Batman: The Brave and the Bold - The End

So... Batman: The Brave and the Bold. We've known for some time that the book will be relaunched.  Sadly Eric and I are not involved - which is often the way of these things.

But we do have one more issue, due out in September. It's a team-up with Hal Jordan (see cover below). I actually wrote that issue over a year ago. But scheduling issues lead it to being pushed back multiple times. Still, I am happy with it. One of the few where Eric and I introduced some of our own villains rather than simply use existing characters.

Overall, we had some pretty big plans. More than we would likely ever have been able to execute. But that's how you do it. Seed in what you can in case you have room for it down the road.

Anyway, given a perfect world we would have revealed the truth behind the appearance of The Void - an entity from the realm of Quasi-Space and how he relates to the manifestation of Y'gg Phu Soggoth. And then there's The Moon Gang, straight from our Supergirl book - How did they manage to escape Supergirl's imagination? The return of Cat-Man and The Secret Society of the Black Mask. Time traveling Batman and Robin of the past visiting the strange world of the present. The fate of Two-Face. Brainiac. The Question. Flamebird. Alot more Riddler. A strange visitor from another planet who holds the fate of all reality in the palm of their hand...

Honestly, there's no way that would have all wound up in the series. But it's a Batman comic. How could we not spend our days making plans for possible stories?

I think one of the things I really enjoyed most with this book was the challenge of fitting the series to feel of the TV show. The 3 page cold start opening was a mandate with the structure of the series, and I only kind of broke that rule once, in the Christmas issue. Eric and I conceived of a proper title break between the cold start and the main story, to further emulate the feel of the the cartoon (giving up two-thirds of a page to do so). It also was a nice little signature of our own that we could put on the book. No other issue used that structure.

A second device we favored was relying on Batman's "inner dialog". I know that narrated comics have been done a bit to death in this day and age, and in more than 15 years of writing comics, this was my first concession to that particular style of story telling. Eric and I both believed that by focusing more heavily on that inner voice, we could replicate the feel of the TV show more. Despite there actually not being much inner dialog for Batman on the cartoon.

I will miss working on this book. It was the culmination of a lifetime dream. And while I wish we had gotten to do more, it's hard to complain when - for an entire year - we got to do a Batman comic.

Here's the covers to the issues we produced from September 2009 to September 2010. We're pleased to be part of the series that Grant Morrison listed as one of his favorites and called "beautifully written and just great." We're grateful to the many, many, many positive reviews and also the support of editors Michael Siglain and Harvey Richards.




Currently, Eric and I are working on a new creator owned project titled: "The Danger Club" an image of which can be seen on the left. It's a series involving teenage superheroes and the end of the world. More news on that later.

I'm also still writing The Incredibles, which is almost at the point in the series where everything goes completely crazy. Also: I have a collaboration with Dean Koontz in the form of an Odd Thomas Manga, due out in 2012.

There will be more news, and hopefully soon. In the meantime, we have a Facebook page now, in association with Idiot Ink. Also, at the urging of Franco I have a Twitter account. I'm (not) sure that given time, I will produce tweets that are more interesting than: "Updated my blog. Played video games".