A slew of awesome creators deconstruct ‘The Dark Knight Returns’

‘Shitty Dark Knight’ brings together Dave Baker, Andrew MacLean, Jim Rugg, Zack Soto and more for the ‘worst possible execution’ of Miller’s classic comic.

In a week full of news and announcements about comics and related stuff, this right here is the one that most intrigues me. Several creators, including Zack Soto, Paul Maybury, Malachi Ward and Jim Rugg, have come together to “redraw” The Dark Knight Returns, the classic Frank Miller/Klaus Janson/Lynn Varley magnum opus from the 1980s. Their goal is to see how well the visual storytelling holds up.

Titled Shitty Dark Knight, the book can be pre-ordered from Dave Baker’s online store, and will also be available this week at Comic-Con International.

Shitty Dark Knight is a formalist exercise analyzing the language of comics,” the description reads. “Its goal is to boil down the visual storytelling in Dark Knight Returns to its worst possible execution in order to see if it still communicates.”

It’s hard to imagine it being the “worst possible execution” — if you really wanted to achieve that, I’d be more than willing to lend my own drawing skills — as the project features a lot of talented folks: Dave Baker, Andrew MacLean, Nicole Goux, Jordan Gibson, Alixes Ziritt, Nick Derington, Malachi Ward, Sam Grinberg, Colby Bluth, Tom Neely, Paul Maybury, Erwin Papa, Baldemar Rivas, Buster Moody, Jim Mahfood, Matt Allison, Ryan Quackenbush, Jim Rugg, and Zack Soto. A few of them have been posting their contributions on social media:

Here’s Buster Moody’s, from Tumblr:

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it.

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