Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Comic Book Pages (Manga Edition)!

Sometimes people ask me how to get into animation. Mostly I encourage them to keep drawing, preferably from real life to get those fundamentals solid, and that's pretty good advice, I think. But the curmudgeon in me just wants to warn them away, because the truth of the matter is that animation is, by and large, a lot of work for very little reward.

By way of example, lets consider a sequence from Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases! As a transition from Bat-Mite's lair to the manga section of the show, we had to come up with a few fake pages of a Japanese Batman comic, based on the old comics by Jiro Kuwata. Legal wouldn't let us just use scans from the originals, so we had to cobble together some fakes, made to look enough like Jiro Kuwata's art to be recognizable, but not enough to exact duplicates of the original.

So I spent a couple weeks coming up with these 6 fake pages -

-and then we sent it off to legal, who had some tiny changes. Next up, inks-

-so with the legal hurdles cleared, we got Craig Cuqro to colour the pages, and added a layer of aged paper texture from Bill Dunn. We also got some dialogue translated into Japanese by Toshi Hiruma (I can't remember what it says any more, sorry) -

 -and wrapped it all up in this cover, drawn by Lynell Forestall, inked by Robert Lacko and again coloured by Craig Cuqro and aged up by Bill Dunn -

All told, the whole process probably took about a month. Now watch it go by onscreen - 

And that's after we duplicated the cycle to extend it. So in a nutshell, we compressed a month's worth of labour into three seconds of screentime. So there's my advice for aspiring animators - always remember that animation is a medium that will drain years off of your lifespan and leave you mere snippets of footage in return.

And keep drawing!

All characters and art ™and © DC Comics

DOOM (Again)

OK, as Brianne has reminded me, {SPOILERS FOR SIEGE OF STARRO} Starro is dead now, {SPOILERS OVER} so let's move on and plug talk about my next episode, The Last Patrol!, which is airing this Friday for you lucky Americans with Cartoon Network. Of course, Australia has already seen it two weeks ago, so if you're the type who likes to spoil stuff for yourself, you can find info about the episode all over the internet already, including the special appearance in the teaser of {SPOILERS AGAIN}Batgirl{SPOILERS OVER}.

In non-spoilery news, The Last Patrol! stars my favourite superhero team, the Doom Patrol. I got to direct an episode featuring them (half of a two-parter) for Teen Titans many years ago, but I was still very eager to put them in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Fortunately for me, James was too, so here they come. The story is loosely adapted from a very famous DP story, although we had to change the ending for television, but I think we did a great job capturing the tone of the Doom Patrol all the same. I'll have a post with more stuff after it airs.

In other B:TBatB news, kind of mid-spoilery to non-spoilery, it seems like a lot of info is trickling out about Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!, our big crossover episode. Not so much from me, I think - I've been pretty good about not leaking stuff. Here's what I didn't leak - the episode will have three stories featuring 1/ a teaser with Batboy and Rubin from the MAD Magazine parody, 2/ a story featuring a version of Batman based on Jiro Kuwata's Japanese Batman comics from the 60's, and 3/ a crossover with Scooby-Doo.

Like I said, none of that got leaked by me - I've kept quiet for all these months. It hasn't been easy! So I don't think anyone will mind if I leak one frame from the show, right? So here it is - a genuine exclusive still from Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!

Man, I hope that doesn't get me in trouble with Warner Bros. I'm just so proud of this episode that I couldn't help but share!

It's a pity it wasn't finished in time for San Diego -  I mean, the episode that we did screen there, Emperor Joker!, was great and all, but B-MP:B'sSC (as I have decided to abbreviate it) is tailor-made to be screened at a comic convention surrounded by hundreds of the fans who would've appreciated it the most. But it'll probably air before the next San Diego Comicon (even with Cartoon Network's scheduling shenanigans), and who wants to premiere a cartoon everyone's already seen? I guess the timing just didn't work out, so that opportunity is lost.

If only there were some other comic book convention between now and the theoretical airdate - one that would maybe fly me out and put me up for the night - why, then all I'd have to do is square it with the powers that be at Warner Bros and we could screen the guaranteed fan-servicingest episode of any Batman cartoon ever produced! Ah, but that's just a pipe dream, I suppose.

Batman image ™ and © DC Comics.