This’ll be a big one!!

Last year, I wrote and drew an eight-page Batman story that was published in the Batman: Black & White series and I wrote a long post chronicling the making of it, from idea to script to thumbnails to finished art. It was a LOT of fun to do, partially because I’d always wanted to do a Batman story, and partially because it co-starred Maps Mizoguchi, a fan-favourite character I co-created for Gotham Academy.

Earlier this year, I was asked by editor Ben Abernathy if I’d be interested in writing and drawing a backup story in the main Batman title (one story told in three eight-page segments, spread across three issues of Batman -#119-#121). Of course I was.

Here’s how it all came together…

THE HOOK-UP

So, things worked out a bit differently this time around. When I did the Black & White story, I basically had carte blanche to do whatever I wanted, so I took a lot of time and did a lot of soul-searching to figure out what I had to say about Batman that hadn’t been said before (which is really hard, BTW). I brainstormed a large list of possible ideas and finally pitched the one I felt most excited about. That story was not in continuity, which meant I was able to put Maps in there as a de facto Robin, because WHY NOT? I might never get the chance to do this again and it wouldn’t affect readers’ understanding of official Batman history, so I went for it.

This time, though, I needed to do something that would work as a stand-alone story while not breaking any of the rules of the current continuity and as a guy who knows a lot about Batman but is not up to date on anything current in the comics I had a lot of questions:

• Bruce isn’t in the Bat Cave anymore?
• He’s lost his fortune AND is living in an apartment somewhere in Gotham?
• Wait, Alfred is DEAD? WHAT??
• Who are all of these new ‘Bat Family’ characters running around with him all the time?
• and on and on…

So I got on the phone with Ben and talked about a bunch of this stuff to get myself up to speed. And I prepared to craft something simple and Batman-focused that would skirt around all of the complicated goings-on in Gotham. But then Ben said, “Hey, your Black & White story was great! Why don’t you do like a prequel to that or something, like maybe how Maps became Robin?” And I said, “What? Are you serious?” And I reminded him that if I did that in the back of this very official Batman title – the MAIN BATMAN TITLE THAT EVERY BAT-FAN READS – it would be officially in canon that Maps teamed up with Batman as Robin. And Ben said, “Let me worry about that.”

So I was off to the races. Now I just needed a story. With Maps. As Robin.

THE CONCEPT

No pressure! I spent a couple of weeks just walking around, taking long showers, and listening to music , which is what I always do when I’m story-thinking. I had a few key things I was thinking about:

• I don’t want to inadvertently do a repeat of how one of the other (myriad) Robins ended up as Batman’s sidekick.
• I want to stick to a detective story, which is how Batman (and Maps) work best, in my opinion.
• This has to be a story about Maps and she has to change somehow by the end of it.
• But it STILL has to have a lot of Batman in it and he has to punch some stuff because it’s a superhero comic book, after all.
• Also, I want to see a bit of Bruce Wayne being a playboy because I love that duality.
• Maybe Maps has been sleuthing in her spare time and figured out where the Batcave is? And Batman catches her in there?
• I want to start this story at Gotham Academy but I can’t spend too much time there because I only have 8 pages/episode.
• Oh man, this story QUICKY goes off the rails when I focus too much on the school. Like, I get distracted by all the possible scenes.
• I want to stick to the occult mysteries. Do more YA horror. That’s what Gotham Academy has always been and those are also my favourite Batman stories.
• Batman and Robin chasing monsters in the sewer might be fun.
• So I just need an occult mystery in Gotham where people have gone missing/been killed, some kind of supernatural creature or thing responsible for it (with a plausible scientific explanation because Batman is very science-minded) AND a reason for Batman and Maps to connect and team up.

First off, big thanks to my wife who, on one of our long walks where she listens to me ramble on about Batman story ideas, suggested an idea for the villain character(s). I went with her suggestion and the story took shape from there.

When I’m in the initial stages of writing I like to jot down scenes I’d like to see. A lot of them don’t make it into the final script but it’s fun to see them anyway:

SCENES I’D LIKE TO SEE:
– Maps talking to Katherine out loud, stranger looking at her oddly
– Batman smiles at the end
– Maps eschews technology (paper maps are better than Google Maps)
– Maps sees a real corpse (or disembodied limb) for the first time
– Maps with her family (Kyle’s away at a tennis tournament) and a glimpse into her upbringing. She spent a lot of time alone and her best friend growing up was their chef/housekeeper, Tina.
– Bruce Wayne DATING!
– Maps bandages Batman’s arm with supplies from her backpack
– Maps argues that Killer Croc is a pretty good guy. Batman disagrees, says he’s sick and needs help.

