Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth with Jim Fetters

We’re back with another episode of Trade School! This time, we’re talking about Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth! Our host is Jim Fetters from the Long Live the Legion podcast!

Find him at https://www.certainpov.com/long-live-the-legion

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Edited by Case Aiken

Scored by Bret Eagleston

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Outline ️

Introduction to Certain Point of View's Trade School & Speaker Introduction (00:00 - 00:00)

Jim Fetters introduces himself and the series, explaining the focus on discussing favorite comic book trade paperbacks. Background Story and Personal Connection to Arkham Asylum (00:00 - 01:23)

Jim shares his first encounter with Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth during college post-Batman '89 movie craze. Explaining how he invested limited funds into purchasing this landmark book and how it changed his perception of comics. Plot Overview of Arkham Asylum (01:23 - 02:39)

Explanation of the storyline where Batman must escape Arkham Asylum within an hour after inmates take over on April Fool's Day. Including the rogues' gallery of Batman villains like Joker, Two-Face, Black Mask, and others. Parallel origin story of Amadeus Arkham is introduced. Artistic and Symbolic Depth of the Book (02:39 - 05:32)

Description of Dave McKean's intricate art combining hand-drawn elements, paint, and photography. Alongside Grant Morrison's deep writing filled with symbolism, including paganism, tarot, Hebrew and Greek elements, occult references, and the significance of salt circles as binding spells. Influence of Historical Figures and Psychological Themes (05:32 - 06:57)

Appearance of characters such as Aleister Crowley and Carl Jung, emphasizing the book’s psychological and occult layers. Highlights Gaspar Saladino’s unique lettering for each character, enhancing the storytelling. Importance of Reading and Editions (06:57 - 08:15)

Recommendation to read the annotated edition for better comprehension of the myriad symbols and complex meanings embedded in the text and artwork. Cultural Impact and Legacy (08:15 - 09:49)

How the book influenced modern Batman writers and the narrative foundation it provided for the Rocksteady Arkham Asylum video game. Jim stresses its importance both for comic book and video game fans. Closing Remarks and Contact Info (09:49 - 11:23)

Jim invites listeners to reach out via Blue Sky or Discord to discuss the book and plugs the Long Live the Legion podcast as well.

Transcription

00:00
Welcome to Certain Point of View's Trade School, where each episode a different host talks about a comic book trade paperback that they loved and why they love it. Hi, everybody. My name is Jim Fetters, and you may remember me from such podcasts as Long Live the Legion and the occasional guest spot on CPOV's own Men of Steel podcast. But you can also find me across the interwebs as Jimbo Fett. I'm here today to talk about a little book called Arkham Asylum. It a serious house on serious earth. This is the classic book by Grant Morrison writing the amazing Dave McKeon doing art Gaspar Saladino as Litterer. And I just need to call this out because this is probably one of the best Batman comic books of all time.

00:49
So let me give you a little bit of background about how I came to this book. Dig, if you will, A picture. A young man, a junior in college, is hitting the comic book store because he's kind of interested in what's going on after the whole batman89 craziness has gone on over the summer. And he's a brand new Batman convert, and he sees this book, this hardbound book in the comic book store and just on a whim decides to actually purchase it in addition to whatever other comics I was getting, which was probably detective comics and Batman. Although I know I did have a mail subscription at one point in time that I had the titles just mailed straight to my dorm room.

01:29
And I don't have any money because I'm a teenager or I'm a junior in college, not a teenager, but I still need money for things like beer and, you know, just going out and having fun and stuff like that. And I ended up spending my money on this particular book. And I think this book changed the way that I looked at comic books for the rest of my life. So the plot of the story. Let's go and talk about the plot of this particular book. It's April 1st, April Fool's Day, and a bunch of rogues have taken over Arkham Asylum. And so, of course, in due diligence, Batman is summoned by Commissioner Gordon. And then he arrives at Arkham Asylum and sees that the whole Arkham grounds are surrounded by a ring of salt, which is very mysterious.

02:12
He meets with Joker and is told that he has to escape Arkham Asylum in one hour before the rogues go after him. And we have a whole cast of characters here, not every Batman villain, but a lot of interesting ones. So we see folks like, of course, Joker, of course we See Two Face, we see Black Mask. We see really interestingly made versions of Clayface and Dr. To Scarecrow and Maxie. Zeus, Mad Hatter and Killer Croc at various stages are going after Batman. And that story is told in parallel with the origin of Arkham Asylum where we meet Amadeus Arkham in the early 1920s. And his story parallels the Batman story that's happening in the present. And it follows his own decline into madness. The book is so stylized and has so many influences here.

03:12
It's just hard to really keep track of all the different visual references and clues that are shown in Dave McKeon's art throughout this whole book. Because he's using all of these crazy styles of just hand drawn art and paint blended with photography and mixing them together to have these really crazy and intricate designs on the page that are presented in a very unconventional way. Sometimes they're in a fairly standard grid or you have some really interesting background on that page, on that glossy page. And other times there are just these almost incomprehensible mix of symbols and photos and images and everything blending together. It's quite remarkable. And then Grant Morrison, I mean, what can you say about Grant Morrison as being one of the best writers that we have today in comic books?

