We chat with the artist about delivering on the '90s promise of those Kelley Jones Knightfall covers.
Welcome to Creator Corner, our recurring interview series in which we chat with the industry's coolest and most thought-provoking creators. In this entry, we're conversing about Absolute Batman and Bane with Nick Dragotta. Listen to the unedited audio HERE.
The second we saw Nick Dragotta's Absolute Batman design, we started fantasizing about his Absolute Bane design. While Lisa missed the 90s Knightfall scene, young Brad practically pickled his brain within it. Those Kelley Jones covers, man. They were massive, seemingly stretching well beyond their borders. No one could defeat that monstrosity, not even the Dark Knight.
However, as much as we love the Jim Aparo interiors of the iconic Batman #497, his Bane never lived up to the terrifying titan that Kelley Jones imagined on the cover. Spoilers for Absolute Batman #6 (on stands now from DC): Nick Dragotta and writer Scott Snyder are now promising a villainous creature worthy of those Kelley Jones showstoppers. So, of course, given the opportunity to speak with Dragotta again, we had to focus our conversation on the ultimate 90s Gotham City threat.
Without giving too much away, Dragotta teases how the Absolute Bane will differ from the original baddie. For Snyder and the artist, the motto remains "Go Big. No, Bigger." The Bane we're about to meet will be a MONSTER, but the emotions he'll be walloping through will be equally gargantuan. Please, hurt us. Hurt us bad.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Nick Dragotta, Absolute Bane, and Going Bigger
Brad: Nick, good to talk to you again about Absolute Batman. Hello.
Nick Dragotta: Hello.
Brad: I had to make a request with Lisa for the first question, because I'm a '90s boy. Absolute Batman #6, the comic is out now. I'm holding it in my hands. We can now talk about the last page. Bane is coming!
Lisa: He's so excited for Bane, unrelatable.
Brad: You weren't there for Knightfall, Lisa.
Lisa: That's true.
Brad: What does it mean for you to bring Bane into the Absolute Universe?
Nick Dragotta: That's a good question. I don't want to say too much, but if I were to show, move my camera two feet to the left, you would see the covers that show Bane and what he's going to look like in the Absolute Universe. And let's just say he's going to go through a couple of different iterations.
I'm a nostalgia guy myself, so I'm going to lean that way. But this being Absolute, we're definitely going to go big, and go bigger, and go as big as we can. So I'll leave you with that. But I think Scott's take on Bane is something we haven't seen before and it kind of plays into everything that this JK industry/Ark-M stuff we've been setting up within this first arc. It all plays a role and it's all connected and it's a really cool take.
Brad: Back in the day, reading Knightfall, you would get those Kelley Jones covers and a massive Bane. So, I have that Bane at the forefront of my imagination. Then I put that Bane into this world - whoa. I love Jim Aparo's Knightfall interior art, but that Bane was very different than the Kelley Jones Bane. Anemic in comparison. I feel like you have an opportunity to do the Kelley Jones Bane that we never got inside.
Nick Dragotta: I'm with you. I'll do my best. It goes back to even my Absolute Batman designs. You can't mess with it too much. It has to be recognizable, feed into that love and nostalgia, and then that cool factor. Like no one feathered muscles as cool as Kelley Jones and exaggerated things like Batman's ears or drew such a lush cape. I personally don't have those skills, but I know exactly what you're talking about, and I think, Brad, you're going to get some of that for sure.
Brad: Okay. Okay. I'll take it.
Nick Dragotta, Absolute Bane, and Bruce Wayne's Pals
Lisa: That last page also promises things to get really, really weird and gross, which gets me excited. We're going to get a soupy Bane. A Bane made of soup.
Brad: Well, that's not Bane at the end.
Lisa: I know. I know that's not Bane at the end, but there is a man whom we can presume is someone, and he seems to be made of soup.
Brad: I feel like that's Joker.
Lisa: I know. Everybody knows that it's Joker. You can't have the last page of a Batman comic and that guy not be Joker.
Brad: Okay.
Lisa: Are you pretending I'm obtuse?
Brad: Uh -
Nick Dragotta: This is all to come and these are teases as you know. So, the storyline for the Joker, jeez, is not for another seven issues, maybe. Like we've got Marcos MartÃn coming on for two fill-ins - issues seven and eight, which we're going to see the new Freeze, the Absolute Freeze, which is awesome. I've read seven, it's great. You're going to get more of Bruce's interaction with his friends and their reaction to him being Batman, which is really great.