THE SCRIPT

Once I had a very basic story laid out in my head, it was time to actually outline it on paper. But before that, I had to get the elevator pitch approved. Here’s what I sent to my editor:

People are being eaten in the Gotham sewers and Batman must deduce the cause, all while attending to a young, enthusiastic, would-be Robin.

Along with this SYNOPSIS:

A student has gone missing at Gotham Academy. Looking for clues, Mia ‘Maps’ Mizoguchi uses her weekend visit to her family’s house in Upper Gotham as an excuse to dig deeper into the mystery. She meets Bruce Wayne at her parents’ dinner party and learns that there have been several disappearances across the city; human body parts have been found along the riverbanks and the police are at a loss.
Maps sneaks out at night to investigate, wearing her home-made Robin costume. She goes to the missing girl’s house (she lives nearby with her Grandfather) and, finding no one home, breaks in through an open window to look for clues. Everything looks normal except the girl’s bedroom is curiously littered with small cucumbers on the windowsills.
Triangulating a map of missing persons reports, she goes to the Gotham City reservoir, where she meets Batman, who’s also investigating. Batman reprimands her and tells her to leave for her own safety, but they see shadows flitting across the walls–it looks like dozens of children running into the churning river. Batman dives into the river using a small bat-scuba rebreather and follows a swimming child into the Gotham Aqueduct. Maps tracks him from above. Following the children, Batman is shocked to discover that they’re not children at all but small frog-like creatures with scales and sharp teeth.

They attack him all at once, overwhelming him with inhuman strength. Maps descends into the aqueduct from a manhole and recognizes the monsters as Kappas, mythical creatures from Japanese folklore. She distracts them with cucumbers and they cease their attack to focus their attention on Maps. She bows to them and they bow back, spilling water from their heads and becoming more docile. They lead Maps and Batman further into the water tunnels where they find

(I’ll post the synopsis for part three when issue #121 comes out!)

Ben approved my synopsis with only one real note: “Make sure there’s enough Batman in the story!” and he was totally right. My intention was to introduce Batman late in part one and then load up part two with Bat-Action. It is a Batman book, after all, and the majority of readers probably wouldn’t know (or care) who Maps Mizoguchi is. I think it worked out pretty well in the end.

And HERE is the SCRIPT I worked from. Once again, my original thought was to fully script each page like an actual professional writer, but as I went to draw the pages I realized (again – because I never seem to learn) that I had enough information to start drawing without a dialogue script. This is kind of like what you’d see in an older Marvel-Method script; page descriptions that the artist can riff on, to be dialogued later.

PART ONE

PAGE ONE

Maps is waiting to be picked up on the front steps of Gotham Academy. Narration from her Adventure Journal. A sleek black car pulls up. It’s Safi, her family’s chauffeur/housekeeper/nanny. She drives the leafy roads through Upstate Gotham as Maps chats at her from the back seat. Finally, they arrive at the Mizoguchi house-a big estate on the bank of the Gotham River.

TITLE & CREDITS: ‘THEY MAKE GREAT PETS’

 

PAGE TWO

Maps says hello to her dad through his den window. He’s busy writing. She asks where mom is and he tells her that she’s preparing for the big dinner party tonight. Dinner party? Kind of more of a fundraiser. Then she asks her dad if he knows anything about the Okamuras up the road. What happened to them? He doesn’t know and he’s not really paying attention. Maps wanders down to the riverbank and looks into the water. It’s pretty quiet. She sees a dead fish. More Adventure Journal narration. Safi calls her back to the house to get changed.

 

PAGE THREE

Evening. A bunch of fancy cars are parked in the Mizoguchi driveway. Maps is peeking out of the kitchen door at the guests; she’s been hiding with Safi, who sends her out. She bumps into a beautiful young woman who notices a lapel pin that Maps is wearing-it’s a Pokemon gym badge. The woman says she used to play. They start to bond until the woman’s date shows up-it’s Bruce Wayne. He overheard them talking about the body parts and the missing student whose house is just up the road from here. Bruce’s interest is piqued. Maps’ mother immediately swoops in to talk to Bruce. He greets her warmly as Dr. Mizoguchi. She introduces him to her daughter; he says they’ve met. Maps looks sheepish. Her mom tries to fix her hair. It’s embarrassing.

 

PAGE FOUR

Safi brings some towels and some tea to Maps’ bedroom. The party is over and it’s bedtime. Maps looks at all the stuff in her room; she obviously spent a lot of time here alone; no one shared her interests. Her shelves are lined with D&D manuals, toys, puzzles, etc. She looks out the window toward the river. It’s dark. She pulls some stuff out of her backpack-her home-made Robin costume-and puts it on. She peers down the stairs to make sure the house is quiet, then slips out her bedroom window into the night.

