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Recreating Mr. Camera.

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Landry Q. Walker
Some years ago, I stumbled across a little known Batman villain named Mr. Camera. I'm a big fan of weird theme villains. And so for years, bringing back Mr. Camera has been a big plan of mine.

Here's a how he originally appeared:



He wears a camera on his head and he's got the creepiest eyes in the history of Batman villains. So, as soon as Eric and I landed our Batman book, petitioning for this characters return was my number one priority. I really wanted to pull this character out of limbo and show what a great Batman villain he could be. Luckily, my editor on this book trusts me (for some reason) and I wrote the script for issue 14 of Batman: the Brave and the Bold last August.

Now, one of the things I like to do is have action figures handy of characters I am writing. It just helps me visualize things. But Mr. Camera had not appeared anywhere for almost 60 years. One 6 page comic that he was barely even in. That was it.

So I made my own Mr. Camera figure. As seen here:



And here:



The character in my head gave every appearance of being harmless and goofy. But if you live in a world where theme villains run the streets every day, what better way to be underestimated than to appear a simple theme villain. Furthermore, in the time since Mr. Camera debuted, Camera's have become a much more dominant part of our lives. So imagining a more sinister motivation and a more dangerous approach to the villain was easy.

Subsequently, this was what we created:



Keep in mind, we work months in advance. This book was finished quite some time ago. And in that time, I have eagerly awaited being responsible for the first ever appearance of Mr. Camera in almost 60 years.

Then Mr. Camera appeared as a background villain in the cartoon my comic is based on. The character is in limbo for 59 years and then, only a couple of weeks before my book comes out...  I guess the positive thing to take from this is that Eric and I are coming from a very similar position as the developers of the show.

Here's an image from Mr. Camera' s recent television appearance.



Ah well. I'm glad they kept his crazy eyes.
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Comments

  1. BeatrizMarch 22, 2013 at 10:55 PM

    Dear Landry Walker:

    I also love those wacky villains from yesteryear, and I am very happy that you had chose Mr. Camera to reintroduce him to Batman´s universe.

    Only today I have discovered your site, but I want to tell you that I enjoyed BTBATB # 14, and I think you did a great work making Mr. Camera a Stalker Without a Crush.

    Sadly, now the comic book has been cancelled, but I want to thank you for all the fun you brought to my life with this little story.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 19, 2020 at 8:24 PM

    Awesome, I really like Mr Camera, Lucky for you he was brought back in 2020 in Harley Qunn villain of the year

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 7, 2020 at 6:16 PM

    What did you use to make him what peices and what figure did you use to make him

    ReplyDelete

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