Year One Art

Over at Robot 6 I wrote my first column of the new year up extra good. It's a special edition on David Mazzucchelli's art in Batman Year One. It seems to me like the art of that comic more than a ton of others gets short shrift, probably because it serves the story in such a subtle and considered way, rather than calling any undue (or even due) attention to itself. But boy is it there, and boy is it great. I talked about the way Mazzucchelli finds a place for both that deep subtlety and more typical superhero pyrotechnics, the way his four-tier layout throws off the usual rhythm of action comics storytelling and mirrors pop music, the uniqueness of the particular moments Mazzucchelli chooses to draw, and a lot more. It's kind of a companion piece to that "Dark Knight Art" thing I wrote a while back. Slowly makin' my way through the canon here! You can go read it if you want to.