 

PAGE FIVE

The Okamura house. It’s a big place with a lot of Japanese joinery and a garden in the back that looks like it hasn’t been attended to in a while. Everything is dark. Maps peeks in the window and it looks like no one’s home. Mail’s piled up near the front door. She climbs a trellis and finds an open window. Inside, there are signs of a struggle-kind of like a burglary except nothing seems to have been taken. In Lindsay’s room, Maps finds Lindsay’s Gotham Academy-branded suitcase with some clothes spilled out. She calls out for Lindsay but there’s no answer. Then she finds something really peculiar-dozens of cucumbers on the windowsill and floors. She picks one up, then is grabbed by something.

 

PAGE SIX

It’s Batman! He asks her what she thinks she’s doing, breaking and entering. Maps tells him she’s investigating a fellow student’s disappearance. Outside now, Batman, tells her to get in the car; she’s going back home. He says he knows who she is (she’s surprised!) and it’s too dangerous for her to be out doing what she’s doing without proper training. In mid-scolding, a shadowy creature runs across the hood of the Batmobile, followed by another and another. Batman zooms after them. They’re headed for the river.

 

PAGE SEVEN

Batman jumps out of the car as a dozen or so shadowy creatures leap into the Gotham Reservoir. It’s hard to see in the darkness but they look like children. He tells Maps to stay put as he follows the figures. She of course disobeys, climbing out of the Batmobile and getting her flashlight ready. She hears a noise and swings her flashlight around to see another of the creatures behind her. Now we get a good look at it-it’s the size of a 10-year-old kid, but scaly and slimy with a mop of dirty hair. Maps gasps. The creature bares its teeth and dashes past her.

 

PAGE EIGHT

Maps shouts at Batman to warn him as a dozen webbed hands reach up to grab his cape. They pull Batman down into the churning water with them. Maps rushes to the water’s edge to help but there’s no sign of Batman or the creatures-just some bubbles in the dark water.

END OF PART ONE

 

PART TWO

PAGE NINE

FLASHBACK. Black & White. 1940s. A young boy stands on a riverbank in Japan, looking at the water. A small, lifeless creature lays on the shore. It’s a Kappa. The boy picks up the creature and it weakly opens its eyes to look at him. He gives it a small piece of food, which it nibbles. A voice calls from off-panel (in Japanese). The boy hides the Kappa in his coat and runs to join his parents as they board a big steam ship.

TITLE & CREDITS

 

PAGE TEN

PRESENT DAY. In the roiling water, Batman struggles as a dozen Kappas claw at him and drag him deeper into the Gotham City Reservoir. One of them has an arm around his neck, choking him. Batman finds a flashbomb in his belt and detonates it, blinding the Kappas.

 

PAGE ELEVEN

The creatures scatter in the deep water, swimming with webbed hands and feet toward a large aqueduct entrance. Batman swims after them and crawls out of the water inside the aqueduct tunnel. He coughs out some water and examines his arm and ribs–there are claw marks in his suit and he’s bleeding. His ear radio crackles. ‘Batman? Batman?? Are you there?’

 

PAGE TWELVE

Back on the shore, Maps is inside the Batmobile, frantically toggling control knobs in an effort to contact Batman. There’s a crackly response. ‘Mia… Don’t touch anything.’ She’s relieved and asks him if he’s okay. He says he’s fine and to stay put. Maps says she thinks she knows what the creatures are. She has her Monster Manual open on the seat beside her (it was in her backpack, as always). She tells him that they’re Kappas–mythological Japanese creatures. Yokai. That explains the cucumbers. They LOVE cucumbers. Batman cuts her off as he hears something in the tunnel ahead–a human cry.

 

PAGE THIRTEEN

Batman follows the cry and tells Maps not to move. She says okay. She tries talking to the Batmobile. Is Batman okay? He didn’t sound okay. The Batmobile shows a suit scan of Batman’s injuries. The navigation console is tracking Batman and shows him going deeper into Gotham’s waterway. She finds it confusing; she’s not used to technology–nothing beats a good paper map–but she manages to remove the console from the Batmobile dashboard and runs off, following his trail aboveground toward the old pumping station.

