February 27, 2004
By D.K. Holm
Batman's Dark Night
Don't confuse them with the Coen Brothers, the Farrelly Brothers, the Brothers Quay, or the Hughes Brothers. The Pander Brothers are, arguably, more versatile. Yet at the same time, they some something with each of those fraternal teams.
Since the early 1980s, Jacob and Arnold Pander have done just about everything in the visual arts. They came to national attention first from illustrating Matt Wagner's comic GRENDEL, but then graduated to their own comic, EXQUISITE CORPSE, which had the distinction of being banned in Canada. Their lavish magnum opus, the graphic novel XXX (or TRIPLE X), has a cult following. In addition, the brothers also started up their own art center (the Fuse Gallery, now closed) for progressive and experimental installations, and since then have mounted multi-media events. They've also worked with radio, music, and have made a few films. Jacob directed the underground classic THE OPERATION, and later directed one of the first music video DVDs, called SUCK IT AND SEE, for Palm Pictures. Recently, Jacob completed a feature documentary about their father, the Dutch-born painter Henk Pander. Arnold's most recent endeavor was a series of paintings on velvet (he says that it's a medium harder to work in than you think).
Still, the Pander Brothers are still primarily identified as comic book artists. That identification is certain to be reinforced by the brothers' eight-part DC series BATMAN: CITY OF LIGHT. The first issue (dated December) came out last October, and the whole series wraps up in May, 2004, with paperback publication certain to follow. It's the Brothers' second foray into the Batman mythos, having already done a story called APOCALYPSE GIRL for THE BATMAN CHRONICLES.
As comic book creators, the Panders are known for a fluid drawing style that dwells halfway between Hergé's Tintin and fashion sketching. And as young men who came of age in the late '70s and early '80s, their sensibility is suffused with punk rock, the "downtown" art scene, cyberpunk, radio piracy, sexual liberation, urban tribalism, anti-globalism, utopianism, and dystopianism.
Written with Mark Paniccia (BULLETPROOF MONK) and illustrated in collaboration with Alvaro Lopez (BATGIRL: YEAR ONE), BATMAN: CITY OF LIGHT is an "imaginary tale" in which a prestigious architect named Evan Slate has a scheme for urban improvement that could well put Batman out of business. Meanwhile, a painter called Rahn is trying to get Batman to pose for him and Batgirl is tracking mysterious bomber called Purge.
Recently, MoviePoopShoot sat down with Arnold Pander across a couple of computer monitor sand talked about Batman, working with DC, collaboration in general, and what urban landscapes mean to the brothers.
Did you approach DC to do a Batman comic series or did they approach you?
Jacob and I approached DC comics with our concept. It was initially called, BATMAN: PURGE. It was turned down twice. After bringing in a third writer to help streamline the story, we then gave it a new title, BATMAN: CITY OF LIGHT, and DC finally bit.
So why would you want to approach DC in the first place? What is attractive to a comic book artist about doing a variation on a Batman tradition that has lasted more than half a century?
Firstly It's a real treat to be in the position to take such an institution as Batman into the realm that we have. The conflicted state he finds himself having to come to grips with! His inner beast! We wanted to see him deal with the problem of his dual personas and also the environment that perpetuates his state of mind.
There are certain 'rules' to writing the character that DC sort of insists upon. Our challenge as the creators is to try and push those boundaries to some degree in an attempt to go somewhere uncharted. Once we accounted for the basic continuity of Batman's world, we had a lot of latitude to explore his psyche.
The biggest danger about doing such a known character is probably inciting the wrath of fans that don't want to see their hero depicted in away that doesn't meet certain expectations.
How protective is DC toward their "branding" and their characters and what the fans want?
They're very protective of their over-all continuity and Batman's persona. We had to very clear where we were going and where we would end up. In a lot of ways, this book would not exist if our Editor Bob Schreck didn't believe in it. I would encourage any creator though to push the envelope with this or any other character that is part of our Pop culture milieu. It can get boring if things get too predictable.
They seem to be quite willing to allow artists to play around with the "template" so to speak, to experiment, to do "imaginary tales" based on the characters.
This story is part of the regular Batman continuity, unlike the "Elseworld" Batman stories that give more latitude towards the treatment of the character, but ultimately doesn't have the broader readership. This means we had to keep things in the realm of possibility if we wanted to stay in the mainstream. The logic had to stay within the Batman universe that the other regular books adhere to. The challenge was to achieve this while exploring speculative science and unorthodox characters. We had to ignore the self-imposed limitations that can creep up and concentrate on stimulating the imagination of the reader. Jacob and I have always found a little pleasure in ruffling the feathers of the status quo but we didn't want that to be the motivation either. We just wanted to do an epic Batman story that doesn't hold back and doesn't apologize for going into the fantastic.
So you had a long wrangle with DC to get the assignment. What happened after they approved the project?
