Art For Art’s Sake #232: Kevin Nowlan’s ‘Batman Animated’

Art For Art’s Sake, throwing a net over all the art I’ve seen this week and putting it here in front of you, and all ending with some fabulous Kevin Nowlan Batman Animated design work…

Jock – Hellblazer

Joshua Middleton – Batgirl

Adam Kubert – Batman and Catwoman

Bruce McCorkindale – Arthouse Muppets, Groundhog Day featuring Crazy Harry and Joe the legal weasel…

Bill & Ted by Evan Dorkin

Elephantman by Boo Cook

Mike Mignola – Catwoman

Chris Bachelo – Magik

Colleen Doran – Batwoman in Batman Urban Legends

Dave Bardin, comics that never were – Thor 491, Longshot, and Spidey…

Two from Esteban Maroto – Dracula

Matt Kaufenberg – FF, the animated series

Matt Wagner – very early Grendel house ad

Alex Toth – House Of Mystery

Gary Frank – Daredevil

Joe Quesada and Jimmmy Palmiotti – DD

Adam Kubert & Danny Miki – DD

Barry Windsor-Smith – DD

 

And finally – I saw this at 13th Dimension, a piece where Kevin Nowlan talks through his work on Batman: The Animated Series and shares his design work.

It seems that Nowlan came onboard for the show after Bruce Timm had called him up out of the blue. Nowlan thinks Timm might have seen some of his work, possibly the Man-Bat Secret Origins story he did, utilising a pared-down style that would perfectly suit cel animation. It was a time when Nowlan was obsessed with reducing his work down to bare essentials, looking at Alex Toth and European ligne claire.

Here’s a bit of that Man-Bat storyline…

 

And here are Nowlan’s BTAS designs… the result, as you can see, is quite wonderful…