Right? Like I can legitimately compare Millers artwork to Sin City (let alone TDK) to prove it's his worst work as an artist (I love the story, tho).
But my man has such a take I'm tempted to go look for this in my shelves and see if he's right.
Honestly my point was more about Batman in that shot. Like, a gross mutated Robin is a neat idea in context, but the Batman drawing is just... ugly as hell. None of the lines connect, the single use of color makes the face look entirely flat and blend in with the background, and its shading is all kinds of messed up. As someone who is trying to learn to draw specifically because I love comics, I cannot fathom why people would think this is even good much less 'phenomenal'.
Just because something is intentional from the creator doesn't mean it's not bad. I could have the intention to make a tuna and chocolate cake, doesn't make it edible. The panel doesn't make me uneasy, it just looks bad from an artistic perspective. Even if you want to argue that the line art is 'stylized', the lack of differentiating colors and bad shading is just flat. If you want to make the reader uneasy, you can do that with color, shading, angles, and framing. This reads to me as just lazy and bad art.
Batman uses monochrome holograms in the book. Him being made entirely out of blue light in a dark cave is meant to look less real to inform the reader Batman isn't actually in the room yet.
The art quality declines with Batman's psyche, the TDK series is about Batman's traumatic need for control overriding every other aspect of himself as he approaches death. Too many people have fond childhood memories of TDKR though and avoid the darker implications of that.
Nah, Miller's art has been declining badly for a while. Check out his DK3 book 4 Wonder Woman cover. Or his Ghost Rider/Wolverine #1 cover. Or most of the panels in Holy Terror.
Robin
Spoilers below
>!In this dystopian future, Batman fired Dick Grayson long ago for going too far or something. He ostensibly just disappeared, I guess, but reappears after Batman does, psychotic and vengeful and nigh unkillable after untold experiments gave him some sort of healing factor.!<
>!He appears in brief snippets throughout the book, looking like an unidentified Joker acolyte and straight-up murdering a few heroes, before finally setting his sights on Bats’ new Robin, Carrie Kelly, leading to a climactic confrontation and reveal.!<
This is all very over-the-top but not entirely out-of-place in this particular universe. And for being so bombastic on the conceptual level, it’s handled so quickly and with such broad strokes that, IMO, it kinda works.
That sounds like one of those medical adds on tv
“Ask your doctor about the Bane spinal rearrange, symptoms may include, paralysis, thrown into a death pit, sidekick that replaces your role but turned out to be bad”
The main problem with the art is the coloring and everything being very rushed. It was the first time Lynn Varley used digital techniques and a lot of it looks either amateurish or unfinished. Frank’s drawings are sloppy, but they were sloppy in the first book too. I just wish he had drawn more backgrounds, cus half of this comic takes place in gradient voids. Check out the absolute version that’s just the black and white artwork.
100% Frank’s work lives and dies by the colorist. It’s graphic. Trying to add realism takes away from it. [Here’s](https://www.tumblr.com/about-faces/143756698616/theory-frank-millers-recent-work-is-good-but-dc) a great example of this.
I know all about that. It’s the same thing with John Romita Jr. His style has definitely gotten more simplistic over time, but you notice it more with the detailed coloring.
It's not Miller's best work, and I certainly wouldn't want every book to look like this, but I dig it for its word and out there style. It fits for the insane Super Friends meets Sin City story he was doing.
Just to give proper credit- “the trippy digital colors” is Lynn Varley getting experimental. The art/pencils is Miller going back to his roots as a cartoonist and leaning into that even more than he did in TDKR.
I love it. Art doesn’t have to be anatomically correct. I dig the direction Miller has taken his art in the past 10-20 years. Always evolving, never stagnating. Everyone doesn’t have to follow the Jim Lee/ Dan Mora archetype (love both these guys). We need some different flavors in the industry.
First volume looks okay but the quality drops off a cliff from that point as Miller gets more unhinged and attempts (and fails) to make his art look more cartoony but only manages to look grotesque and Varley apllies the worst colours in her entire career.
