Batman: Animated by Paul Dini and Chip Kidd

Ask my friends what they think of when they hear my name, and I'm sure they'll respond with "Oh, he wrote this Mara Jade/Arden Lynn...thing...he tried to pass off as a legitimate story." Mention my name again and they'll say, "Well, he has a devotion to Batman." But that doesn't provide enough set-up to how great this book is.

For Christmas, I was given a $25 gift certificate to Border's. I went the day after Christmas, hoping to buy something really cool. More specifically, I was in the market for the Yo La Tengo/Jad Fair CD. I had been searching for it for the past three months to no avail. So I went to the Music Dept., looked in the Yo La Tengo bin, and --- there it was! Imagine the look of joy and relief upon my fifteen-year old face. $16. I was happy. But a little voice in my head, "Keep looking." So I stumbled around the store and ended up in their Television section, looking for that JMS book on scriptwriting. Nope, they didn't have that. But they did have something else --- Batman: Animated !!!!

I had read Glen Coaxial's review on AICN, backed up by Harry Knowles, that this was the coolest thing in the world. After looking through it for about five seconds, I put down the CD and said to it, "Another day, my friend." That's how cool this thing. I passed on the new YLT to buy it. Mere words cannot express this book's greatness. You have to get to a bookstore and look through it as soon as you possibly can. I speak from the perspective of someone who has watched everything put on air by Messrs. Timm and Dini, from the first episode of Batman: The Animated Series on Fox on September 5, 1992 to it's current incarnation as The New Batman/Superman Adventures (by the way, according to this book, Batman's segment on that show was originally called "Gotham Knights", and The Creeper was going to be a recurring character) on Kids!WB. This tome has everything, from model reference sheets to story boards, from rejected scripts (like the proposed Catwoman/Black Canary team-up that was stopped by Fox because it didn't contain stupid Robin) to rejected character designs (check out that horrid original pic of Harley Quinn, as well as designs for the proposed-then-axed Robin solo series). How up-to-date is this book? Well, it has the story boards and references sheets for the awe-inspiring "Legends Of The Dark Knight" episode that aired just four months ago, as well as the character reference sheet for Batman Beyond, which debuted not even a month ago.

If you are even a casual fan of Batman or animation or just great art, you owe it to yourself to buy this book.

(Harper Entertainment/Harper Collins)

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Michael Keegan
2.3.1999