Gotham Adventures 33, "World Without Batman, Page 18

The symmetrical compositions on the 6 panel grid continues to the end of the Harvey Dent sequence. On the third tier we transition to the street below as Commissioner Gordon joins his daughter, Barbara.  Here, I not only break the 2 panels per tier rhythm, but tilt the panel gutters inward toward an off-page vanishing point; i.e., the vanishing point in the center of page 19,

I showed these pages to Neal Adams at the Comic Con International that summer (2001). We  had met on the first (and only) annual Comic Book Legal Defense Fund cruise of the Mexican Riviera. Perhaps that’s why Neal was generous with his time in granting me a critique of this work. He stressed that I should take each assignment (even on a lowly merchandizing spin-off book such as Gotham Adventures) with extreme seriousness (check), and always be looking for ways to distinguish myself (right, got it).

The irony was, every thing he advised me to do I had done, or attempted. In fact, my model for “WWB” story was one of his: “Fair Exchange”, from Eerie #9 (published in May 1967 by Warren). In an interview, Neal has bragged about composing each page with a different strategy each time. I had done the same thing with “WWB”, only with a different strategy for each sequence.

I am serially posting each page from Gotham Adventures #33, published by DC Comics in February, 2001. I will be posting Ed Brubaker’s script, my roughs, pencils and printed versions of each page. This is day 18, page 18.