04:03
But they weave so many symbols into this book that there is so much depth. And you can keep reading this story over and over again and always get something new. There are symbols that are around paganism with the tying of the Bat with Batman in the present and the Bat who is driving Amadeus Arkham's mother to insanity. Just tying those things together at a very fundamental and almost elemental level really drives this book into something really magical. But then you have all these other symbols all throughout the book. The tarot is almost, is in this book's DNA almost every encounter that both Amadeus Arkham and Batman face map to one of the major arcana symbols of a tarot deck. The moon is all over the place in this particular story.

04:54
Although I have to say, and this is just a nitpicker in me that it's very, very rare to have a full moon on an April 1st. But hey, that's okay. We're talking comic books here. But other symbols here we have, we're talking about Hebrew symbology pops up Greek wording with regards to Maxi Zeus. The occult is a huge part of this as well. The purpose and kind of where this goes towards the end of the story with its ultimate resolution for both Batman story and Arkham's is that the salt circle and the. The circles in general are being used for binding spells to keep Batman and the Bat away. If folks are familiar with some of the occult magic of Alistair Crowley, he's actually in the book as a minor character who Arkham meets, as is Carl Jung.

05:42
Carl Jung being the eminent psychoanalyst and again, as a psych student in college at the time. This was a very compelling read for me. So it's one of those things where you need to really go through it and experience it to really understand the magic. I'm not going to talk too much about specifically what happens to Batman because it's something that you really need to experience for yourself, if you haven't already, to. Just because the book is so well written, so well drawn, even the lettering. So I called out Gaspar Saladino earlier and usually letters kind of get kind of short shrift in a lot of cases when you're talking about a comic book, because they're just putting letters on. And especially these days, right, Because a lot of this is all done on the computer.

06:27
But Saladino does this thing where he creates a specific font type for almost every character that is unique. So the Joker has his particular letters. Batman has his black filled word balloons. Maxie Zeus has his own thing going on. It's just really amazing the level of detail that they created here. This is something that you have to read regardless of whether or not you are a big Batman fan, if you're a comic book fan. I really think this is something that everybody should read to really understand how to leverage. How to leverage the comic book medium in its ultimate form. It's again, one of the best Batman stories, one of the ever, best ever comic books ever created. We talked about the use of multimedia. For example, a really good symbol that is woven throughout this book is the concept of a wedding dress.

07:22
And the wedding dress is symbolically representing shared trauma that is passed down in the story. But when it's visually depicted, there are some aspects of this that are drawn, but a lot of aspects of that which are photographed into the panels and onto the pages. If you've ever been a fan of the later works of David lynch, especially some of the Twin Peaks stuff that he's put out, this is like having Twin Peaks, but in a comic book form. The way everything is very surreal and very symbolized. It's something that. That is quite amazing and it really shows how creative the comic book medium can actually be. And this is again, kind of what hooked me on comics as a major art form. And as far as I'm concerned, something that everybody should have on your shelf.

08:12
And if you're going to buy one, make sure that you buy the annotated edition. Because when you're having. When you're reading through this book, there's so much stuff that's coming at you. It's really important to be able to say that's what that means. And it adds a lot more value. You can read the original version and kind of figure things out on your own, but there is so much stuff that it's almost an overload of symbols. And having those notations that are there to be able to reference makes it a really good thing to have. The last thing that I'm going to talk about here with regards to this particular comic book is one of impact.

08:45
And I think almost every comic book writer, especially a Batman writer, if you ask them today, probably all of them, would point back to this book at some fundamental level to say something that they. They would be inspired by or something that they would reference from something. In fact, this story itself was referenced by a couple throwaway lines in the old D.C. who's who about Arkham Asylum and how it was founded. Grant Morrison basically took those little lines and really expanded and fleshed out this particular story to tell about Batman.

09:18
But one other thing that I just definitely want to point out, just because it's near and dear to my heart as well, is the fact that a lot of the concepts in here, mainly around the descent into Madness of Amadeus Arkham and the etching of magic circles in the floor of the asylum, some of these concepts of Arkham, as well as just the Rogues Gallery in general and things like that, were adapted for use in the amazing Rocksteady video game Arkham Asylum. And of course, that kicked off a nice trilogy. Well, I guess four video games in the Batman family. But there's so much food from this book that is directly interpolated into that video game. Something that if. If you are a fan of the video game and you've never picked up or read this book, definitely do so.

10:10
And if you're a video game fan and you haven't played Arkham Asylum yet, absolutely do that too, because it's a wonderful video game. And so that's all I'm going to talk about. Arkham Asylum today. Arkham Asylum, a serious house on serious earth. This is something that I definitely would like you to pick up and read. And if you do so, please give me a shout out on Blue Sky. You can find me at Jimbofett bsky social or if you join the certain point of view Discord, you can find me as Jimbofett and I'd love to hear what you thought of the book, what you do think of the book if you've already read it and we can have some really good conversations. Until then, happy reading. Hey Jay.

10:48
Hey Jim.

10:49
You're a fan of the Legion of Superheroes, right?

10:51
Yeah, I've been reading their adventures for decades.

10:54
Me too. It was tough at first with all the characters, but now I think I'm an expert.

10:58
It's not too hard to get into the Legion, and to make it even easier, we have a podcast called Long Live the Legion. We talk about different aspects of all its history to help you out.

11:08
So whether you're a new reader in the Legion Academy or have your own flight ring or anywhere in between, the Long Live the Legion podcast should be on your playlist.cpov certainpov.com.

  Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/