Greg Capullo's sketches for Jim, Joker, and Harvey in the DCnU/New DCU

[about_faces]

Alert reader deadwalrus reluctantly tipped me off to this Bleeding Cool article, revealing new Batman artist Greg Capullo's sketches of Jim, Joker, and Harvey in the New DCU, Post-Not-Reboot-Whatever-Thing.





I don't think that anyone, in the history of comics, has drawn Jim Gordon doing his best Tony Stark "How YOU doin'?" impression. Frankly, I'm just a bit surprised that he doesn't look like Twitch from Sam and Twitch, since this IS the big Spawn artist, after all. Now if he can somehow draw Harvey Bullock looking different from Sam Burke, then I'll be really impressed.





... Well, it's certainly original. I don't hate it, and at least it's not Morrison's bullet-holed perma-grin Joker anymore, thank god... but it may take some getting used to. Doing the darkness-around-the-eyes thing with added pin-markings under the eyes like a clown out of the commedia dell'arte, it's interesting. I think what really distracts me as the eyebrows. It's like Wilford Brimley playing a Vulcan. The hair has apparently given others flashbacks to 80's synth bands, it reminds me more of Brad Dourif (specifically as Billy Bibbit from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and that's never a bad thing when it comes to the Joker. Never. If your Joker looks even a bit like Brad Dourif, you're doing something right. That should be a guideline followed for all artists, just as all writers should try to imagine their written dialogue being read aloud by the Batman: The Animated Series voice actors. If your Harley doesn't sound like she could be performed by Arleen Sorkin, then generally speaking, you've written a bad Harley.





Oh dear.

First off, I kinda like what's going on with the good side. From this sketch, it looks like this could be a Harvey who has some personality, which so many artists forget when it comes to drawing his unscarred side. That's the side that needs to be expressive and have character, and not just be a standard generic thug in appearance. Maybe some of that will come through here. But the scarred side... he looks like a zombie out of an EC comic or a Bernie Wrightson drawing. Harvey looks less like a burn victim and more like a corpse who's falling apart before our eyes. If he ever ran away, Batman could just follow a trail of face leavings. Ew. As for his missing eye, I'm guessing/hoping that Capullo is just taking a cue from Lee Bermejo's Two-Face in Joker and keeping it shadow. While I know it's realistic for a burn victim like Harvey to have lost his eye, all it does here is emphasize the corpseness of his appearance.

All in all, I'm kinda interested, but still very hesitant to care much. What's more, I don't know how this art's gonna look once it's all inked and computer-colorzied. I'm gonna quietly prepare for the worst, so that anything good that comes will be a happy surprise, just like I did with the Green Lantern movie. Sometimes it pays to be a hopeful pessimist!