 

PAGE FOURTEEN

Batman crouches low in the tunnels and looks around a corner. He sees something, someone who looks like they crawled halfway out of the water, grasping for safety. As he approaches the person he realizes that it’s actually only half a person. A young woman’s dead hand is still clinging to the stone tunnel wall while her body has been severed above the waist. It looks like it’s been partially eaten. Batman turns the woman’s head to look at her face. She’s been dead for a long time–definitely not the source of the scream he heard. He hears splashing ahead and goes to investigate, but something hisses at him from behind. A Kappa lunges at him.

 

PAGE FIFTEEN

Fight scene. Batman punches a bunch of Kappas, flings some at the wall, tases them, etc. They’re dazed and weak when they’re out of the water but when they jump back into the water they seem to regenerate. Several Kappas converge on him, their heads visible above the water’s surface, eyes fierce.They’re about to attack en masse when Maps shouts at them to stop. She’s brandishing a handful of cucumbers.

 

PAGE SIXTEEN

The Kappas stop in their tracks, fixated on the cucumbers. Maps withholds the treats and bows deeply, greeting them traditionally in Japanese. The Kappas stop and bow. As they do, some water spills from their heads and they seem more docile. She gives them some cucumbers, which they eat greedily. Batman picks himself up. As Maps is about to ask the kappas some questions, Lindsay Okamura shows up, looking half-drowned and filthy.

END OF PART TWO

 

PART THREE

PAGE SEVENTEEN

Lindsay Okamura tells Batman and Maps what happened to her: she lives with her grandfather and when she hadn’t heard from him in a long time she went home to see if he was okay. He… he brought a kappa to Gotham with him when he came here as a boy; kept it as a pet. But she found dozens of them all over the house. When she realized they’d been hurting people, she tried to round them up. She followed them into the aqueduct to try to stop them from hurting anyone else, but they’re out of control. Batman asks where her grandfather is. Lindsay doesn’t know. She starts crying, then collapses. Batman picks her up and radios the GCPD for animal control. The kappas look on innocently.

 

PAGE EIGHTEEN

Back in the Batmobile, Batman is driving Maps back home. The police are rounding up the creatures and Lindsay has been taken to the hospital. Her parents are both dead. Her mother killed herself fourteen years ago and her father died in a car accident a few years ago. What about her grandfather? Where is he? Batman says he’s going to look into it. Maps asks him about maybe doing this Robin thing again part time, but Batman flat-out refuses. This isn’t a game. They pull up at her house. Maps takes her flower pin out of her hair, plucks a petal from it and puts it on the Batmobile dashboard. She smiles at Batman and gets out of the car.

 

PAGE NINETEEN

Back in her old room, Maps sits on the edge of her bed wearing her dirty Robin suit. The mask is off now. She’s thinking. Something is bothering her. She opens her Monster Manual again(or maybe pulls a different book off of her shelf) and looks at the Kappa entry again. The illustrations in the book are a bit different from the ones they saw-these ones had more human eyes and fingers. They were…hybrids. But then where was the original Kappa that Lindsay’s grandfather brought back from Japan? Maps puts her mask back on, all business again.

 

PAGE TWENTY

Batman is zooming home in the Batmobile when he suddenly hears Maps’ voice talking to him-it’s coming from the hairpin petal which morphs into a small version of Maps’ talking head. Batman is alarmed. How is she doing this? Maps explains that she’s not really here-it’s a piece of her friend Katherine Karlo, a small independent part of Basil Karlo, the original Clayface. Maps tells Batman that she believes the Kappas are human/kappa hybrids! She’s gone back to the Okamura house. Meet her there! Batman shouts for her to stop what she’s doing and  go back home. She hangs up. He screeches a U-Turn and zooms back upstate.

 

PAGE TWENTY-ONE

Maps prowls around the Okamura house. She finds a trail of water on the floor behind a cabinet and discovers a hidden door, which opens on an old Japanese tea room, walled with shoji screen doors. It’s dimly lit. There’s a terrible smell. Maps can make out a shape on the floor in the corner. It’s Grandpa Okamura. He’s been dead for what looks like a few weeks. She recoils, never having been this close to a dead body. She ‘radios’ Batman again, gagging, saying that she’s found Mr. Okamura. Then a voice from off-panel croaks at her in Japanese…

 

PAGE TWENTY-TWO

An old, obese Kappa squats in the corner behind her. It looks ancient. Its hands are webbed and the top of its head is bowl-shaped, containing a lot of water. It croaks again in Japanese, taking a step toward her. Maps bows in an attempt to show it respect. No response. She offers a cucumber with a trembling hand. The Old Kappa reaches out toward it, then slaps it away and lunges at her.

 

PAGE TWENTY-THREE

The Kappa is smothering her, its scaly hands all over her. Maps is screaming for help. She thinks she’s going to die. Batman crashes into the room and throws the creature off of here. It slams into the wall, the water spilling from its head. Its eyes go wide with panic and it slumps to its death.

