160000

Arkham Asylum is a classic for a reason. The story by Grant Morrison is two tales about the horrors of madness. In one, Batman must confront not only his deadliest foes (such as the Joker and Two-Face among others) but his own personal demons. Will he be driven mad too? The other story is about Amadeus Arkham, founder of the asylum that bears his name, and his descent into madness.

Arkham Asylum is a pure work of art, heavy on symbolism. Influence by Freud, The Brothers Quay, and Alice in Wonderland, Morrison and McKean took a variety of influences to create a fresh and mature look at Batman. Dave McKean's artwork is fantastic - and innovative. Creepy yet elegant, you can see how he was obvious influenced by The Brothers Quay as created a mixed media landscape for a comic. This (to my knowledge) had never been done before. It's a non-traditional comic to say the least.

Profound. Artistic. Disturbing. Moving.

This might be my favorite Batman comic.

Give us the arthouse movie adaptation, please............. ( )

I am very serious about loving books that will take me hours of research or reading the author's own explanations to understand. 5 stars, legitimately. ( )

Coming up on it's 25th anniversary, this is one of the classic Batman stories.

The lunatics are running the asylum, where the inmates have taken over, and are demanding one final thing: Batman to come join them.

Batman finally agrees, whilst worried about what he will confront whilst in there - is the asylum actually where he will feel "normal" and "comfortable" - will it feel like coming home? He comes across many of the inmates, many of whom he has put in there, and some of his most iconic enemies, including Harvey Dent, The Joker (some of the best graphic animation in the book), The Scarecrow etc.

Running along side this narrative is that of the Asylum's creator, who set up the asylum after the death of his insane mother, but who in turn, goes mad. The last few years of his life is spent creating a binding spell for one iconic figure - The Bat. Many of the inmates now believe Batman is The Bat foretold and hence his arrival and commitment will fulfil some supernatural spell.

Interesting to see Dave Mckean's very early work and how over the years that style of drawing/colouring has become his established style, taking him (and Neil Gaiman) through Stardust and beyond ( )

I love comic books, but this one didn't do it for me.

I didn't like the art style, even if it was quite beautiful. For me, this style of comic didn't do Batman justice. It seemed very messy to me, and it didn't let me focus. I think this art style could work well with other characters, but not one where I want to pay attention to detail. It just felt to fuzzy.

There's footnotes in this edition, which seems really weird to me. Why does a comic book need footnotes? Shouldn't you be able to get the point across within the story?

At least there was a script at the end to understand what was going on. It just seemed really weird to me that I had no honest idea what was happening. It didn't seem like a Batman comic, more like a parody of a Batman comic. Having to go back and forth between the comic and the script also left me incredibly frustrated. I don't understand how this comic book was supposed to hit audiences.

The idea of having the inmates takes over Arkham Asylum seems awesome and this could make for the best story, but this art style didn't do it justice. I could barely tell what characters were who, and I'm obsessed with Batman. I also didn't understand the haunted part of the plot.

I get this book was supposed to be a psychological thriller/horror that was supposed to attract adult and mature audiences, but it just didn't feel that way to me. The allusions and references went over my head, and I felt like there could have been so much more added to make it flow better.

Overall, this book was super frustrating for me. I wanted to love it (especially when I paid way to much to get my hands on this book) but I just couldn't. I had high expectations and it came short.

Two out of five stars. ( )