5 out of 5

Man, what is it about Batman that makes for such amazing short stories?  And what is it about the Black and White send-up in particular that makes these stories the best of the best?  Why is it that authors and artists – from all walks of genre and style – can just knock these things out of the park?

(*cough*)

Now I will explain why.

There’s no real wavering on the overall Batman vibe.  Writing the book as a series might require finding new ways to approach the human / hero angle, or imagining new baddies which are somehow worse than the old baddies, but at a glance, we all understand the vibe.  The Dark Knight; the emotionless man; the stalwart pursuit of justice.  We fully accept Bats as a jack-of-all-trades in the field – fighter, detective, watcher.  Whatever’s needed.  So inserting this puzzle piece into a story is easy if you’re not required to tailor it for future tales.  Thus you can remove any need of jamming an intro into the few pages you’re allotted, or any kind of requisite build-up to let us know that your hero is a badass.  It’s so entrenched that’s it’s essentially fact.  All the writing focus can then go toward your story, which can be as simple and classic as a beat ’em up of a recognized rogue, or as twisty and turny as yearly exercise where Alfred turns the lair’s defenses upon The Bat, unrevealed as purposeful until our final frames.  You can make cracks about seaweed cigarettes, or you can show the sad effects a Batman’s persistence upon repeat offenders.  Art-wise, the black-and-white is a dream for such a recognizable silhouette.  Endlessly cool panels juxtaposing that black cape against negative space, or the white eyes poking out from the darkness.  Again, with the character’s recognizability pre-loaded into your readers, all you’re limited by is your own creativity, not even having to consider shifting compositions about to allow for pop colors or contrasts.

Just dig Batman, and you’ll do just fine.

And there’s truly not a poor story in volume 4 of B&W.  Even those writers who are, nowadays, a bit tedious – Neal Adams – or whose work I find overly stylized – Damion Scott – may not contribute the best tales in the bunch, but their contributions are still brimming with intended creativity and visual zip that makes them easy to read.  At 5 to 6 stories a book, there’s really too much to review individually, but let it suffice to say that any flavor of writing or art is demonstrated herein, and each issue is worth reading.  The package itself is edited together well by Mark Chiarello, giving it a very professional, good-looking flair – a classy font for our title page and artist bios (though everyone here is the ‘best’ at what they do, apparently); gloriously glossy and thicker paper-stock covers with wonderful images (broken up by a dash of color on ish 3 and 5); a nice frontispiece by Phil Noto; and a pleasing collage of previews on the last page and current-issue ‘slices’ on the back cover.

These things are so addictive and consistently good that you sorta’ wish for an ongoing, but I do think part of the appeal is the limited nature of the B&Ws.  It feels like an event.  It feels like it attracts people to it, such that even those contributors of whom you haven’t heard you believe they want to be involved.  Sigh, oh B&W Bats.  Smooches forever.