Last week, Yannick Belzil sent me a link to Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and Mitch Brian’s series writer’s bible for Batman: The Animated Series, and as the title of this post suggests, it was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I felt I had to bring it to your attention on ComicsAlliance with an in-depth look at what makes it so great!
It’s an incredible read, not just for seeing what it’s like to actually watch three dudes rebuild Batman from the ground up, but because it’s just loaded with Timm’s designs, including some incredible shots that look to be thrown in just to set the mood, like this one:
So give the article a read, and if you’ve got the chance, check out the actual 150-page PDF of the writer’s guide itself. It’s quicker than it sounds (lots of pictures) and well worth reading for any fan of the show.
That is an awesome find.
My copy of the Batman: Animated book is one of my prize possessions. This will go awfully well with it. Thanks!
The cityscapes are amazing.
(Huh — Renee Montoya is a widow, and hates Bruce Wayne. I don’t remember either of those surfacing in episodes; apparently never got farther than the series bible.)
Which — ahem — I would have known if I’d read all of Chris’ article before posting.
I submit myself to Granny’s punishment.
This is the PERFECT resource to ensure that all my Batman/Gordon slash fanfiction is true to the spirit of the animated series! Thanks, Chris!
Thank youi very much for this, I am slowly building my dvd collection of the DCAU atm (Amazon order on it’s way) and its the back end details like this that make it.
May have to print this sucker at work.
Did they ever do the comics based off this as trades?
They did, at least part of them. I’ve never seen them at retail, but I found the first trade of Batman Adventures at a library sale a few months back.
What a fantastic Christmas present. Cheers for pointing this out, Chris!
I find it strangely inconsistent that sometimes they call him “Batman” and at other times “The Batman”. Even they couldn’t stick to one or the other.
I always figure that people who are more familiar with Batman drop the “The,” whereas people on the street would refer to him as “The Batman.” It also seems to be a situational thing, having people refer to him as the Batman when they want to emphasize that he’s more than a man in a suit.
I try to refer to him as “the Batman” when illustrating how frightening he is (because it sounds more menacing)
whereas I usually just say Batman
(probably because im so familiar with him, like Another Scott suggested.)
“Batman” is actually a different guy from “The Batman.” Didn’t you watch the “Almost Got ‘Im” episode? BATMAN IS MULTIPLE GUYS, MAN!!! That’s why BTAS could have some totally awesome episodes where Batman is a feared, dark avenger in the night, and then other episodes like “I’ve Got Batman in My Basement” or “The Underdwellers” where he sucks rocks hard.
For the record, there is also El Batman, L’Homme du Batte, ãƒãƒƒãƒˆç”·, Lepakkoman, ×”×יש בת, Mtu wa Bat, è™è 人, Y Dyn Ystlum, and Batmanarino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
In the show, I remember lots of the low level hoods would refer to him as “The Bat”, which I always thought was cool.
×”×יש בת
is the pun of the day.