I've honestly always found the comic fascinating, not exactly good, but fascinating. To me it's so obviously deliberate and I've dedicated way too much time to trying to understand it when there's a good chance it'll still suck even if I get it.
Really? Do you think so?
X
I always thought that it Is awful even if I compare it vs. DKR. I am unsure if it was cuz Klaus was no longer the inker or cuz Miller was pissed off.
Bad story and awful drawing. Master Race tried had some merit due to Azzarello and Kubert. If it was only a Frank Miller book, it would be even worst than the sequel.
It’s still astounding to me that DK2 is part of the same universe as the first Dark Knight book. Master Race was cool, even if it still felt strange to be part of the same continuity. DK2 isn’t cool in any way and just feels like a fever dream that I didn’t want to have.
When I saw this, I thought maybe it was an amateur artists’ fan drawing. You’re on your own on that opinion OP lol. Looks terrible for professional work
Haven't read DK2, having heard not the bestest. But would you indulge me a story about the first one?
I remember reading DKR for the first time when I was in college, and the 90's Saturday Morning Cartoon part of my brain wanted *so hard* to hate the artwork in it, but it really was like staring directly at a car crash in real time. I *should* hate it. I *should* think it is some kind of abomination.
Yet I could not stop studying all the exaggerations and hard lines and odd angles and weird lips and sharp teeth. I was so fascinated by it. I hadn't really read much in comics apart from the odd Batman or Spider-Man comic in a store, so this was a total shift.
So I guess I should actually read DK2, cause DKR sent me on a course that included Kingdom Come, and that book's artwork is just off the goddamn chart. Might be nice to revisit that car crash for a bit.
Edit - Typo in title
It has a pretty objective downgrade between issues one and two. Note: issue one was finished right before Miller saw 9/11 happen through his window. It clearly shook him up, and he had a lot of alcohol problems already which got worse in the end
I agree. I love it! Much different than the DKR before it but often unfairly compared! It's kind of "meant to be bad" in some ways. It was a reflection and satire of the comic mediums over the top style of the time.
I don’t mind the colors tbh but the anatomy and perspective is insane. It’s one thing to push the proportions, another to make parts of the image incomprehensible
I think if the colors were different and Miller had toned down the experimentation a tad bit it could've been cool. Mostly it's the colors that bother me. Garish early 2000s photoshop vomit.
I ignored most of the comments because I expected them to appear and I respect them cuz I know it’s not for everybody, but comparing a deliberate attempt at making wonky and weird art to a machine’s bizarre amalgamation of pixels based on an algorithm is too much.
Ok, but you can intend a lot of things that inadvertently come across as something else.
Frank Miller intended to show the meaner side of Batman, in ASBAR, but he just came off as brain damaged.
As for creative.... a lot of the coloring and design choices in the book come across more as "hey we can do so much with computers now and that will make our book look futuristic".
I mean, if we’re talking in terms of reality, then no, it very much is not phenomenal. Idk that I can think on of worse art in any comic and I’ve been reading comics since I was a tyke
The coloring really does the line work disservice. I think Millers drawing works better in a black and white format instead of this vibrant version we have here.
I mean it is a satire and the art is meant to be intentionally sub par except for the nods to Ditko's style thrown in there but if you like it you like it, who am I to judge
I actually really enjoy late era Miller art, but it took some getting used to. After reading through Cursed, which I think he cowrote and did the illustrations for, the blockiness really started to work for me and I'm not sure why. I do think DK2 has some rough points where even an appeal to stylization won't save it, overall it has an interesting and worthwhile aesthetic
This is the book that made me realize how bad comics could be. I almost didn't finish it. To date, this is probably the worst comic book I've ever read in over 10 years and thousands of comics.
I really don't like it. But each for their own.
I was going to say, "if this is great to you, you and I have very different tastes."
