A review by bllittwit
Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison

4.0

The first of the fruits of Dragoncon purchases. It's ambitious, I will say that for it. Here, Grant Morrison attempts to turn a Batman comic into a graphic novel of ideas, surreal imagery, and religious symbolism. To me, most of that remained on the page in the original script for the piece (included in this 15th anniversary copy). Call me stunted and un-artistic, but when the images in a graphic novel are so messy one can barely tell what they are depicting, 90% of the symbolism is lost unless the author includes massive amounts of internal dialogue. I have no problem with the writing or the story here. But it relies too heavily on the surreal paintings to evoke depth and meaning, which, academically, I don't have a problem with. It's a graphic novel after all. Too many of them are overwritten in my opinion, and I applaud Morrison for leaving room for the artwork to do its job. I'm just not a fan of said artwork. I'm sure plenty of people here disagree with me and think its a great marriage of art and prose. Just my opinion.