A Literary Analysis on "The Killing Joke"

The Killing Joke, a Literary Analysis

For this literary analysis I chose to look at The Killing Joke, written by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Out of all the books I own, my comic book collection makes up at least 75% of it. Out of that 75%, I can honestly say that The Killing Joke has drawn my attention more times than most. I am not one to reread novels, and I find it hard to find one worth reading, especially in this day and age where everything has a movie behind it. I always find myself watching those movies and never picking up the book for fear of already knowing the ending; even when someone says, the book is much better than the film. But that’s never the case when it comes to comic book adaptations. There are so many variations of my beloved characters and stories that it’s almost impossible to find a connection between them and their film correspondents.  Better yet, The Killing Joke’s ending always leaves me questioning what happens after.

People are so quick to disregard comics as a form of literature, not as often now, but they did even more so when they weren’t being projected on the silver screen. However, when we look at the history of the comic book, we can see that they have been deeply rooted in our culture, and have been the benefactors of many novels we have today. The Killing Joke was written in 1988, and this was around the time that comics were taking a drastic overhaul for a new age of readers. It’s important that Batman was no longer seen as the detective portrayed by Adam West, but instead he was becoming much darker and grittier. This was the style of Batman that our generation would fall in love with and what would separate the darkness of Batman from other such heroes as Superman and Wonder Woman. Together, these three would make up the trinity of the DC Comics universe; each acted as a personification that could cross the lines that the others couldn’t.

The Killing Joke might not look like such a literary piece from the outward perspective by reading it once through; honestly, 50 pages of mostly images and very few speech bubbles adds up to about 15 minutes of reading. However, what is literary about it, are the 150+ pages of descriptive writing that Alan Moore originally wrote for those images. As a person who is interested in writing comics for a living, I have to take into consideration that, although the format is much different than the average short story or novel, in order to present my images I have to write in such a way that the artist can visually see every angle of the character in the scene, I have to describe the lighting, the tone, and present how I want this image to lead into the next page; in actuality, the artist becomes my reader. Let’s look at this example of page 5 of The Killing Joke together in connection with what Alan Moore originally wrote.

          “We have now pulled back further into the cell so that we can see the Batman full figured as he stands facing us in front of the now-completely-closed door, still with the light behind his head as he stands with the barred window positioned neatly behind his cowl, throwing his face into darkness. Right in the foreground of the panel we see part of the surface of a fold-down card table that has been folded down from the cell wall and is lit from above by the entrance of an off-panel wall lamp, weak and yellowish and sickly. Entering the panel over on the right are the hands of the person who is sitting just off panel in that direction, facing towards the left and dealing out a hand of patience. The cards, some of which are visible to us here, are spread out in columns on the small table before him, and he is systematically picking up cards from the deck laying them down on one of the columns. Here, we see him with a card poised, about to lay in down on the end row. His hands have long and clever fingers as they deftly manipulate the cards. They are also chalk-white and completely drained of any trace of living color. Batman just stands by the cell door and stares at both us and the off panel owner of the hands.

(No Dialogue.) (The Killing Joke script – pg 10)

            Now that we have looked at an example of the correlation between words and images, we can begin to understand what other aspects of literacy The Killing Joke has to offer us. The next step is to compare how smoothly scenes in a comic blend into the next. While not as transparent in other comics as it is in The Killing Joke, we are able to transition from one scene into the next without confusing the reader. Let’s look at an example of how this is done in The Killing Joke.”

            Notice how in the last two panels, you have the same elements from the past walking the reader back into the present. This can be done in the same literary fashion done in any short story or novel, but most of the time it is done by page breaks. Throughout the rest of The Killing Joke, every scene change is done in this similar fashion, although not all are as easy to spot, and not all are done in a way that is visually similar; just take a look at this scene for instance.

            Notice how in the last panel of the first page and the first panel of the second page has emphasis on the word “Hate.” This, again, allows another smooth transition for the reader to follow without getting lost, but without the use of the same imagery technique. One final example I want to look at shows the breaking of these bonds between scenes. Throughout the book, up to this point, the scene transitions have been focused on our two main characters, Batman or the Joker. At further inspection, we realize that both of these figures have not been seen on the same page as of yet, or at least not depicted as being on even fighting grounds or in the present time period. Let’s take a look at what happens when these two power houses actually meet.

            Their first encounter is quite smashing, literally. Not only do the images show us the raw power of Batman and the cowardice of the Joker but it gives us the impression that the transitions from scene to scene have finally been broken from this point forward in the story; and it’s not too much of a stretch to say that we have really been reading two stories all along (but if you include the Joker’s origin story, it’s really more like three.)

            Finally, we can take a look at spandrels, foreshadowing, and reoccurring themes that appear in comics. The thing to remember is that when dealing with comics, ‘everything ever written is a potential spandrel.’ Comics, when written well enough, become ‘cannon,’ or solidified as part of a character’s history. These ‘canonical’ moments are what flow in between all of the smaller comics and are usually brought up again at some point of time in the characters history, and most often it occurs when it’s under the pen of a different author. This is a great tool that comic writers use in order to keep their readers interested and coming back for more each month with another publication. When Alan Moore wrote The Killing Joke he was out to write a great story that shared the origin of the Joker; but from it he also spawned another ripple in the DC universe, the paralysis of Barbara Gordon. Barbara Gordon, at the time The Killing Joke was written, was the current Batgirl; but after her encounter with The Joker, she took on the persona of Oracle, a wheel chair bound computer genius, who eventually trains another Batgirl and creates the team The Birds of Prey. It is hard to say whether Alan Moore had anticipated that Barbara Gordon would be paralyzed for as long as she was, but it was only until recent that DC Comics actually rewound the clock on these stories in the “New 52” comic lineup.

            Foreshadowing and reoccurring themes play a large part in The Killing Joke. Near the beginning of the book we see Batman, presumably talking to the Joker, trying to avoid the inevitable.

            What is great about this scene is that, like most of Alan Moore’s work, we see in the first few pages, the end of our story. This isn’t a bad thing by any means, it just makes the journey of how we get there all the more memorable; and we have new appreciation for the methodical nature that the author has for his work. Here is the final confrontation in comparison to Batman’s, supposed, first encounter with the Joker.

            How interesting it is that we have a reversal of roles here. Batman, who is never seen to laugh, is laughing, and it is the Joker who is now on the receiving end of a violent act. This makes a great twist of an ending that if very important when making your mark in the literary world; doing the unthinkable. No one would have ever guessed that Batman would end up doing this to the Joker, although on page 7 he tells us right away that this story was going to end in one of two ways, it’s just that we didn’t want to believe that this is how it did end. Not only does this keep the reader’s attention and on the edge of their seats, but the way it was executed leaves the reader guessing as to what comes next. Again, this story is really about the journey and not the beginning or the end, because we already knew that when started reading.