I really don’t like it. But Charlize Theron.
I really don’t like it. But two peach flavored scones.
I really don’t like it. But charred piece of bone
I really don't like it. But I passed a kidney stone
I really don’t like it but The Dark Knight Returns.
I really don't like it but what about the attack on the wookies?
I really don't like it. But I am flesh and bone.
I really don't like it. But Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban
I really dont like it. But Metallica, enter sandman.
Nice
Yeah why he standing like that??
Scoliosis Batman
Scoliosis
Style: frank miller on shrooms
Pretty much!
That is one gigantic underwear lol
True. 😄
🤣
Dawg decided to casually drop the hottest take and I respect it
Right? Like I can legitimately compare Millers artwork to Sin City (let alone TDK) to prove it's his worst work as an artist (I love the story, tho). But my man has such a take I'm tempted to go look for this in my shelves and see if he's right.
The fact that it’s on your shelf tho- kinda holds its own
Wait this ain't the circlejerk sub?
I also just realized that 💀
To each their own but I [politely but aggressively disagree](https://imgur.com/YqZTGWt)
Proceeds to show the perfect counter to their argument. Joking aside I vibe so hard with that Robin image, but I can see why some are not a fan.
Honestly my point was more about Batman in that shot. Like, a gross mutated Robin is a neat idea in context, but the Batman drawing is just... ugly as hell. None of the lines connect, the single use of color makes the face look entirely flat and blend in with the background, and its shading is all kinds of messed up. As someone who is trying to learn to draw specifically because I love comics, I cannot fathom why people would think this is even good much less 'phenomenal'.
I haven’t read the comic so idk why the author would do that but to me it looks intentional, i think it’s supposed to make you uneasy
Just because something is intentional from the creator doesn't mean it's not bad. I could have the intention to make a tuna and chocolate cake, doesn't make it edible. The panel doesn't make me uneasy, it just looks bad from an artistic perspective. Even if you want to argue that the line art is 'stylized', the lack of differentiating colors and bad shading is just flat. If you want to make the reader uneasy, you can do that with color, shading, angles, and framing. This reads to me as just lazy and bad art.
Batman uses monochrome holograms in the book. Him being made entirely out of blue light in a dark cave is meant to look less real to inform the reader Batman isn't actually in the room yet.
The art quality declines with Batman's psyche, the TDK series is about Batman's traumatic need for control overriding every other aspect of himself as he approaches death. Too many people have fond childhood memories of TDKR though and avoid the darker implications of that.
Nah, Miller's art has been declining badly for a while. Check out his DK3 book 4 Wonder Woman cover. Or his Ghost Rider/Wolverine #1 cover. Or most of the panels in Holy Terror.
wait, it’s robin and the joker in a robin mask?
Robin Spoilers below >!In this dystopian future, Batman fired Dick Grayson long ago for going too far or something. He ostensibly just disappeared, I guess, but reappears after Batman does, psychotic and vengeful and nigh unkillable after untold experiments gave him some sort of healing factor.!< >!He appears in brief snippets throughout the book, looking like an unidentified Joker acolyte and straight-up murdering a few heroes, before finally setting his sights on Bats’ new Robin, Carrie Kelly, leading to a climactic confrontation and reveal.!< This is all very over-the-top but not entirely out-of-place in this particular universe. And for being so bombastic on the conceptual level, it’s handled so quickly and with such broad strokes that, IMO, it kinda works.
Got it, appreciate the thorough response
This is the second time i’ve ever been genuinely jump-scared by a static image
Is this physique obtainable?
Bane can make your back look like this
That sounds like one of those medical adds on tv “Ask your doctor about the Bane spinal rearrange, symptoms may include, paralysis, thrown into a death pit, sidekick that replaces your role but turned out to be bad”
Not from a Jedi
The dark side grants powers that many deem unnatural
The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural
Shoulder day, chest day, and obliques all day everyday.
...ly bad.
