Courtney Crumrin and the Knight Kingdom.

See the finished piece and the sketches throughout this post? Click to see them bigger. Chances are, if you follow comics websites, you probably have at least seen this excellent illo by now. They're all by a personable fellow by the name of Ted Naifeh, whose name should be familiar to you through his wonderful Courtney Crumrin series Oni Press releases, as well as his Burton-meets-Barrie Polly and the Pirates (from Oni as well), and stints drawing Nocturnals spinoffs for Dan Brereton, as well as the first place I saw his stuff, the goth-oriented Gloom Cookie. He is quite simply one of the best artists (and a damn good writer as well) in the field right now, in my opinion; his style is distinctive and idiosyncratic-- you won't mistake it for anyone else's-- with dynamic poses, adroit staging, and sharply realized expressiveness in his figures. As an inker he is a master of contrasts and blackspotting, in the same discussion with the likes of Mignola and Jaime Hernandez, to name a couple. Guess you can tell I am an admirer.

So when I see, on his website's blog, that he is putting these illustrations and sketches out there just in hopes, hat in hand, fer chrissakes-- that someone at DC might deign to give him some work...well, that just blows my head right off my shoulders. From where I sit, why in God's name wouldn't they want him to take a shot at a character, who, along with his extended family, has proved itself to be extremely amenable to widely (and wildly) different interpretations, from the stodgy old Sheldon Moldoff, bland Irv Novick, and dynamic Jim Aparo to the grotesqueries of Kelley Jones and angular Marshall Rogers, from the Kirby-worshipping nostalgia of a Bruce Timm or Darwyn Cooke to the 70's funk of a Neal Adams or Dick Giordano? They should have been calling his number a long time ago- can you imagine the recent Batman: RIP series with Naifeh's art, with the imagination he could bring to bear in interpreting Morrison's scripts, instead of the barely-competent and resolutely mired-in-DC-House-Style-circa-1987 Tony Daniel?

I don't know. Perhaps it's the DC editors' reluctance to look outside the superhero-creators' community; Naifeh may be regarded as an "Indie Guy", and not suitable for a Batman comic, any more than a Seth or Dan Clowes, unless they condescend to start up another Bizarro Comics-type anthology. If so, this, I think, is a mistake. Perhaps they think Naifeh's style would be a turnoff for the modern comic shop patron, who thinks George Perez or (shudder) Ed Benes is the absolute apex of everything comic book superhero art should be. As Ian Anderson once stated on the inside of one of his Jethro Tull albums, "People are geared towards the average rather than the exceptional". Perhaps Naifeh has only just now made his intentions clear, and the brain trust didn't know. By taking this tack, I hope Naifeh has made them aware!

So yeah, not to put too fine a point on it, but I sincerely hope to see a Batman series or story or something with Naifeh illustration work someday. I won't stand on one foot waiting, because it just makes too much sense. But a guy can hope, can't he?

And while I'm at it, even though the man himself has told me he has no interest in the character, I would absolutely love to see a Shade (you know, from Starman) series with James Robinson scripts and Naifeh art. Oh yes, I have a dream.