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Amandeep Singh Virdi

The Dark Knight Trilogy 15 Years Later: Film & Comic Influences!

March 11, 2023 by Amandeep Singh Virdi Leave a Comment

The films of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy – Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – are often cited among some of the most influential films in recent memory, certainly responsible for revitalizing the superhero genre in the public consciousness, but perhaps also changing the landscape of big-budget blockbuster Hollywood filmmaking. Nolan’s grounded approach to superhero films, seeped with realism, has influenced every franchise since, for better or worse.

It is easy to note and cite the influences these films have had since their release, but art is not born out of a vacuum. And while I do think “everything is a remix” can be a rather pessimistic way to look at things – if nothing is truly “original,” what is even the point, right? – it is important to look back, not just to gain a deeper understanding of a work, but also to acquire a new outlook with which to look forward.

So, what are the influences of The Dark Knight Trilogy? It is, of course, a marriage of two mediums, taking a character predominantly associated with comic books and bringing him onto the big screen, so it must have had influences from both films and comic books. What films informed the cinematography of this trilogy? And what stories from the character’s rich publication history were mined to tell the tale Nolan et al. were trying to tell with their films?

[Read more…] about The Dark Knight Trilogy 15 Years Later: Film & Comic Influences!

Filed Under: Comic Book Movies, DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Batman

Do a Powerbomb: Life, Death, and Pro Wrestling

February 1, 2023 by Amandeep Singh Virdi Leave a Comment

Considering how similar the two are, you would expect a significant cultural overlap between pro wrestling and comic books. Pro wrestling’s colourful characters, heightened melodrama, and rather simple ‘good vs evil’ storylines should translate easily onto the pages of a comic book, at least in theory, but that hasn’t always been the case. It is easy to see why, though. Pro wrestling is an experiential sport, that works best when you see it live with an audience, one that is losing their collective mind at every move in the ring, as you clap and cheer until you are left with a hoarse voice. Capturing that magic on paper has proven… difficult, to say the least. That being said, when Daniel Warren Johnson drops a pro wrestling comic book, you sit up and take notice.

Johnson is one of the most exciting creators working in comics right now, and has accumulated an impressive body of work in a rather short amount of time. Space-Mullet!, Extremity, Murder Falcon, Wonder Woman: Dead Earth, Beta Ray Bill: Argent Star are all worth your time and money. The visuals hook you in as you flip through the pages of these books – the perfect marriage of the hyper-detailed rendering that has become the staple of modern western comics and the sketchy, kinetic linework more commonly associated with manga – but it’s the stories, full of heart and human emotions, that make his work so special. His latest, with regular collaborators Mike Spicer and Rus Wooton, is set in the crazy world of pro wrestling. Advertised as – very ambitiously, if I may say so myself – “The Wrestler meets Dragonball Z” by the publisher, it is a passion project. Not just in terms of a creator taking their rather weird and extremely personal interest/hobby and exploring them in great detail through their work, which it very much is, but in the sense that it is designed to bring you, the readers, into pro wrestling through the inviting medium of comic books. “The goal,” as Johnson puts it in the back pages of the first issue, “is and always has been to invite people in, no matter where they’re at. So if you aren’t into pro-wrestling, damn am I glad you made it this far! And if you are into it,” which I, of course, am, “welcome, old friends!”

Looking back at his work now, it seems as if this was perhaps the book Johnson was always meant to do at some point. Pro wrestling exists in all his stories – from powerbombs in Extremity, his Eisner-nominated limited series that brought him into the spotlight, to suplexes in Beta Ray Bill: Argent Star, his last Big Two project. Death and grief exists in all his stories too, and Do a Powerbomb! is no different. This is a story of loss, and mourning, and the seven stages of grief explored over seven issues.

[Read more…] about Do a Powerbomb: Life, Death, and Pro Wrestling

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: daniel warren johnson

The Inmates Run the Asylum in Rocksteady’s Arkham Trilogy

October 7, 2022 by Amandeep Singh Virdi Leave a Comment

I love video games. I suppose I always have. Growing up in the early years of economic liberalisation in India, you took your first steps into the world of gaming on bootlegged consoles, manufactured by local companies that had cropped up all over the country to meet the demands of a large population with growing purchasing power and aspirations to live the life their relatives “abroad” and the stars of their movies did, all the while the companies that actually manufactured those consoles scrambled to set up shop in the nation. My earliest memory of gaming is playing Contra and Super Mario on one of these bootlegged “NES,” plugging in those “99999 in 1” game cartridges and setting up the system on those huge CRT television sets that took up an entire corner of your living room.

I am telling my age, aren’t I?

Well, kids, playing video games for as long as I have teaches you a lot of things, especially if you are interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff – how they are made (the tools and technologies that go into making a game and how they evolve over time), the politics of it (because, as with everything else in life, there is politics involved here as well), the economics of the gaming industry (and how it, at times, becomes the primary driving force for innovation) – which, I suppose, you become at least tangentially aware of if you stick with a particular hobby long enough. But, perhaps more than that, it teaches you to see that hobby differently. You learn to notice and appreciate the craft behind it. You learn to see video games as art.

[Read more…] about The Inmates Run the Asylum in Rocksteady’s Arkham Trilogy

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured, Video Games Tagged With: Arkham Asylum, Batman

Darwyn Cooke and the Art of Genre Storytelling

July 15, 2022 by Amandeep Singh Virdi Leave a Comment

One of my silly little “reading goals” for 2022 was revisiting all things Darwyn Cooke – from his early work on Catwoman to the Parker novels late into his career. Cooke is, in my opinion, a giant of the medium. Compared to his peers, he ventured into comics quite late, after spending years as a graphic designer for magazines in Canada and then as a storyboard artist in Los Angeles for various shows of the DCAU. But what that also meant was that he was able to bring in and apply the lessons learnt and experience gained from those industries into his comics. His character design is timeless – look no further than his character sheet for Selina Kyle / Catwoman – and his storytelling is sharp and crisp.

[Read more…] about Darwyn Cooke and the Art of Genre Storytelling

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: darwyn cooke, DC Comics

30 Years Later: The Best of Batman The Animated Series

June 24, 2022 by Amandeep Singh Virdi Leave a Comment

The perfect unit of Batman in BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES

This year marked the 30th anniversary of Batman: The Animated Series. It is, undoubtedly, the best adaptation of Batman in any media outside of comics. Its influence over the legacy of Batman, and the superhero genre in general, is undeniable.

The art deco style that Gotham City is rendered in not only gives the show this pulp quality that ties it perfectly with Batman’s influences, it has become synonymous with how Batman fans perceive Gotham City. Alan Burnett, one of the producers on the show, described the show’s look as “dark deco.” Paul Dini, who not only served as the story editor on the show but also wrote some of its best episodes, described it as “what if the 1939 World’s Fair had gone on another sixty years or so” and it really does feel that way. The world of Batman: The Animated Series is a world where supercomputers and rocket cars can co-exist with black-and-white TV screens and rotary dial telephones.

[Read more…] about 30 Years Later: The Best of Batman The Animated Series

Filed Under: Comic Book TV, DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Batman

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