Batman Vs Frank Miller

5 July 2007 must have been the most productive day in my short comic strip scripting career, as you'll find out over the next few days/weeks or so when I'm posting up strips ALL written on the specific date. I was just on a roll with ideas pouring out of my mind. This was the very first one I wrote on that day:

Something always irked me about this panel from Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder:


Now, the bloody title of the comic itself is freaking long and it annoyed the hell out of me already. But to have this kind of panel, where the Batman speaks out of character? He refers to himself as "goddamn"?! Outrageous! He insults Dick Grayson and calls him "dense" and "retarded"?! Blasphemy.

And for it to be written by one Frank Miller, the master scribe, the man who penned two of the most CLASSIC Batman tales of all time, The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One...geez, how he's lost his touch with the Batty one.

Anyway, the panel had always rubbed me the wrong way, ever since I first set my eyes on it, and I thought it'd be really funny to write a script about Batman interacting with Frank Miller. Sin City was one of the best movies of 2006 and I thought I'd take Batman out of his "comfort" zone of Gotham and put him in ANOTHER city much WORSE than Gotham.

It's kind of a bonus that Theo was ALSO a huge fan of Frank Miller AND the goddamn Batman, so in a way, this script was written FOR him too.

Anyway, here's the script!


Panel 1 - Dialogue box at the top of the panel. Batman is perched atop a roof (either crouched or standing) looking down at the streets

"I can smell the musty thick coat of dried blood on every corner. I can hear the screams of the women being beaten up and raped by big sweaty men. If you walk down the right back alley in this town you can find anything. This city reeks of evil. This city reeks of SIN."


Panel 2 - Image same as the first - figured out where Batman is yet?

Dialogue box: "Gotham is like Metropolis, compared to this cesspool of a town. No one knows fear here. No one has..."

Word balloon coming from off-panel, from the right:
"Oi! What the #$%& are you doing on my set?"


Panel 3 - Batman turns and looks to the right. Frank Miller has walked into the panel.

Batman: "What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman." (Theo, if you could make this appear EXACTLY the way the word balloons appear in All-Star Batman - see the image above - that'd be great!)

Batman: "Who the hell are you?"


Panel 4 - Frank Miller speaks!

Frank: "I'm Frank Miller."


Panel 5 - Both characters just look at each other. Complete silence.


Panel 6 - Batman: "Think I can play Dwight in the next movie, Mr Miller?"