We Believe in Harvey Dent

As some of you know, my Henchgirl, bitemetechie, has started up a roleplaying blog for the Scarecrow, where she and her CATverse co-mastermind captaintwinings occasionally hold theme day/week events wherein they take submissions from followers.

These events include "Pick-Up Line Day" (readers do their best to try and hit on the Gotham rogues gallery), "Stroking the Rogue... Ego" (readers tell the rogues what they like best about them to help with therapy), and "Free For All Fic For All" (breaking from character, BiteMeTechie and Twinings write stories to fill as many fic requests from readers as humanly possible in a week long period). The stuff they write for these events--especially the last--are consistently excellent, and are quite often some of the best takes on the Rogues that I have ever seen in any medium. At this rate, you could seriously kill a good few days scouring through the archives, and it'd be well worth your time.

But I'm not writing this just to plug them, as I could and should have done dozens of times over the past few months. No, I'm finally writing them up is because Henchgirl wrote a Harvey/Gilda fic, one that holds specific significance for me: it was originally meant to be my birthday present, but with our lives being what they are these days, it ended up on the back-burner until somebody gave her the prompt to write something Harvey/Gilda. The resulting fic was... well, read it for yourself.


( Harvey comes to her at night, the way he always has... )

And since I'm recommending fic by the girls, I might as well include some (but certainly not all) of my favorite fics and drabbles they've written for the blog:
--Clayface III and Lady Clay go out for a night on the town; somebody babysits for them
--Talia goes father’s day shopping; Killer Croc goes shopping; More Sexy!Cajun!Croc; Croc has to talk his way out of a sticky situation; something Croc. For those who don't know, Techie--inspired by Croc's one appearance in Teh Batmans--has reinvented Croc as a suave cajun, and it's pretty awesome. In addition, she's been trying her hand at writing Talia, and the results are pretty damn spectacular. See also:
--Talia Al Ghul makes daddy proud.
--Clayface encounters an old fan; Clayface/Poison Ivy romance
--Maxie Zeus tries to have lunch in a diner. I love how she writes Maxie as if he were being played by Brian Blessed. I credit myself for the fact that I showed her I, Claudius shortly before she wrote this one.
--Jonathan Crane and Hugo Strange at a conference.
--Something featuring Killer Croc, Croc enjoying some Cajun food and Croc comes to dinner
--Killer Croc & Killer Moth sharing an apartment/cell. This one features a special bonus for fans of the Teen Titans cartoon out there.

Again, these are by no means the only ones I like, but that's more than enough recommendations to start. By all means, scour though the archives of askthesquishykins for more. And, since the Free for All Fic for All continues for another week, stop by and request a fic of your very own.

I've been getting some questions about whether or not I know that Deptford--the artist who did the amazing Two-Face fancomic The Silver Dollar--has since been doing an entire storyline with Harvey for the past few weeks. The answer is, "Oh my god, yes, and it is awesome."

I've been sorely tempted to post it strip by strip, but I want to hold off until it's all wrapped up to review it in one megapost. Partially, I want to have it all in one chunk for posterity, but more importantly, there's a lot that Deptford is doing that has me both thrilled and anxious, and I dare not make any judgment calls until it's all wrapped up.

But don't let me stop any of you! If you want to read the strip, start here and go backwards! If you want to post your thoughts in the comments, by all means, I'd love to hear what you think! Otherwise, feel free to wait with me until I post the whole story once Deptford sees fit to wrap it up, presumably in the next week or two!

Meantime, I've got a long post coming up, all focusing on the short-lived history of a character that nobody likes. When you'll see it, you might wonder why the hell I'd ever want to devote such a lengthy post to such a worthless character? I'll give you a hint: it has to do with something in my introductory post to this blog, before it went and took on a life of its own. Hopefully you'll dig it.

Title: Dent (5/??)
Previous Parts: | Prologue | One | Two | Three
Fandom: Batman (general comics continuity)
Characters: Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Gilda Dent, Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, Vincent Moroni
Genres: General, Drama, Angst, Romance
Rating: PG-13
This story contains: Alcoholism, brief mentions of child abuse, graphic violence, swearing, character death, sexual content

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

A/N: Finally, another chapter. Thanks to everyone reading and offering feedback. It's the calm before the storm, with one more chapter before Part Two. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting so far. Your feedback means a lot to me. As always, special thanks to bitemetechie for her last-minute help in bringing this to life.


( The limo vanishes around the block, the last trace of special treatment leaving us behind. As she flips the three locks, the door swinging open, that's when the idea hits... )

I first learned of Ming Doyle (_ming) through her superhero costume redesigns on Project: Rooftop in general, and then specifically when she beat me out in the P:R costume contest with a great home-made Batgirl costume that, in retrospect, is what Cass Cain should probably be wearing instead of whatever it is she's in now.

