not moore's best work, but still pretty good. it nails down a simple idea (one bad day and batman and joker leading different lives from one bad day), and became so iconic it's now basically canon. i prefer the original colouring, even if brian bolland was against it ( )

A nice large-format edition of the classic Batman/Joker story, probably most notable for changing Barbara Gordon's life forever (or at least until the next universal reboot) and for presenting a possible origin for the Joker. The original comic was pretty slim so there is a substantial amount of extra content in this Absolute volume, the story itself appearing twice with different coloring jobs. Artist Brian Bolland wanted to do it himself when the book was first produced, but there wasn't time, so John Higgins did it instead. And a fine job he did, in my opinion, though it was not what Bolland was aiming for, so eventually he got to do it over himself. Higgins' coloring is bright and garish (in a good way), one might say comic-bookish, while Bolland's is subdued and realistic. And while Bolland's interpretation might work better or just as well most of the time, on some pages, such as when Jim Gordon finds out what the Joker has done to his daughter, I don't think it is nearly as effective. But art is subjective and it's nice to have both versions. One nice touch, and I'm impressed that they went this extra mile, is that the Higgins version of the story is printed on the same matte-finish paper as it was originally, retaining it's look and feel. The rest of the book is on glossy paper.

Even with two versions of the story, the book is still pretty slim for an Absolute so it's padded out with other stuff, including Alan Moore's original script (does anyone actually read these?), two shorter pieces by Bolland, sketches and other Batman or Joker related art by Bolland.

I had sold my first printing of "The Killing Joke" years ago so I was happy to be able to replace it with this definitive volume. ( )

Even going into this new 35th Anniversary Absolute edition of Batman: The Killing Joke knowing there wasn't much new here to flesh out an entire Absolute offering, the redundancy was overwhelmingly obvious when I finally got the volume in hand and read it thru. Including the various covers and pinups attached to the series was a nice addition, the script was interesting to flip thru, and the additional short stories from other volumes helped fill out the volume, but basically running the entire story 3 times in a row in one volume (the new recolored edition on better paper, the original colored edition on basically newsprint, and then the script) was a little overkill for me. Don't get me wrong, like all of DC's Absolute editions, this is an impressive volume, but unless you are a serious hardcore The Killing Joke fan, skip this for one of the cheaper editions available. (Normally, I give this book a 4 star rating, but the redundancy of this project dropped this particular volume down a star.) ( )