Mark Paniccia and I broke down the plot structure (which had been devised in advance) into layouts, which for the most part was my task. Knowing the full arc of the visualization allowed us to script to the layouts. Once the script was done, Jacob and I began the laborious process of penciling the series. The tricky part was doing this from two different cities. We racked up a lot of miles traveling between LA and Portland.
Did DC want all the books done before beginning to publish the series?
Most of it was penciled but Alvaro Lopez started inking pretty late in the game which made us nervous that he'd be rushed. Fortunately, Alvaro really committed himself to the book and captured the energy of our work. If we saw things were getting loose, we were able to check in via email. Alvaro lives in Barcelona, Spain, by the way so we couldn't exactly look over his shoulder.
So breakdown the duties between the two brothers. Who did what in CITY OF LIGHT?
In the past we've had the luxury of laying the books out together. This time distance factored in and I had that duty which influenced things from my end a bit more. Once we decide on the settings, we do some general environmental reference. Obviously since architecture plays such a key role, we scoured the periodical stores for unique interiors and buildings to have an-to-up to date feel. We also will do some limited photo reference for locations that appear more than once. Jacob will then use these images to create the environments on overlays. I, meanwhile, will draw the figures in the panels where the characters dominate the composition on the original pages. I will then draw his composite environments onto the original pages as well and things will start to come together. We do this to keep the pages clean for the inker. Our pages in the past could get pretty dirty once we both had our way with them.
You guys used to do everything yourself, right? Now you have Mark Paniccia and Alvaro Lopez, plus no doubt the full staff of DC helping you. Does that make life easier?
Yeah, this was a new thing bringing in a third writer, but we sort of needed it to shake things up a bit. Jacob and I had already done two versions that were still too large in scope and had too many subplots. We also needed to orient ourselves to the DC supporting characters a bit more. We got pulled into other projects and the story was shelved for a time. When I moved to LA I decided to revisit the project and asked Mark to be involved since I didn't have anyone to bounce new ideas off. Mark had been an editor of ours on some pretty obscure stuff at Malibu Comics and Flypaper Press, but we had a nice rapport and Mark has a keen sense of the superhero genre. He made it easy to really get into the "What the hell, let's have some fun with this" part of comics. We really lucked out with finding an inker like Alvaro, who also is a skilled illustrator in his own right. Not to mention one of the best colorists in the field, Moose Baumann.
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Batman City of Light seems to offer up a "darker" and more inwardly conflicted Batman in the Frank Miller tradition. What's your relationship with the Batman comic book character over the years?
Well, Jacob was obsessed with Batman when we were little and of course I being the younger got to be Robin. Once, Jacob refused to go to school unless he could dress as Batman. I guess that makes him qualified at least. We had a hardbound book that had reprinted the old Bob Kane stories which was always nearby, but the TV show from the '60s was also an early influence. By the time Frank Miller's Dark Knight came out, we were just beginning to start the GRENDEL series in the mid-'80s. Miller's approach to the character was such an inspiration that it became the new bar for the superhero genre. Then he does BATMAN:YEAR ONE, which was amazing on a whole other level. To some extent, CITY OF LIGHT is a tip of the hat to Miller. We hope he approves.
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I like the slacker/artiste/boho/ milieu from which many of the characters emerge, though I'm not sure if that is a new twist that you guys have brought to commercial comics or not. Is it in those aspects of a commercial comic that you get to be "autobiographical," or make social comments?
Maybe it's the first time that a comic has gone as in-depth into the process of an artist. I'm not sure. We grew up around painting. Our dad being a fine artist who immigrated from Europe, and our Mother also a master of fine arts, we have hopped around a number of loft studios in our youth and done more than one painting, so it would be evasive to deny some autobiographic element. We felt that the arts were a kind of neutral and introspective world that Batman would feel comfortable enough to let his guard down. Of course this blows up in his face, but by then, he has already begun the transformation that he cannot reverse. As for social commentary, were trying to let the characterizations dictate attitudes and opinions.
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In your work over the years, you two seem very interested in cities: how they work, the social strata, the underground versus the lords and masters, rebellion from within, and so on. In XXX you have these marvelous cityscapes. Batman City of Light seems very much in conformity with these larger interests. But then also, the Batman comics have also always seemed to be "city oriented." Gotham is always under threat of being overrun by criminal elements, or extinguished completely. So it seems like a good match, Gotham and Panders. This is perhaps the first comic I can think of in which urban planning plays a significant role.
The real battle in CITY OF LIGHT is urban identity: Two different views of how to achieve a similar goal, which is making Gotham safe for its citizens. Batman and Gotham are really symbiotic counterparts and his self-identity influences the fate of Gotham. The seed of this story was to deal with architecture and its psychological implications. Ego plays a big part in both the motivation of Wayne and Slate. This adds to the drama of a conflict of light and darkness. It comes down to the question, Whose city is it? Batman has to reclaim himself before he can reclaim Gotham.
NEXT TIME: Peter Biskind and the '90s!
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