Please help: 'It's Joker Time' info needed.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I've just finished reading an excellent Joker story called 'It's Joker Time'. In it, a shrink at Arkham attempts to lull the Joker's insanity by force feeding him inane talk shows. The Joker is reduced to a near catatonic state, but escapes prison and is found by - a talk show host. What follows is a wild ride, one of the best Joker tales since Alan Moore's Killing Joke (even if a couple of elements in the end put me off).

However, I have this comic in a cheap Indian edition which has somehow managed to omit all writing and art credits. The only info I've found online is that this was released as a 3-part miniseries in 2002,. If anyone could help me figure out who the writer and artists were, I'd be deeply grateful. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Kind ravenus actually found the details out some time back and reminded me of it. Here they are:

Writer: Bob Hall
Artists: Bob Hall (p/i), Digital Chameleon (c), Jack Morelli (l)

I trust he won't mind that I am reproducing his review of the comic here, as it is all in the interest of touting a worthwhile read:


Ravenus sez:

It's Joker Time
Writer: Bob Hall
Artists: Bob Hall (p/i), Digital Chameleon (c), Jack Morelli (l)

At Arkham Asylum, the Joker is subjected to a brain-numbing regime of day-time television, among other things a Phil Donahue-type sensation talk show called The Barry Dancer Show, with the idea of bludgenoning him to 'become tame as a gerbil'. The pressure piles on until one day Joker just snaps and makes a Hannibal Lecteresque escape from the loonhouse. Only the treatments have severely affeced him and he's reduced to a drooling retard who can't remember any of his funny lines, let alone commit acts of villainy. Thus he is found by Dancer who is desperately looking for an act to boost his ratings. By a wierd legal loophole the police and Batman are held back from taking the Joker into custody. On the other hand, Dancer and his producer Cassandra Hahn pull out all the stops to make Joker a national celebrity, inviting a celeb psychiatrist to do on-screen couch sessions that will reveal the make-up of the killer clown.

Sounds interesting? You bet. The writing is the main star in this vehicle, pitch black in its humor and cynical as hell. It also makes a sweeping arc giving multiple origins for the Joker, including one set in the mythos of ancient Egypt. The illustrations are also no slouch, some of the surreal stuff completely mind-blowing.

Pick this up wherever you see it, I say.

PS: The Indian edition shows the Joker on the cover. The Devarajan dude was so busy putting his name on the front page that he forgot to put in the title of the story as well as the people who actually worked on it

 

[Brian G Turner]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[DeepThought]

I've just finished reading an excellent Joker story called 'It's Joker Time'. In it, a shrink at Arkham attempts to lull the Joker's insanity by force feeding him inane talk shows. The Joker is reduced to a near catatonic state, but escapes prison and is found by - a talk show host. What follows is a wild ride, one of the best Joker tales since Alan Moore's Killing Joke...

Yes!, I've been following this new animated series called...Batman (on CartoonNetwork) and just recently watched an episode based on this story you mentioned, this was like the second season and still it was the best one of the lot! has anyone else seen this? knivesout ? theme music for season two was done by U2, but I liked the first one better. Anyway just wanted to point this out.

Cheer's, DeepThought