Maps is in a state of absolute traumatic shock. She’s covered with slime and gasping for breath. Batman kneels down to help her, calling her name. Mia. Mia! …Robin. Focus. Maps snaps out of it. She re-focuses on Batman and leans forward, hugging him for dear life.

 

PAGE TWENTY-FOUR

Back at Gotham Academy, Maps sits on the dock beside the river, quiet and reflective. She looks like she’s grown up a bit. Katherine sits beside her. They’re looking at their reflections in the water. Maps thanks Katherine for her help and apologizes for leaving a piece of her in Batman’s car. Katherine says that as a Clayface, she doesn’t know what death is or if she even CAN die, but she was frightened for Maps nonetheless. She asks Maps if being a Robin is still something she wants to do. Is it worth it? Maps stares into the water silently, her chin resting on her folded arms. She turns her head to look back at Katherine and smiles.

 

THE END

 

As you can see, a lot of stuff got cut from the script. I tend to over-write even when I don’t think I’m over-writing, and when it comes time to draw the page I have to pick and choose my moments and decide what stuff to cut. Unfortunately, a lot of my favourite bits got cut in service of a tidier story. I could have gone on for pages doing scenes of Maps and Safi in the kitchen, but alas…

THE ROUGHS

These are my VERY rough thumbnailed pages for the first segment of the story. As you can see , I leave a lot to the inking stage. Most of the actual ‘work’ is done here, trying to figure out how to compose the page and make sure that all the information is there while still being as splashy and dynamic as possible.

One thing I’ve learned as I’m now writing and drawing my own stuff is that it helps me to actually letter the page FIRST. Even if it’s temp dialogue and the balloons aren’t exactly where they’re going to be in the end, it gives me a better sense of the cadence of the page and exactly how much room I have to work with (it’s ALWAYS LESS THAN I THINK).

Click for Slideshow…

THE INKED PAGES!

Now that Part One is on the shelves, I can safely post the black and white pages for you to see. I left the lettering in because as I said earlier, I’ve been doing that part first and they’re really anchoring the artwork, so it’s a package deal. Here are the final pages:

That’s it, from start to finish! If you want to get into specifics, just post a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer it!

Overall, I’m very proud of how this turned out. I might have overdone it with the halftone patterns (I treated it like it was going to be printed in black & white rather than colour) but John Rauch did a great job with it regardless. My secret desire is for all three parts of this to be collected into a single issue at some point and maybe given away for Free Comic Book Day. I’m gonna’ keep bugging Ben about this. 🙂

You might have noticed that the colours changed after part one. John Rauch moved on to something else and Dave McCaig stepped in to colour parts two and three. I’ve always loved Dave’s work and trust him implicitly. All I told him was that I wanted this to feel like a horror-version of Superfriends and that if possible to use the Pantone palette from the 1980’s DC Style Guide, which he did! I think it looks awesome.

JAPANESE!

There’s a bunch of Japanese text in this story! The entire plot is based on the yokai of Japanese mythology and I wanted it to authentically reflect that. There are no translations on the pages for the Japanese text because it’s not necessary to understanding the action (I think the visuals are enough to keep the reader informed) but I’m including them here for those of you who might be interested! I’m fortunate to have a Japanese mother-in-law who gave me a lot of translations and even hand-wrote the Kappa’s dialogue in the final scene (she did different versions and I chose the creepiest one).

PAGE 9: “Hikaru! Come here, please!”

PAGE 15: “Stop!”

PAGE 16: “I’ve got cucumbers!”

PAGE 21: “Prettyyyy…”

PAGE 22: “Pretty…” “Deliciouusss”

PAGE 23: “Uuuuuuu” “UuuuaaAAAAAH!”

IN CLOSING

I hope you all enjoyed this look behind the curtain. I personally love seeing process stuff like this from other creators and find even the smallest detail interesting. There are things I didn’t even touch on, like the use of halftones in the inks, but I didn’t want this post to get too out of hand. Overall, I’m extremely happy with this story. I think it’s a career highlight for me just because I got to write and draw and letter it all and it put Maps Mizoguchi in such a prominent spotlight on the Gotham stage. Is it perfect? Of course not. But I think it’s pretty good and I’m a better writer because of it. Anyway, it exists now, and the older I get the more I realize that that’s the only thing that matters with art. Just do it and get it out there and try to learn from it each time.

I hope I can do more things like this in the future. Big thanks again to Ben Abernathy for making it happen and just trusting me to do whatever I want in the back of DC’s most popular book.

Until next time!