Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

rdf:langString Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

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rdf:langString Cover of Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.

rdf:langString Dave McKean

rdf:langString Grant Morrison

rdf:langString October 1989

rdf:langString I imagined it being done by someone like Brian Bolland, and my vision was of it being ultra-real to the point of being painful. [. . .] But then when Dave McKean did it it became something quite different, because he wanted to make it more abstract. And I think that in a lot of ways, the ways we both approached it clashed in the middle. [. . .] I think it would have been easier for people to deal with if it had been a lot more concrete. — Morrison disagrees with McKean's artwork rendering. Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics book, p. 68.

rdf:langString [the story] became sort of a symbolic play. We piled all this stuff on top of it, and dressed it up in its best clothes, and sent it out. Then I sat down afterwards and realized, "Why? Why bother? It's such an absurd thing to do." It's like suddenly realizing the fact that you're desperately trying to work around the subject matter — trying to make the book despite the subject, rather than because of it. At the end of the day, if you really love to do Batman comics, then that's probably the best thing to do. Not liking them, and then trying to make something out of them is just a waste of time.

rdf:langString Also, by the end of it I'd really begun to think that this whole thing about four-color comics with very, very overpainted, lavish illustrations in every panel just didn't work. It hampers the storytelling. It does everything wrong. It's very difficult to have any enthusiasm about it after that.

rdf:langString Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

rdf:langString —McKean criticizing some of the horror tone in Morrison's script and the regular comic book illustration he was tasked to utilize.

rdf:langString Deluxe Edition

rdf:langString Hardcover

rdf:langString Trade Paperback

rdf:langString Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (often shortened to Batman: Arkham Asylum) is a Batman graphic novel written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean. The story follows the vigilante Batman, who is called upon to quell a maddening riot taking place in the infamous Arkham Asylum, a psychiatric hospital housing the most dangerous supervillains in Gotham City. Inside, Batman confronts many of his enduring rogues gallery, such as the Joker, Two-Face, and Killer Croc. As Batman ventures deeper, he discovers the origin of how the asylum was established, the history of its founder Amadeus Arkham, and the supernatural and psychological mystery that has been haunting the mansion. Upon its release, the graphic novel garnered commercial and wide critical acclaim and is considered by many to be one of the greatest Batman stories of all time, and one of the best works in Grant Morrison's career. Morrison's narrative and Dave McKean's artistic style were described as more mature, unique, psychologically-driven and horror-oriented take on the Batman mythos and the distinctiveness from other conventional superhero works. The graphic novel would later become the definitive story of Arkham Asylum, a critical part of the Batman mythos. The critically acclaimed, similarly titled video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, the first game in the Batman: Arkham series, was partially influenced by the graphic novel.