I recently read 2010's Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. I'm a wait 'til it hits the library kind of guy. In Return Batman is forcibly sent back in time, and has to battle his way back to the present. The story begins with him trapped in a paleolithic time, then inexplicably skips thousands of years to hit Puritan colonial America, pirate Blackbeard America, cowboy western America, and finally 1940s noir America.
It's a fun read, and the illustrators generally did a very good job of mixing comic book stylization with era-appropriate settings and costume. I don't have high standards in that area, after all, I'm reading a comic book. About time travel.
Still, there was one thing about the art that really bothered me.
It was only an issue in the Puritan issues. Which, as usual, was a hateful and annoying caricature of the Puritans, although with the interesting switch that they were Baptists. Either the writer doesn't like Baptists, or he decided to place Gotham City in Rhode Island. But that didn't really bother me, it's par for the course. (It's interesting to note that, at least based on Google image search results, the Puritan issues were the least popular.) I allow sweeping historical mischaracterizations to be water under the bridge to me.
What I will not forgive is the sloppy attention paid to facial hair in those issues. Facial hair was consistently appropriate in all the other eras, but not in the Puritan. Do you have any idea how distracting it is to have a man sporting mutton chops dragging a witch off to be burned? All one can think about is how that man would never be sporting mutton chops. A vandyke, maybe, yeah, sure. Sometimes all that separates historical accuracy in depicting a male is facial hair. If a dude is wearing black pants, a white buttoned shirt with no collar, and a gray vest, the only thing that will place him in a specific era is his hair. Mutton chops and sideburns and handlebar mustaches = 1880s.
You all know how distracting an anachronism can be when reading a story. Or how much paying attention to historical detail can make a story so much more immersive. Can't break the spell!
Unfortunately I couldn't find any images of the offenses, and I'm not going to trouble scanning them, 'cause that's how I do. But please, oh authors auteurs and artistes of our shining land, pay more attention to the beards next time.
It's a fun read, and the illustrators generally did a very good job of mixing comic book stylization with era-appropriate settings and costume. I don't have high standards in that area, after all, I'm reading a comic book. About time travel.
Still, there was one thing about the art that really bothered me.It was only an issue in the Puritan issues. Which, as usual, was a hateful and annoying caricature of the Puritans, although with the interesting switch that they were Baptists. Either the writer doesn't like Baptists, or he decided to place Gotham City in Rhode Island. But that didn't really bother me, it's par for the course. (It's interesting to note that, at least based on Google image search results, the Puritan issues were the least popular.) I allow sweeping historical mischaracterizations to be water under the bridge to me.
What I will not forgive is the sloppy attention paid to facial hair in those issues. Facial hair was consistently appropriate in all the other eras, but not in the Puritan. Do you have any idea how distracting it is to have a man sporting mutton chops dragging a witch off to be burned? All one can think about is how that man would never be sporting mutton chops. A vandyke, maybe, yeah, sure. Sometimes all that separates historical accuracy in depicting a male is facial hair. If a dude is wearing black pants, a white buttoned shirt with no collar, and a gray vest, the only thing that will place him in a specific era is his hair. Mutton chops and sideburns and handlebar mustaches = 1880s.
You all know how distracting an anachronism can be when reading a story. Or how much paying attention to historical detail can make a story so much more immersive. Can't break the spell!
Unfortunately I couldn't find any images of the offenses, and I'm not going to trouble scanning them, 'cause that's how I do. But please, oh authors auteurs and artistes of our shining land, pay more attention to the beards next time.
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