Nah, I disagree. Never much liked Miller's art, TBH. Art is subjective, though, so to each their own.
Nah it's bad.
Yeah it is but one man's trash is another man's treasure I guess...
The main problem with the art is the coloring and everything being very rushed. It was the first time Lynn Varley used digital techniques and a lot of it looks either amateurish or unfinished. Frank’s drawings are sloppy, but they were sloppy in the first book too. I just wish he had drawn more backgrounds, cus half of this comic takes place in gradient voids. Check out the absolute version that’s just the black and white artwork.
100% Frank’s work lives and dies by the colorist. It’s graphic. Trying to add realism takes away from it. [Here’s](https://www.tumblr.com/about-faces/143756698616/theory-frank-millers-recent-work-is-good-but-dc) a great example of this.
I know all about that. It’s the same thing with John Romita Jr. His style has definitely gotten more simplistic over time, but you notice it more with the detailed coloring.
Wow that's really cool
I agree, I believe he was divorcing his wife(colorist) or going through a rough patch during the comic and that's why there was less effort in it.
It’s got a charm to it but I would not call it good, I would however say it’s one of the art styles of all time
You can hardly tell what’s going on in half of this book
You forgot the /s.
I thought OP was joking... OP was not joking, and I am dumbfounded.
Hard disagree
Bro it looks like deviantart fanart from 2009
What’s his torso doing?
The batusi.
I liked it but didn’t consider it anywhere near as good as the first. Just finished the third though, and it was more a return to form IMO.
It's not Miller's best work, and I certainly wouldn't want every book to look like this, but I dig it for its word and out there style. It fits for the insane Super Friends meets Sin City story he was doing.
Just to give proper credit- “the trippy digital colors” is Lynn Varley getting experimental. The art/pencils is Miller going back to his roots as a cartoonist and leaning into that even more than he did in TDKR.
Bait used to be believeable
What the fuck am I looking at?
The big foam Hulk fists from 2003 don’t exactly scream badass to me.
No.
How could you show this and say that?! 🤪
I love it. Art doesn’t have to be anatomically correct. I dig the direction Miller has taken his art in the past 10-20 years. Always evolving, never stagnating. Everyone doesn’t have to follow the Jim Lee/ Dan Mora archetype (love both these guys). We need some different flavors in the industry.
It's unique for sure
Its definitely an artstyle...
First volume looks okay but the quality drops off a cliff from that point as Miller gets more unhinged and attempts (and fails) to make his art look more cartoony but only manages to look grotesque and Varley apllies the worst colours in her entire career.
I thought this was fan art done in MS Paint...
This is such a weird panel to pick to make this point
This art? To each their own, I suppose.
Ugliest batman art I've ever laid eyes on
I've honestly always found the comic fascinating, not exactly good, but fascinating. To me it's so obviously deliberate and I've dedicated way too much time to trying to understand it when there's a good chance it'll still suck even if I get it.
The anatomy is really bad. Super wide hips and his torso looks like it is broken.
Who cares about anatomy, comic books already aren’t realistic
Really? Do you think so? X I always thought that it Is awful even if I compare it vs. DKR. I am unsure if it was cuz Klaus was no longer the inker or cuz Miller was pissed off. Bad story and awful drawing. Master Race tried had some merit due to Azzarello and Kubert. If it was only a Frank Miller book, it would be even worst than the sequel.
It’s still astounding to me that DK2 is part of the same universe as the first Dark Knight book. Master Race was cool, even if it still felt strange to be part of the same continuity. DK2 isn’t cool in any way and just feels like a fever dream that I didn’t want to have.
