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Mar 18, 2008

Madeline rated it:

i think ADHD being a form of higher evolution is an interesting theory. grant morrison thinking he is more highly evolved because he has ADHD is a less interesting theory.

morrison is no genius, in my opinion. i would attribute most of the greatness of the book to mckean, especially after reading the original "script" in the back of this book. morrison says, "According to Len Wein's original WHO'S WHO entry, Arkham died singing "the Battle Hymn of the Republic," More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 15, 2007

Marc rated it:

Arkham Asylum is the best graphic novel I've ever read for two reasons: writing, and art.

This isn't your average WHACK! POW! comic book. In fact, there is almost no violence or glammed-out secret weapons. Grant Morrision takes us through a masterful exploration into the psyche of Bruce Wayne, a man who suffered a tragic loss at an early age and formed a very clear alternate identity. Is he a crime fighter, or does he suffer from MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder), and does it even m More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2010

Adam rated it:

McKean's artwork is just staggeringly good. I don't have much else to say about it.

The effect of the thing is very Lynchian more than anything else. I think Lynch doing this as a movie would be utterly awesome. It's very much in that same category where you have to feel and experience it, where a close reading is actually less rewarding (and fuck you Grant Morrison, if you disagree) than just letting it wash over you. It plays on the emotions and is really very dreamlike and atmosphe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 23, 2007

MIke rated it:

Forget "...Dark Knight," "The Killing Joke" and "Year One," this is the greatest Batman story ever told. Morrison weaves a tale of symbols that plays out in a crawl from the depth of Hell to the brink of salvation and vice versa. With Dave McKean's brilliant art setting the stage there's nothing to compete.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Andrew rated it:

I have read many a poor/overrated Batman story in my ten-odd years as a fan, but this much referred to epic may take the cake. As a Batman story, this is a total failure. Batman acts completely out of character almost from the beginning. When walking into a hostage situation masterminded by the Joker, he strikes up a conversation with his archenemy rather than planning how to rescue the innocents involved. When Joker shoots a hostage in the head across the room from Batman (I think-- the bizarre More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2008

Werebot rated it:

I know that a lot of the modern Batman mythos has a lot to do with the whole evil outside vs. darkness within motif, but this is ridiculous. What a pretentious bunch of nonsense. And I've never gotten the attraction to Dave McKean's art. But then, I'm not a goth nerd. I can never tell what's going on, everything's too dark and splotchy and covered in symbols. This is a Batman comic book. Let's not overthink it. When did we let the British take over our comic books anyway? Neil Gaiman and More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2008

narajaponesa rated it:

The artistry is GORGEOUS. The script is way dark. A masterpiece, though not one I'd necessarily revisit.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Williwaw rated it:

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Dec 27, 2011

Julian rated it:

A batman tale at its best, as it reaches unflinchingly deep into the recesses of the human psyche. While the comic may be accused by some as symptomatic of an attempt at at best, pop psychology, I think the authors have done a marvellous job in portraying the differences by which Batman and The Joker are negotiating what are in essence, very similar psychological conflicts. This is done on a backdrop literally seething with a brooding, menacing perceived threat of total disintegration, which was More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Tyler rated it:

I know that this comic looms large in the Bat-cannon, so I've been interested to read it for some time now. But, now that I've had a chance to, I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed. Maybe it's a matter of expectations being set too high, but it also might be a matter of just some muddy storytelling.

To be fair, there's a number of interesting ideas in these pages. The description of Joker's psyche by one of the people working in the Asylum is interesting, and the story of Amadeus Arkha More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Jaime W. rated it:

Do you know what madness is like? Well Bruce Wayne(Batman) does in Batman: Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison. Batman is sent into to rescue the staff in Arkham Asylum when the inmates take over. Arkham Asylum is Gotham's mental instution for the worst. In Arkham Asylum, you will meet the most disgusting men ever seen. The inmates are ruthless killers, psychopaths, etc. Most of the men in the Asylum are there because of Batman.

Batman finds out that the whole riot was planned by Joker, More...

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Jun 20, 2011

Julian rated it:

Though Grant Morrison may not entirely agree, this book is almost entirely about the visuals; what his text did was create a suitably claustrophobic world where madness was not just near the surface, but in the sky-scrapers. He created a Batman who, far from being the straight arrow of the normative version is so shadowy a figure psychologically that he is scarcely there at all and a Joker who is a kind of psychic monster, expanding into whatever mental space one had thought safe from madness a More...

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May 25, 2011

Keith rated it:

So after buying this book for the third time in my life today (the first, a hardcover edition that all the pages eventually fell out of; the second, the paperback edition sans script that now sits across the country with the rest of my books) I decided it was worth going on Goodreads to wax poetic about it. Because goddamn I love this book. I got it right after the '89 movie came out, of course, and was absolutely terrified of it -- it sat on my nightstand and gave me nightmares regularly, until More...

6 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 22, 2011

Tung rated it:

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (AA:SHSE) is unlike any other superhero graphic novel I’ve ever read. To call it a comic book just because it stars Batman would be about the worst classification you could make for it. Frankly, I’m not sure the term graphic novel accurately captures what it is. Imagine instead that you could capture a living nightmare on paper – that’s what this book is; insanity set to pages. The story takes place on an April 1 night. The Joker and a crew of othe More...

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Jan 30, 2011

William Thomas rated it:

Grant Morrison has evolved greatly over the course of 20 years, and this less than stellar book from 1989 is the proof of how far he has come. Because this was an absolute abomination on all fronts.

Dis I say abomination? I meant abortion. Because this read like something bot fully developed, the story only half-baked and fairly worthless, not entertaining us, nor teaching us, nor making us believe in it's poetry or beauty. The only thing redeeming were bits of the art by Dave McKean, a More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 15, 2010

Ariana Deralte rated it:

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Mar 17, 2010

Craig rated it:

I never liked Grant Morrison. Ever since he started to make a splash in the comic book scene, I couldn't figure out why he was such a big damn deal. His work on Batman, especially the R.I.P-arc, was awful. His work on Uncanny X-Men, from what I read, was okay, but nothing incredible.

Then I read Batman: Arkham Asylum.

I have to say - this is really good stuff. I read this in one sitting, it was so good. Morrison weaves a haunting Batman tale, exploring the darker sid More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2010

Marcos rated it:

This book was a major success for DC when they released it, back in 1989. It sold more than any other graphic novel DC had released by that point, and it maintained best-seller status for years. It also helped catapult its creators--artist Dave McKean and writer Grant Morrison--into comic-book royalty status, and it even netted Morrison a heaping pile of cash ($300,000 off initial sales alone). