I needed a “heavy hitter” in my portfolio at the time, and how much more iconic could one get than the Clown Prince of Crime himself? Lord knows I had a vast array of looks to choose from, but since i wanted to skew closer to the original looks for comic book based villains, this was the ONLY look I wanted to go for. I threw in a mild hint at Heath Ledger’s in term of costume, but overall I wanted this to be the Joker everyone could recognize. As for the bomb, I didn’t want the timer to be your typical “this guy’s crazy and has it set to go off in 5 seconds” countdown. So off to Google I went and typed in “when did the Joker first appear?” The countdown is actually the street-date for BATMAN #1, released on April 25, 1940.
11” x 17”
Ink & Digital Color