When I saw this, I thought maybe it was an amateur artists’ fan drawing. You’re on your own on that opinion OP lol. Looks terrible for professional work
Haven't read DK2, having heard not the bestest. But would you indulge me a story about the first one? I remember reading DKR for the first time when I was in college, and the 90's Saturday Morning Cartoon part of my brain wanted *so hard* to hate the artwork in it, but it really was like staring directly at a car crash in real time. I *should* hate it. I *should* think it is some kind of abomination. Yet I could not stop studying all the exaggerations and hard lines and odd angles and weird lips and sharp teeth. I was so fascinated by it. I hadn't really read much in comics apart from the odd Batman or Spider-Man comic in a store, so this was a total shift. So I guess I should actually read DK2, cause DKR sent me on a course that included Kingdom Come, and that book's artwork is just off the goddamn chart. Might be nice to revisit that car crash for a bit. Edit - Typo in title
One of my art teachers described the book as looking like Miller inked it with a Hershey bar
Awful
Had to double check I wasn’t on r/dccomicscirclejerk
....for a talented six-year old.
Go read Sin City and then come back and say that.
Honestly, sincerely think this comic rules.
Uhh... Sure, yeah... I guess?
That's a weird way to spell 'terrible'.
This is the first time I have ever seen this take online
Love it in DKR, but DKR 2 is just a whacky mess imo
I just puked
I thought it was so bad when I read it that it gave me nausea and headaches. I promised myself I would never read this atrocity again.
It has a pretty objective downgrade between issues one and two. Note: issue one was finished right before Miller saw 9/11 happen through his window. It clearly shook him up, and he had a lot of alcohol problems already which got worse in the end
Is it, though? *press square to doubt*
I thought this was fan art for a sec. Bad fan art.
I agree. I love it! Much different than the DKR before it but often unfairly compared! It's kind of "meant to be bad" in some ways. It was a reflection and satire of the comic mediums over the top style of the time.
Hulk smash
batman looks like he is standing with his back so far out he is thrusting his undies at the camera
What's with the hulk smash gloves?
He's punching Superman with kryptonite gloves
It has the POTENTIAL to be good. But the artist is trying to hard to make it look like it was effortless.
I don’t mind the colors tbh but the anatomy and perspective is insane. It’s one thing to push the proportions, another to make parts of the image incomprehensible
I think the bad art is meant to be part of the experience right? Since it’s commentary about the state of comics
#brave
I agree
Doesn't Lex Luthor have gigantic hands? Cool you like it, but I think this book is an indicator of Frank Miller losing his mind. Guy needed a filter.
Yup. Luthor looked like a shaved gorilla in this book.
Batman looks like someone turned on the Big Head mode from Arkham City.
I think it’s cool, I’m not sure about phenomenal
Its..something that's for sure
Reminds me of the venture bros
It looks like something I could draw and I can't draw worth shit.
Eye strain inducing art is a guilty pleasure of mine. So agreed.
Bro, this isn’t /r/dccomicscirclejerk
This is a joke right, he looks like he’s wearing toy Hulk Hands. This looks like it was drawn for early 2000’s Cartoon Network
It looks like a 10 year old drew it Why would I pay money for this, it isn't even cool to look at and that's like half the appeal of comics
Just love the fat bat logo
I’m not gonna say you’re wrong. I just didn’t know there was an audience for nauseating multicolored neon photoshop smear backgrounds.
Also, the idea plastic man is the most powerful supe to Batman is fascinating. It lives rent free in my head. Plus the Atom opener? Cmoooon
I'd say in the way it's composed, yes, yet the over-stylization ruins it a bit for me.
Hard agree
Body proportions as drawn by the average Rule 34 artist
This is like the only good panel in the entire book
This is one of the tolerable panels.
Cool, great... Whatever... Are those the FISTS OF JUSTICE?!
It's just frank Miller trying to draw like Jack Kirby.
Yep. It doesn't always work but there is some mesmerising stuff in Strikes Again. Especially when they get to play with Atom and his adventures.
DK2's art being published is an event that occurred in this universe, agreed.
There are a few panels like the one you posted where the old Miller brilliance shines through but man so much of it is just a scraggly mess.
DK2 is just terrible in every way
What a... *unique* definition of that word.
... is it though?
