The Killing Joke!

Want to hear something funny? I've never read The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I'd never read it until just a few weeks ago when I was prepping this post. I have been a monster comic book fan my whole life. But somehow when The Killing Joke hit the bookshelves in 1988 my focus was elsewhere, on my family and beginning a new career. I was a devoted Marvel Comics fan at the time, limiting my focus to help save money for needed things for a wife and two young daughters. So, the changes at DC Comics largely passed me by. 

I ignored The Watchmen. I missed out on John Byrne's fresh take on Superman, I passed on reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight, and I ignored the praise that The Killing Joke was getting. Later when I turned my attention back to DC, I just never got around to reading this classic. I knew of the consequences such as Barbara Gordon's baleful injuries, but I was never tempted to read the actual story itself. Maybe it was a bit of reverse snobbishness since the story seemed to garner such universal praise. Truth told I was late in the game to the whole Alan Moore phenomenon and his boorish attitudes about it later in life have not warmed me to him. I'm trying to fix that now. 

So, now that I've at long last read it. What's my opinion? It's a pretty fucking (pardon my curse but it felt appropriate) fantastic bit of storytelling that grabs a reader by the neck and lets the go only when that final chuckle has receded into the night. Brian Bolland's artwork (and coloring) is magnificent. Moore's script is clever and taught. The story cannot of course have the same effect on me that it did on readers decades ago because I to some little extent know some of the goriest details from other sources. That's not the fault of the creators. It's not their fault I dallied for over thirty-five years to give this infamous bit of comic book storytelling a go. But I can say the stuff holds up and that it doesn't age a smidge. Bolland creates a noir world which is simultaneously decades old and timelessly fresh. 

Having at long last read The Killing Joke, I turned my attention to the animated adaptation and doing that helped make better sense of the original. It does reproduce the story, but the adaptation falls short of its emotional impact for a number of reasons. The animation cannot really reproduce Bolland's remarkable artwork, a limitation of the form. But most importantly the creators felt the need to add a whole other story to the beginning which featured Batgirl in action. I understood the perceived need to establish her for folks not coming from the comics, but it seemed somewhat random. It undermined the main story and after she's shot there is actually very little about Barbara Gordon in the remainder of the film. And sadly, that's possibly the most tragic part of her role in this story. 

The creators of the cartoon were fooled into thinking the story was about her and what happens to her. It's not. She's sadly just collateral damage like so many of the tragic victims are in the eternal conflict between Batman and the Joker. That was Alan Moore's secret, he took a permanent character and treated her like an impermanent one. It rattled the comfort zone from which we read our little stories and suggested that all things might just be possible. 

So, in the final analysis, I heartily recommend The Killing Joke to any comics fan. What is that? You've already read it, a long time ago in fact. Well, as it turns out the joke is on me. 

Happy April Fool's Day to all. More Joker later today. 

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