GKO: MADHOUSE
Here you will find our rambalings on all area's of Batman, interviews and speical features!
DC: The Source has more with Grant Morrison on bringing in new characters in Batman and Robin:
I introduced the new Squire and Knight in the pages of JLA back in 1998 and I’ve been slipping them into stories like JLA CLASSIFIED #1-3 and BATMAN #667-669 ever since. For some reason I’ll never be able to explain, this pair have developed a complex, intricate backstory and web of relationships that so far exists solely in my head and is only hinted at in these brief appearances.
My redesign of the Squire was intended to reference the British comics characters Beryl the Peril and Minnie the Minx (these tomboy anarchists headed their own weekly humor strips in the venerable UK titles Topper and Beano respectively), as well as the character “Monkey” from the film Quadrophenia, as played by Toyah Willcox.
Batwoman
I was a huge fan of Greg Rucka and JH Williams’s Batwoman stories in DETECTIVE COMICS and wanted to get the two new characters together as soon as possible. Simple as that.
The Beefeater is an old-time DC hero who once represented the UK in the international Global Guardians hero team. He appeared as the butt of numerous Keith Giffen jokes in JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL and here makes a comeback as the Queen’s Jailer. Beefeater mentions a number of British super-criminals, many of whom were created for an imaginary SQUIRE AND KNIGHT series that’s been growing in the damp undergrowth of my imagination for the last ten years.
The Pearly Court of Crime
Pearly Charlie English and his son Eddie are the only two members of the Pearly Court of Crime, but we can assume there’s a Pearly Queen and some Pearly Princesses too.
The Coals From Newcastle
King Coal was based on a combination of influences, including Arthur Scargill, the miners’ union leader who was Mrs. Thatcher’s nemesis in the 1980s. His henchmen were based on the gang of dancing chimney sweeps led by Dick Van Dyke in Walt Disney’s film of Mary Poppins.
Morris Men
Like the Pearly King, the Morris Men belong to the world of tradition and folklore. Remnants of some unspeakable pagan fertility business, they pin jingling bells to their clothes and hop around hitting one another with sticks. The whole thing is a kind of stylized sword dance which ends when the dancers lock their “swords” together in a star-shaped configuration and “behead” their kneeling leader, who is then restored to life by a comic doctor. Readers familiar with the original film version of The Wicker Man starring Edward Woodward may remember seeing the Morris Men there.
They may seem jolly and bucolic, like a sun-dappled afternoon at a pub next to a canal in the South Downs, but as any British child can tell you there’s something screamingly weird and abnormal about the Morris Men that demanded to be absorbed into the Batman world.
The criminal version of the Morris Men are violent, ninja-like assassins who worship the Horned God.
The Highwayman
Stand and deliver! I saw the Highwayman as a cross between Adam Ant and Russell Brand: a dashing gentleman bastard who plies his devilish trade on the motorways of Britain. He rides his big black stealth cycle alongside tourist coaches, delivery trucks and especially security vans before robbing them blind and making off with the loot.
The Wayne Ancestors
The portraits of the Wayne patriarchs in BATMAN AND ROBIN #10 were all drawn from Batman’s long publishing history, but as usual I missed a couple of established characters.
I missed Lancelot Wayne, one of Bruce’s earliest known ancestors, and Sir Gaweyne de Weyne, who was introduced into the bloodline in 1998 by Alan Grant and Frank Quitely in BATMAN: THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION, as well as a third Revolutionary War hero, General Horatio Wayne, who appeared in BATMAN #120 and takes his place alongside the fictional Darius Wayne (created, I believe, by Alan Moore for a SWAMP THING story) and the real-life “Mad” Anthony Wayne, who was absorbed into Bruce’s family tree by Batman writer extraordinaire Bill Finger.
As for the others, Alan Wayne appears in BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #4, while the stories of Alan’s father Solomon and uncle Joshua were covered in BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #45 and BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #27, and were also alluded to in Christopher Nolan’s film The Dark Knight.
(Source: DC The Source)
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LISTEN TO THIS WEEKS PODCAST ONLINE COVERING NEWS, REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS WITH GUESTS FROM ALL BATMAN INDUSTRIES!
GKO: PODCAST #43
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. 4th to 17th Oct, including Batman: Knightfall Pt11.
GKO: PODCAST #42
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. 20th Sept to 3rd Oct, including Batman: Knightfall Pt10.
GKO: PODCAST #41
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. 13th to Sept 20th, including Batman: Knightfall Pt9.
GKO: PODCAST #40
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. Aug 30th to Sept 12th, including Batman: Knightfall Pt8.
GKO: PODCAST #39
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. Aug 23rd to Aug 29th, including Batman: Knightfall Pt7.
GKO: PODCAST #38
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. Aug 9th to Aug 22nd, including Batman: Knightfall Pt6.
GKO: PODCAST #37
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. Aug 2nd to Aug 8th, including Batman: Knightfall Pt5.
GKO: PODCAST #36
This week we have a new host and review Batman: Under the Red Hood along with all the news from the week.
GKO: PODCAST #35
This is our SDCC '10 coverage special covering all the news from July 19th to July 25th.
GKO: PODCAST #34
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. July 12th to July 18th, including Batman: Knightfall Pt2.
GKO: PODCAST #33
This week we cover the usual news in the Batman Universe. July 5th to July 11th, including Batman: Knightfall Pt1.
GKO: PODCAST #24
This week we interview with artist Lee Garbett to talk about his current run on Batgirl
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