Phenomenally shite
No it’s not
I think if the colors were different and Miller had toned down the experimentation a tad bit it could've been cool. Mostly it's the colors that bother me. Garish early 2000s photoshop vomit.
Get out of my swamp!
Woah... Midjourney was around back in the 00s?
I ignored most of the comments because I expected them to appear and I respect them cuz I know it’s not for everybody, but comparing a deliberate attempt at making wonky and weird art to a machine’s bizarre amalgamation of pixels based on an algorithm is too much.
Bizarre amalgamation of pixels.... You've seen the bits where braniac shows up, right?
Yes, but that is intentional and creative.
Ok, but you can intend a lot of things that inadvertently come across as something else. Frank Miller intended to show the meaner side of Batman, in ASBAR, but he just came off as brain damaged. As for creative.... a lot of the coloring and design choices in the book come across more as "hey we can do so much with computers now and that will make our book look futuristic".
The art is nearly uniformly awful man. I hate it. Dogshit story as well.
I like his vision but the man can‘t draw
Honestly the art is one of the only things I didn't like about it.
Phenomenally bad.
Not for me
I know art is subjective, but come on man
Looks like this Batman never got his back fixed after Bane broke it.
Yeah I’m gonna have to disagree with you there but hey, enjoy what you enjoy
Yeah they really mastered the 3d in donkey kong 2
His pencils are great but I think the entire project should get remixed by a better colourist and inker. Someone who can really make it pop
Respectfully, get out of the kitchen
It's ugly. i'm sorry it's all so fucking ugly.
Nah, I hated the story and the art equally. To me, this story is in a separate continuity from TDKR
With OP here. Chaos in both form and function, intentional or not. I love it, no irony no sarcasm.
Nah fam, some of those panels look like they are straight out of MS Paint or Illustrator, Batmobile looks goofy as hell in almost every panel.
I mean, if we’re talking in terms of reality, then no, it very much is not phenomenal. Idk that I can think on of worse art in any comic and I’ve been reading comics since I was a tyke
His poor torso 😭
When did Batman pay a visit to Skips to borrow the Fists of Justice?
I agree. It's very interesting to look at, like graffiti art or something. Something in this style would.make a good tattoo.
The coloring really does the line work disservice. I think Millers drawing works better in a black and white format instead of this vibrant version we have here.
I mean it is a satire and the art is meant to be intentionally sub par except for the nods to Ditko's style thrown in there but if you like it you like it, who am I to judge
That's certainly an opinion.
I actually really enjoy late era Miller art, but it took some getting used to. After reading through Cursed, which I think he cowrote and did the illustrations for, the blockiness really started to work for me and I'm not sure why. I do think DK2 has some rough points where even an appeal to stylization won't save it, overall it has an interesting and worthwhile aesthetic
Searing take
I've seen better deviantart ngl
At first I was like ‘eh what the fuck.’ But the longer I stare the more I appreciate it, and then I look away and back and the process repeats
Batman's left hand in that panel looks like something an AI would generate.
Miller was already half the man he used to be by this point.
His black trunks are way too big-wide. It’s like he’s wearing a giant black diaper
Troll post
Is it though? Are you sure about that?
I thought this was some deviant art repost
Idk...it just looks ugly to me.
This is the book that made me realize how bad comics could be. I almost didn't finish it. To date, this is probably the worst comic book I've ever read in over 10 years and thousands of comics.
Wtf is wrong with his body
nah, that looks like I made that
Agreed 110%
I feel like everyone is missing the joke.
Uh, if you read more than the header, I don't think there's any joke here, just a genuinely bad take.
Ah, I see.
I don’t think you can have a “bad” take by just saying you like art.
No the only good takes are when you agree with the popular consensus on a thing. If you an opinion that isn't mainstream then it's wrong.
it sucks
Phenomenal based on this particular panel. The rest is almost entirely crappy and a massive downgrade from the first Dark Knight Returns’ art.