Gotham Adventures #17

When I was first trying to figure out how to differentiate the original Batman Adventures run from the many other Batman comics we were then producing, one of the things that occurred to me was to strictly limit the number of panels per page.

I liked this idea for a few reasons. The first was that the book was designed to be accessible and attractive to the very earliest of readers, and fewer, bigger panels seemed to me one way to achieve that goal. But the other thing was that we were, obviously, tied to the brilliant animated show. And I felt that by going with fewer and therefore bigger panels per page, we'd be making it a faster read, sorta kinda imitating the kind of motion animation obviously has and which comics obviously don't have.

I thought it worked wonderfully. Some creators felt it was a bit restrictive, but others flourished—most obviously the unsurpassable team of Kelley Puckett, Mike Parobeck and Rick Burchett. I found it to be something like working in blank verse rather than free verse, somewhat akin to the (perhaps apocryphal?) famous Robert Frost quote that writing free verse was like playing tennis without a net. I loved the challenge of writing (hopefully) fully satisfying, interesting, exciting, funny, thought-provoking stories with an absolutely maximum of 85 panels (and sometimes even fewer).

Fortunately, in Tim Levins I found a co-creator more than up for the challenge. Just check out this page, from Gotham Adventures #17—only our second issue working together:

Look at how clear, how elegant, yet how interesting this page is.

The exterior establishing shot, shot from far away and high above, already indicating the house—mansion, really—is extremely large...and there are unconscious bodies strewn about.

Move in for an interior establishing shot, with another interesting camera angle, another victim in the extreme foreground, others in the background, and more indications of wealth.

The third panel, the first to show actual action, as two more victims are tossed onto an enormous desk, the action ramping things up, the angle straight on for maximum clarity.

Then the final panel, pulling the camera back, although still eye level, with the Batman and not just his deeds at long last on stage, way off to the right of the panel, his antagonist on the far left, their placements drawing a parallel between these two characters, both largely in shadow and yet the antagonist's wheelchair highlighting the obvious difference.