ASTRO CITY 35
killed by a former patient. Th ere is very little action going on in this graphic novel,
since most of the pages depict the various kinds of mind games Th e Joker plays on
Batman. Th e Joker’s point is that Batman, with his manic pursuit of criminals origi-
nating in his personal trauma of his parents’ death, is just as mentally disturbed as the
inmates of Arkham Asylum. Th e past and present narratives with Batman/Joker and
Amadeus Arkham, respectively, are mixed in a highly symbolic style where fragmented
sentences and pictorial allusions underline the polysemic nature of both written and
drawn language.
Morrison’s story is heavily loaded with intertextual citation both within the DC
universe as well as biblical references, mythology, and occult themes. Th e story makes
use of imagery from psychological tests and tarot cards and makes reference to Arthurian
legend, Alice in Wonderland , and a long line of literary contexts.
Dave McKean’s artwork is very dense, with a mixture of diff erent techniques: pencil,
ink, crayon and collage, and even if the general tone is dark and sober, the villains are
often characterized by vivid coloring, like Th e Joker’s bright green hair and Maximillian
Zeus’s electric blue. Th e coloring creeps into the speech balloons as well, so the hovering
shadow of Batman appears in black, while Clayface speaks in a muddy, olive brownish-
green, and Th e Joker’s speech is depicted in ragged, red lettering—too unruly to be
confi ned within bubbles.
Arkham Asylum sold extremely well at the time of its publication. Critically, how-
ever, it has been widely debated, with opinions at both ends of the spectrum; where
some feel that Dave McKean’s artwork is the only thing giving a too complex and con-
fusing story some value, others think the story is great but that the art places too much
symbolism into the narrative. Th ere are those who judge Arkham Asylum to be one
of the most complex, haunting, and successfully made Batman stories, but they are
countered by the critics who have put it at the very bottom of the Batman stepladder
of value.
Rikke Platz Cortsen
ASTRO CITY. Currently published under DC Comics ’ Wildstorm imprint, Kurt
Busiek’s Astro City is an ongoing series written by Busiek and featuring character
designs by cover artist Alex Ross and regular penciler Brent Anderson. Growing out
of the success of Busiek & Ross’s Marvels (1993) project created for Marvel Comics ,
Astro City follows the lives of a rotating cast of characters in a fi ctional, eponymous city
located somewhere in the American West. Th e fi rst issue of the book was published by
Image Comics in 1995, and as Busiek explains in an interview by Richard Vasseur, the
idea for the title grew out of “years of thinking about what kind of things happened in
a world full of superheroes that we don’t see during the adventures—what happens to
the guy on the street, what it’s like to live in that world.” By focusing on the lives of the
ordinary people who live in a city of super-powered beings, Astro City is able to produce
a type of story rarely seen before the title’s publication.
Busiek populates Astro City with characters of his own invention, but drawing upon
his extensive knowledge of American comics, many of the concepts for characters in
