren't always trying mutate and burst through the cocoon of the English language.

Van Fleet's art (and notice that at the top of the page i have his credit in parentheses, because they are indeed an afterthought) is horrible. It smacks of Resident Evil video game-ness and is sterile, stiff and generally boring. I'm going to go easy on the art though since it obviously wasn't the focal point of this issue. Van Fleet most likely did the best with what he was afforded. So yes, Morrison takes the fall for the poor art as well. Just about the only thing I can say that is good in any way about this issue was that it was a complete and utter failure which, unlike what you might think, is not as bad as a partial failure. Morrison went balls out with this and for that I have to give him a meager amount of credit. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go try and get that half hour of my life that i wasted reading this back.

Rating: "Joe Camel" as in kids should stay away because this shit will give them cancer.