frank quitely joker

This sketch by Frank Quitely has been making the rounds…and why not?:

1 COMMENT

  1. What a coincidence! Just last night I was kvetching in my blog about a while back when I couldn’t find my copy of The Joker #1 from 1975 (I was gonna cash it in when the Heath Ledger craze hit and the prices temporarily spiked).

    As for this sketch… it is suitably creepy. Much more so than he appeared in the 1970s. In that title they were definitely playing down his homicidal tendencies and he was a key villain, but not as psycho as he was to become in the 1980s and beyond.

    This sketch kind of reminds me of the Frank Miller work in the Dark Knight graphic novel because the wrinkled lips make him look a little old here. But still… he’s totally creepy.

  2. You know Frank Quitely hasn’t drawn a comic since 2009?

    And that his next book is a year-long miniseries with Mark Millar of all people?

    Life isn’t fair sometimes

  3. Yeah. I’ve noticed the artist has been absent from the scene for awhile. I was hooked by his work on We3, so I picked up the deluxe edition. When he made the jump to mainstream and Batman, I started to notice his sensibilities fit better with Indy projects. Batman was a little too cookie dough looking for my tastes, likewise this Joker. Creepy looking, but that doughy look makes it feel a little ‘kids book illustrated’ to me, which could be cool in the right story.