Video: One criticism levied at the upcoming animated adaptation of The Killing Joke is how the movie’s art style fails to really capture the aesthetic used by Brian Bolland and John Higgins in the original graphic novel. This brilliant trailer remake imagines what might have been if it did.
Made by Emil Ryderup (better known as Plan Making Mammals), this remake of the original trailer for the new movie replaces the more traditional colour palette of the film with something more reminiscent of Bolland’s art and Higgins’ vivid, almost lurid colouring.
It certainly makes for a much more striking visual aesthetic — more faithful to the original graphic novel perhaps. But it’s also easy to see why DC didn’t go with it for the film. It’d make one hell of an awesome alternate viewing option, though. Check out a comparison between Ryderup’s remake and the original trailer below.
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5 responses to “The Killing Joke Trailer, Redrawn In The Style Of The Original Comic”
Very interesting, but to be honest I prefer the art style they have used. The Brain Bolland/John Higgins inspired one looks too… unnatural. It doesn’t have the gravitas and depth that you need for a movie.
It’s also worth pointing out that those hyper-accentuated colours are actually not what Bolland wanted. He didn’t have time to colour the panels himself, so the job fell to Higgins, who gave the book a much more vibrant appearance. (Bolland described the Higgins version as “garish” with “hideous glowing purples and pinks.”) The recolour that Bolland did himself in 2008 is much closer to what Bruce Timm and Co. have used for the animated version.
Feel the same way and agreed 100%
Wow, looks fantastic. I’d be really interested to watch this – the original grimdark look has never done much for me.
Yea, prefer the style they used – this looks too toony for me
I really wonder if people have seen how washed out and devoid of all craft the original was. This isn’t Batman: The Animated Series (which I would enjoy), this is Saturday morning cartoon animation heavily criticised for how rubbish and cheap it looks. The colours have almost no meaning to them, I feel no dread, I feel nothing out of the ordinary. The new style at least makes me interested and I’m not the type of person who requires things to be familiar to engage in a story so it looks great, to me.