Welcome to Art Attack, our series of blogs looking at some of our favourite comic art. Brief and to the point, we pick just one piece to shine a light on.
There's going to be a few Art Attacks looking at the art of Joe Quesadal; he's one of my favourite comic artists and one of only two creators I've tried to collect as much of their work as I can (the other being Chris Ware - talk about opposites!). Unfortunately for me, that became increasingly difficult for Quesada after he became Editor-In-Chief of Marvel in 2000 - his art became mostly limited to variant covers that were often rare and expensive. Nonetheless, my mission continues as I keep my eyes peeled on eBay and comic shop back issue bins for affordable Joe work wherever I can!
The piece I'm looking at today is the cover of The Batman Gallery from DC Comics, published in 1992. Joe had got a lot of attention for his work at Valiant Comics on titles such as X-O Manowar and Ninjak, and was soon snapped up by DC Comics. He had done The Ray mini-series for DC but had moved onto a big hitter in Batman: Sword of Azrael. He did several Batman related covers, and this has also been the focus of his work since his return to DC in 2023.
This is a really interesting composition for Joe, utilising the double page cover to show an array of Batman villains (left to right; Catwoman, The Joker, Two-Face, The Penguin), and the dynamic duo of Batman and Robin. There's a very unusual perspective used, with the vanishing point being the top right-hand corner. The viewer is therefore positioned below both the villains and the heroes, and quite cleverly can see the incoming trouble that the bad guys are unaware of. The perspective also draws the eye both from left to right, and bottom to top.
The art also sums up Joe's style at the time, with a heavy use of black - usually by the way of shadows. As you can see from the inked piece below, the majority of the piece is solid blacks (bar the large space left for the title lettering). The inker was Kevin Nolan, who also worked with Joe on the Sword of Azrael series, and gave him the darkest and heaviest art of his career. Its a shame they didn't get to work together more often, as I think they're a hell of a match.
You can also see in this piece a few classic Joe trademarks; the all black face of in Batman with just the eyes and mouth for detail, the detailed use of architecture as a background, and of course, a cat!
The interior of the comic itself is reproductions of 'classic' Batman covers - mainly without the title and other cover paraphilia. It is an odd selection, because apart from a handful of honourable exceptions, it really doesn't showcase the history of wonderful Batman art.
- Mike
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