Review:

Like the above shows very well, there's tons of good stuff in this comics adaptation. For a complete review of the story, please go check the movie section.

Good points: The art mainly. Craig Rousseau provides us with probably his best work in the animated style. Every pannel is well studied, every character is beautifully drawn. And obviously, he had a lot of fun doing it. And his sense of storytelling is strong and well used: for example, the page where Tim Drake turns into the Joker is magnificent and adds an even creepier atmosphere to that scene. Otherwise, the story is great (of course it is!) and we even get to see an extra scene that was supposed to be featured in the original movie: it's a very dark moment, showing Bruce Wayne back to the ruins of Arkham.

Bad points: Sadly, despite the high quality of the script, the whole thing is rushed, and sometimes way too shortened. So much happens in every pannel... hence the lack of intensity at times. For instance, the final fight is really disappointing compared to the suspenseful showdown in the movie.

Overall: hey it's not bad at all. We all know how hard it is to adapt a movie into a comic book. I give 3 stars and a half out of 5.








Edits:
Here's a comparison between Joker's original --unedited-- death and the one as shown in the comic book.

   

If you wanna see more awesome original work by Craig Rousseau, go check out his website at www.craigrousseau.com

Craig Rousseau talks about his work on the adaptation!
1) Did you get to see the movie before you worked on the adaptation? How does this work??
No, I didn't see the video until I picked it up at the local video store - all the work we did was based on the script and storyboards (and an early script at that, since one of our pages (at arkham asylum) was based on a scene dropped from the movie. . .)

2) How does it feel working on such a great story?
I had a great time (and was lucky to have some great storyboards for inspiration!)

3) What was your contribution to the adaptation? Did you take part in the adapted script?
I just followed darren's script and the storyboards for the action as best I could (although a little was changed due to the limitations of the comic)

4) Were you happy with the edits made to the movie?--to the comic? (in other words, which version do you prefer?)
I think the edited version of the movie works really well (I thought the unedited material was pretty darn intense, and I have no qualms with the wb's editorial decision to tone down parts of the story to make it more appropriate for all viewers. . . which is not to say I wouldn't mind an unedited edition to be realeased for mature viewers, too) . . . .the comic adaptation was changed late in the game, and we were only able to make the really big change with the flashback (and consequently, some references in the dialogue are out of place)

5) What did you think of the story itself? Were you surprised by the big plot twist(s)?
I had read the adaptation script months ago, and I was really blown away by the story and twists. . . (and I was dyin' for the video to come out so i could finally talk about the story!)

Thanks a lot to Craig for this mini-interview!