OMNIVORACIOUS: An Amazon.com Books Blog featuring news, reviews, interviews and guest author blogs.

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By now, you’ve had enough of Halloween candy. Maybe you’ve had enough of all things Halloween - especially the repetitive costumes. Did anyone happen to catch a sighting of The Joker last weekend? Like Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow [http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Caribbean-Curse-Two-Disc-Collectors/dp/B00005JM5E/?&tag=omnivoracious-20] before him, the late Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight [http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Knight-Widescreen-Single-Disc/dp/B001GZ6QC4/?&tag=omnivoracious-20] saturated the social consciousness this Halloween and seeped onto the streets, into house parties, onto Facebook photos, and celebrity blogs. After years of idolizing Batman, everybody now wants to be The Joker.

Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger’s separate cinematic portrayals of The Clown Prince of Gotham City could not be more dissimilar, and while this may have initially stumped the casual fan, it came as no shock to longtime DC Comics readers. After all, every few years, comics writers find a way to reinvent Batman’s nemesis. This year, DC Comics wisely capitalized on the success of the new, tall, dark, and Halloween-friendly Joker by releasing one of the most shocking re-imaginings yet, simply titled The Joker [http://www.amazon.com/Joker-Brian-Azzarello/dp/1401215815/?&tag=omnivoracious-20].






Writer Brian Azzarello is no stranger to Gotham’s streets, having left his quiet mark in Batman: Broken City with longtime collaborator Eduardo Risso. Azzarello’s most famous comics work to date, however, is his Eisner Award-winning crime series 100 Bullets (now in its 13th installment from DC’s Vertigo imprint). And in The Joker, Azzarello plays to his strengths by taking the “super” out of the supervillain and placing what remains in a very grounded and threatening criminal reality.


Complementing Azzarello is the artwork from Lee Bermejo, who recently provided an exclusive Amazon cover for Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home. If his latest cover isn’t enough of an indication, The Joker is strictly for mature readers only and is one gruesome affair. Bermejo’s artwork gives Gotham an oily look ...

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