Arkham Asylum- Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

Honestly I chose to read Arkham Asylum this week because I had played the video game and I wanted to see what the original was like. I truly was not expecting such an unhinged, claustrophobic, skin crawl-inducing book. The art style was the first thing that struck me. It was very painterly and messy which is atypical for the genre, and it was extremely chaotic. The style reminded me of the covers of some Neil Gaiman books and no surprise, the same illustrator did it. The mix of collage, textures and drawn elements created a visual that played well with the hectic nature of the story. The use of color was also really interesting; everything had a kind of sickly feel, supplemented by the greenish-yellow hues added to characters.

What stuck out to me next was the formatting. The panels were very vertical. Something about the stretched shaped really added discomfort while reading. The format in general was a bit odd; the pages were never really all that consistent. I really liked the device used in the beginning of the book where a single scene will be happening in the background but there are panels running down either the sides or the middle of the page that have a different scene and dialogue playing out. I do not think I’ve seen that anywhere else. It felt very cinematic, almost like a montage or if a scene was having a voice-over.

The story was particularly interesting, as you are seeing the scenes with Batman play out, as well as the history of the asylum and its creator, Amadeus Arkham. These two different stories finally connect at the end with a twist I was not really expecting. Some of the story was a bit hard to follow but over all I think the set up lead to an interesting ending.