Retro Thursday: Marshall Rogers and Steve Englehart
Trying out a new thing here, where I will post an article from the Matt Price archive from before I had a blog here at NewsOK. Today’s article is from April 8, 2005, in which writer Steve Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers discussed their take on Batman at the Planet Comicon in Overland Park, Kan. At the time of the article, the team was working on “Dark Detective,” a sequel to their classic 1970s “Detective Comics” run.
Marshall Rogers died March 25, 2007, one of the greatest Batman artists of his era. Englehart can be found online here.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The creative team behind the upcoming “Batman” miniseries “Dark Detective” talked about its work on the project, as well as its groundbreaking work on “Batman” more than two decades ago. The Dark Knight will face off against his Rogues Gallery while meeting up again with his former love, Silver St. Cloud.
Writer Steve Englehart, penciller Marshall Rogers and inker Terry Austin will again team to bring life to the Batman. They spoke at last weekend’s Planet Comicon about their first run on the Dark Knight.
Englehart had just left Marvel Comics “on bad terms” and gone to DC Comics. He planned to work one year there before leaving comics entirely. DC asked him to revamp the Justice League; Englehart asked specifically for Batman. His “Detective Comics” run, issue Nos. 469 to 476, started with artists Walt Simonson and Al Milgrom. After two issues, they were replaced with relative newcomers Rogers and Austin.
The Englehart-Rogers run contained the now-classic Joker tales “The Laughing Fish” and “The Sign of the Joker.” Englehart was inspired by the early Batman tales in his “Detective Comics” run.
“I wanted to make Batman much more ‘pulp’ than he had been,” Englehart said. “It had become very ’70s realistic. It didn’t have that ‘pulp’ feel.”
Englehart also wanted Batman’s alter ego to play a larger role.
“I wanted to develop Bruce Wayne,” Englehart said. “To me, he’s essential. His relationship with Silver St. Cloud was something we wanted to pick up on.”
Rogers’ art was different from that of other artists working on the Dark Knight at the time.
“I don’t do a ‘DC model sheet’ Batman,” Rogers said. “What you saw in my rendition of the character was what I had always wanted to see as a kid.”
The new series takes place “some time” after the team’s first run. Silver St. Cloud is engaged to a gubernatorial candidate and sees Bruce Wayne across a crowded room at a political function.
In the first issue, the Joker also decides to run for governor, with the slogan “Vote for me, or I’ll kill you!”
During the run of “Dark Detective,” Batman will also battle Scarecrow and Two Face.
Englehart, Rogers and Austin were adamant that letterer John Workman rejoin the team for the new series, although on most books DC has gone to computer lettering.
“As long as we’re doing this, there’s no reason not to get the people who did it the first time,” Rogers said. “Everything is important to a successful book. It makes for the totality of the package.”
While the story isn’t married to current DC events, it doesn’t contradict them, either.
“I didn’t want this to be a completely parallel universe. It exists in the modern continuity,” Englehart said. “If this works well, we could do more down the line, and our Batman will eventually kind of become its own universe. I hope it’s a seamless integration of all the various elements that have to be there.”
Rogers said he doesn’t ignore anything that’s come before but doesn’t want to be a slave to continuity. His priority is a compelling story.
“(Batman’s) world is going to be creepy, eerie, fun and exciting,” Rogers said.
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