We get a new friend thrown in who we haven't seen yet. So like everything we've been building, all this drama is starting to pay off, and a lot of these emotional beats will start hitting. And then going back to Bane and the Joker, that's down the line. That's the arc I'm working on now. Like the covers that will be solicited next, you'll get a glimpse of Bane [see above]. Again, this being Absolute, don't judge a book by its cover. It's all going to change. It's going to go crazy. So we're having fun.
Lisa: Last time we talked a lot about Batman being someone who is just good with their resources. I see this group of friends as something that other Batmen, not Absolute Batman, did not have. There's this pool of friends from which to pull. But then this also creates, I think, probably a tenuous web of trust. I'm sure that all of these friends are not entirely on board with the Batman situation.
Nick Dragotta: Well, that's the beauty of this drama. In just knowing Batman lore, we know where they're all going to end up, or we expect them to end up. And that's just been the fun of this - realizing all of his rogues, the core of the rogues gallery of villains, were also there at that day of the shooting - and we learned that in this issue six. And then not only that trauma, but then the trauma growing up in Gotham - like Ozzy's already, you know, he's up to no good.
And Bruce has learned from each of them. They've all come up together. The world is not as black and white; it's more gray. And then I can't wait till you see some of the storylines that - because, spoiler alert! They're all going to become who we know them to be eventually. But with that Absolute twist on them. It's not as simple as, "You're bad, I'm good." It's just not that simple. And Batman's going to have to wrestle with that. His actions will actually help make some of these people take the turns they do.
But at the end of the day though, it's like a family so he can't really divorce himself from it. He's not there to defeat them ultimately. They're there to help one another, and that's what friends do. So I really like what Scott and I got cooked up, and the way this is all going to unfold. It's going to be really cool.
Nick Dragotta, Absolute Bane, and Expectations
Brad: Some of my favorite things I've seen you draw have been these two-page spreads in Absolute Batman. We talked about the gun in the first issue, the last time we talked. And I think we have to talk about the two-page spread of issue six where we get to see the friends of Bruce. It's a photograph, a photograph that then gets seen several other times throughout the issue.
Nick Dragotta: You just draw on what it was like to be a kid and innocence. I'm just trying to capture that in the drawing. And then it's just the tragedy of it because we all know their stories, so we all know it will not be easy from that day forward. I was talking about this in another interview. When I draw the kids, personally, whenever you see kids in a script, you're like, "Uh."
I have a limited skill set. I do the best I can, but when it comes to kids, I'm very much of the Alex Toth tradition of less is more, and to add to truth just detracts from it. So you want to create these simple icons that all of us as readers look at and go, "Yeah, that's them as a kid," but not be too individually specific and go, "Oh, that's the kid from Silver Spoons, Nick is obviously referencing," or "That's Macaulay Culkin in this movie."
You want them to just read immediately, and then Scott's dialogue over top of it, merge those words and pictures, and try to have some emotional resonance. I go towards less and more - an iconic look for each character, and that's the thought behind it.
But it's cool to hear you say that, Brad, because you really want the emotional resonance to come through. And that's probably been the most gratifying thing. Like when we first talked, I remember, even after our podcast we talked forever about what this book is, and I couldn't quite answer it because you really don't know until you really get into it and start doing it. And I knew we had a good start, but I couldn't answer every question because the book grows and evolves as we make it. And so that's what's been really gratifying to hear. A lot of people like that emotional resonance and that craft we're trying to display in this comic.
Lisa: So much of this comic is the balance of expectations versus surprise. And I feel like the both of you walk that line so delicately - though I do hear we're getting a large Bane. Wouldn't a teeny tiny Bane be shocking? Like a really teeny weenie?
Nick Dragotta: It would, but he will be going against Batman. I want someone to see this guy and go, "Batman doesn't stand a chance against this guy." And then when you get this guy's, what he's been through, his experiences, you're going to be like, "Yeah, you know, maybe..." I don't want to give anything away.
Lisa: We want everything. That is what we're here for. We're literally plumbing right now.
Nick Dragotta: I know. But there is, again, Bruce, who will be constantly hit with these decisions he has to make. I don't think any of them are good, you know? Yeah, it's fun, it's going to be fun.
Absolute Batman #6Â is now available wherever rad comics are sold. And don't forget, you can listen to this unedited conversation on the CBCC Patreon.