"Reflections" ("The Dark Knight")
Joker (c) DC Comics
The largest problem with the 2008 summer of films was every other movie released was based on a comic book. That may not seem like a problem to most considering Plight is a comic book; yet we started this gallery to show our comic "outside" of comics. Or another way to look at it is we wanted to show "films" as comics.
Now taking a comic book, transforming it into a film, and then for us to come along and turn it right back into a comic... well that gets a bit redundant. Most of the time we were able to do that; the one or two comic films a year were a chore but doable. Then 2007 hit and every flick was a comic film. Jake and I both knew burnout would hit way before the summer's most anticipated movie "The Dark Knight" would even be in theaters. Add to the fact we already did a Batman pinup in 2005, and it only intensified.
Yet we made a pact to at least get most of the year's pics done. So, here we were, nearly a year later and still at a deadlock what to do with arguably the best comic book movie ever made. Our original idea was to have it be a play on "The Dark Knight" by having Erik fight an actual knight dressed in black armor. But by now, you should all realize how much we sucked at drawing armor. It looked grim folks. One of the biggest flicks of the summer and we were going to skip it, or at worst, offer a sub-par entry.
But then it hit me as I was laying in bed. One of the greatest rituals of seeing films is the inevitable conversations they later generate. Both Jake and I have wasted many hours just dissecting films for the heck of it as I'm sure others have. And it just happened due to a similar lack of inspiration years ago we already had an established movie buddy pair in Erik and Crispy. Just thinking of the two of them together spawned this fabulous moment of conversation that is full of both character and history.
I'm not going to gloat and say it's the best picture I've ever done but I will say it's the best picture for "The Dark Knight" I've done. And we'll leave it at that. - Tony