I always liked her character designs and composition, but she really commanded my attention when she went on scans_daily back in the day and posted her short-but-sweet fan comic Lady Gotham, a rare story to actually focus on Martha Wayne. Very, very cool stuff. I went to check out her website some time ago to see what other Bat-character bits she's done, and found one that obviously took my attention:





Even if this weren't pretty much the only Harvey Dent fan comic (if there any others, especially any of note, please let me know), I'd still consider this the best. It's a bit abstract, like poetry of the mentally ill, and rather haunting.

The version I'm posting here has been taken from Ming's DeviantArt account, although it can also be found here at her LJ account. Oh in case you're wondering what's up with the henchgirl characters, they're called "the Miss Malones," and Ming gave the full run-down about who they are over here. I don't know if you'd prefer reading that before or after the actual story (it doesn't really spoil anything), so I guess just flip a coin and go ahead.


( They've got the wrong man in here... )

Ming had one more rather interesting Harvey-related tidbit she posited a question: "who would you rather be entangled in some variety of hypothetical romantic interest with, harvey dent before his two-face transition, or "bruce wayne" at any point after his world wanderings with the catch that you'd never know about the other side of the proverbial coin?"





"i'm honestly stuck on which option would be the more perfect setup for a psychological horror movie."

I'll leave you guys to debate that one. :)

I wish Ms. Doyle would do more Batman comics, but I imagine she's distracted by being a professional artist who, y'know, actually likes to draw things for which she'll get paid. How dare she?! In that respect, DC simply must hire her for a short story or two in an upcoming Batman 80-Page Giant, or something to that effect. At the very least, once I have the money to blow on original artwork (which won't be for a long time, what with baby on the way very, very, very soon), I'd bloody love to commission a portrait of Christopher Dent from her. She'd capture him perfectly as I see him in the Dent novel.

Title: Dent (2/??)
Previous Parts: | Prologue |
Fandom: Batman (general comics continuity)
Characters: Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Gilda Dent, Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, Vincent Moroni
Genres: General, Drama, Angst, Romance
Rating: PG-13
This story contains: Alcoholism, brief mentions of child abuse, graphic violence, swearing, character death, sexual content

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

A/N: It's been suggested that I do these on Tuesdays instead of Fridays, so in the interest of not losing the momentum, you get the next part extra early this week!


( Read more... )

Has anyone read any good Harvey Dent fanfic?

Personally, the amount I've found is very small, and all of it is from the DARK KNIGHT movie continuity. There pretty much isn't any fic for comics!Harvey that I've yet found, aside from one or two things. But I'm wondering if anyone out there (you guys, naturally) have found some gems that I've missed?

Honestly, I'm very inexperienced in the fanfic world. Even when I began work on my epic Dent novel (on its tenth or so draft now, four years later), I didn't really read other fic until I got involved with the wonderful bitemetechie, one of the internet's reigning Queens of Batman fic.

Just today, she took it upon herself to scour fanfiction.net for good Two-Face fic, but amid the very few there, the only one she even considered halfway good was a Harvey/Gilda (!) story called "And He Was Beautiful."

It's neat to see someone else actually try to tackle Gilda besides me and goddesspharo, who wrote two moving Gilda-centric pieces: "The Sound of Settling," and "Walking In Between Sunrise and Sunset." The latter fic neatly compares Harvey/Gilda with TDK's Harvey/Rachel. As a general rule, I have no interest in Harvey/Rachel fic, because while I liked TDK Harvey, I have far more interest in the canonical Harvey from the comics (and anyone who writes that Harvey earns insta-cred in my eyes).

An exception to this is the Harvey Dent chapter from Mark Turnage's excellent Arkham Asylum epic, "The Face We Call Our Own." Even though that Harvey is clearly the version from TDK--Rachel and all--it's hands-down the best Two-Face fic I've yet read. I just so wish it could be tweaked to be comics canon, since that story will fit better there than in the Nolanverse.

Even stranger, the DCAU fic also seems to be woefully deficient of Two-Face stuff, which strikes me as weird considering that BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Harvey is rightly one of the most popular versions. The only one I've yet seen worth anything is greedyslayer's "This Is Your Dark Side Speaking (Shut Up)." Ultimately, TDK dominates the niche that is Harvey Dent fic. So at this point, even halfway good fic will do, as long as it's more or less faithful to the spirit of the comics' character.

So what about it, folks? Read any good Two-Face fic lately? Or ever?

...

Oh, and if you're interested, here's the self-contained prologue from my own Dent novel. I'm still damn proud of that one. I look forward to finally returning to my revisions come this Fall, once the need to do IRL work has settled down.