5 out of 5

It’s definitely not actually perfect – such is the nature of anthologies – but the concept is so simple and clean and the execution has a lot of love behind it, making the reading experience pure fun and exciting, as you can’t wait to see what the next artist / writer duo have in store.

Batman: Black and White is exactly what it says: Batman, duo-toned, told in short, standalone stories by notable artists and writers.  And boy did they shoot for the moon – and reach it! – with volume one’s artly contributors: Richard Corben, Kevin Nowlan, Gary Gianni, Brian Bolland…. and then beyond these instantly recognizable comic names, even, to Ranxerox’s Liberatore and Akira’s Katsuhiro Otomo, all their pretty pictures stood upon (when not scribing their own stuff…) some of the most reliable writers in the biz, like Chuck Dixon, Dennis O’Neil, and more.  Batman will forever be a big draw, and to not only not have to commit to a full comic, but to be able to pick and choose whatever variant / timeline you can dream up, well, yes, I can understand how that would be a lot of fun for the creators, and that absolutely comes through on the page.

Of course, not everyone is up to speed on how to do Big Two hero stylings over 6-8 pages, and so some stories definitely end abruptly, or lack an exact hook.  But none of them are phoned in, and even when I wasn’t a particular fan of a certain artist, there’s just something so rewarding about seeing such a lineup of talent that even the average stories have charm, with the ‘reward’ of getting to the end so you can see who’s next.

Editor and ringleader Mark Chiarello is a massive part of this, with his creator bios preceding each entry giving a clear indication of the admiration he has for these folks, and the appreciative page of behind the scenes sketches mapped to each collected issue of this series gives us another dose of that same enthusiasm.

Even if you’ve only a passing interest in Bats, and even if you’re not a fanboy for the slew of artists and writers here, Batman: Black and White’s anthology nature makes it move at such a quick clip, and there are just so, so many artistic geniuses on display, that it’s worth a read for almost anyone.  Add a bit of Bat fandom in there… and it’s magic.