- What is your reaction to the text you just read?
The Killing Joke is a very dark story dealing with abuse, attempted murder, psychological torture and finally the internal war of Batman: vengeance.
In the original comics, the Joker was just another villain to fulfil the role of Batman's antagonist and a running gag at that. But Alan Moore created a backstory for the Joker, a strong motive for his character's transformation from a hardworking comedian, dedicated to his wife and his unborn son, into a monster thirsting for revenge on everyone in Gotham. The joke of his life was to end in tragedy, and he wanted to be killed by the one who wouldn't take his bluff.
The inclusion of the Joker's past tragedy made the comic even darker, it made me pity him, I related to him in losing the only motive for existing and working hard. I understood why he went insane and why he lost his faith in humanity. What was left for him was to entertain himself until his end was met. The prince of crime who pushed the definition of virtue and justice, Batman, to the edge.
All the while, this past also made me realize the struggle of Batman with the dilemma of ending Joker's life or not.
2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.
As I have written at the end of question one, I connected the most with Joker's tragedy. His life ended in the punchline of "no matter how hard you work, your life means nothing". And that is something everyone can relate to in the rock-bottom we reach. The connection I made with the story is the need to parallel the world we live in, misery and endurance with tragedy and temptation. Batman is tempted to break his vow and kill Joker. Joker tries very hard to make it happen by crossing the line between joke and pranks, to desperation and real villainy: torture, murder, maiming.
The connections I made were mostly storytelling elements. While art elements, I connected them to Watchmen, because Alan Moore has an intricate way of matching panels to cinematic shots and giving a sort of punchline feeling of surprising the reader.
The motif in these comics is the dark side of humanity. Contrast between ideals and the war inside everyone's head. Society's expectation vs what one really wants.
3.What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?
I definitely see this story being translated into an animation. A dark noir, perhaps. If I were to direct the art of the animation, I would choose the style of Batman cartoon from the 90's, which is dark but retaining the cartoonish quality. I believe this contrast is one of the best things to help animation regain its respect, and it will definitely match the 90s style of animation.
I could also see this having the style of western animation with the influence of Japanese animation. The exaggerated qualities mixed with the silent and pensive pace of mystery animes.
This could be both a feature-length animation because the pace between scenes is interconnected, or as episodes in a series because the scenes also can stay apart from each other and give the viewer a sense of urgency to continue the series and find out what happens next and how the scenes connect with each other. For example, one episode in the present time of Batman vs Joker, then an episode of Joker's past. These could be 5-15 minutes in lenth, sort of like a special for Saturdays or weekday evenings.
The script might have to be revised to fit the time constraint, choose the scenes that are most important, as a sort of promotion to The Killing Joke, if you will.
Overall, this is a great comic to have in the shelf as an influence to crime and psychological both in storytelling and comic making.
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