D: Yeesh…
K: What’s up, Slim? You’re looking a bit whiter than usual. What’s the matter, your Docker pants not as wrinkle-free as you like them to be? ::snicker::
D: WhaHUH? Wrinkled pants? Ah, CRAP.
K: HA HA MALMON WRINKLE PANTS HA HA
D: Ok, this day sucks.
K: Toughen up, Malmon. Your pants will be ok. But really, what’s wrong? You do look a bit pasty.
D: You know what’s some twisted shit? I just binge watched THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. I feel like I’ve got angels getting their wings while they’re invading Christmas Town while Bob Cratchit the Frog commits suicide and sees what the world would be like if he was never born. And then they all repent the next day and pay the boy to get the biggest Christmas goose ever.
Don’t do drugs, kids. Just binge watch Christmas movies.
K: Damn, son. You’re the best Christmas loving Jew I know.
D: Right? It’s like I always say, “Nothing says Christmas like a good ghost story.”
K: You’ve never said that.
D: I just did. And I’ll say it again…
K: You like ghost stories so much? Then it must be Christmas, because the best Batman comic not starring Batman just came out. I was going to put it in your stocking, but I couldn’t get the bag ‘n board to fit in there. If I just bend the corners a little, it might fit…
D: NOOO!!! You’re gonna break it! Just hand it over. Gently.
K: ::slowly slides comic book across table:: There are no angels or talking frogs in GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT, but it’s a great ghost story.
D: “Nothing says Christmas…
K: Just read the book already.
…
K: ::gorging self on chocolate covered potato chips:: Whaddya think? Outstanding stuff, right? ::reaches for comic book::
D: DON’T!! You’re gonna get chocolate all over it! This book is too good for you to get it all gummed up. When you said the title was GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT, I thought for sure it would be about the Dark Knight and his late night activities, but I was wrong about that.
K: The Bat appears in only a handful of panels and does not star in the book. Writer Ray Fawkes uses this title as a way to showcase District Thirteen of the Gotham City Police Department. This 4 man crew of 2 detectives and two specialists investigates supernatural activity in the city.
D: We always knew that something was off about Gotham. There’s no way a city could maintain that level of corruption without something bigger at work. A different kind of darkness lurks in the shadows of the city.
K: In the book, District Thirteen Detectives Drake and Corrigan (whom only the Batman knows is the supernatural agent the Spectre) investigate 2 girls who had been abducted and returned to their parents unharmed. The GCPD does a quick once over and everything checks out. No harm, no foul, no crime to be charged here. So say the police.
D: But they are wrong! Harm was done, there was a foul, and a crime may have occurred! Now the girls speak in a long forgotten language that no one understands. Corrigan calls in his specialist, the nun Sister Justine, to assist while he investigates where the girls were abducted, Slaughter Swamp State Park.
K: I can tell you right now, that with a name like that, nothing good happens at Slaughter Swamp State Park.
D: Solomon Grundy was born there.
K: On a Monday. Still doesn’t sound like a place I’d like to picnic. And it’s here, in the swamp, that Detective Corrigan uncovers a frightening school house. As you would expect, the District Thirteen crew has found something that Batman probably can’t defeat with his Batarangs and giant penny.
D: Fawkes captures the essence of Gotham and the Dark Knight with the tale from a different corner of Batman Universe. District Thirteen is under investigation by Internal Affairs because someone at the Central Office thinks the team may be a front for accounting fraud. An obvious assumption, since they have never logged a single arrest.
K: Ya’ gotta put up the numbers. Otherwise, your boss just keeps leaning on ya’.
D: This is a damn good book. I’ve been missing the vibe that the old school Vertigo books used to put out. Horror books that respected the reader’s intelligence, with art that is imaginative and unique.
K: The art! My goodness, Ben Templesmith is amazing. At once simple and complex, his work conveys a moody atmosphere that really pulls you in. More Templesmith, please!
D: This book is amazing. Mr. Fawkes? Mr. Templesmith? We are ready for the next issue, please.
