Dark Night: A True Batman Story

June 20, 2016
Dini made a mark on the DC Universe writing various Batman projects in print (Mad Love) and on screen (Batman: The Animated Series), but he’s distanced himself from a real-life incident in the 1990s that shaped the way he approached stories of good and evil. While working on the Batman animated series, Dini was brutally mugged and left with extreme skull damage and an emotional toll that threatened to take him down. In this account of that event, Dini presents his life as one of disappointment; he reached the heights he always dreamed of in the field he loved, but grasped at the emptiness of the experience. It’s an extremely personal work that still hedges even as it reveals, partly out of self-preservation. The narrative structure—psychological action that unfolds through conversations with Batman and various villains—creates a perhaps unavoidable emotional distance with occasional Band-Aids over the dark void being hinted at. Risso’s (100 Bullets) art often goes where the narrative hesitates, offering a simple firsthand fable of pushing back the darkness.

May 15, 2016
Dini was a central force behind the Batman Adventures cartoon, considered a soaring, seminal interpretation of the character. One night, walking the unforgiving streets of the real world, Dini was attacked and left physically and psychologically traumatized. In the wake of this, his ripe cartoonist's imagination bursts with Batman villains taunting him to give into his fear, abandon his life, wallow, and hide. But at the nadir of this dark journey, it's Batman himself that forces Dini to find a way out. Not every death trap, his personal Dark Knight informs him, has a shark tank. Risso's signature, gritty noir aesthetic lends disturbing gravity to this very personal tale, and the artist uses various tones, palettes, and Batman visualizations to portray the emotional dips and rises. As potent metaphors for the ability to overcome trauma, superheroes perhaps more than any other fantasy figures engender deep, personal connections among their followers. Dini explores the notion that, in real life, Batman can't swing in to save you, though, as it turns out, sometimes he does.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)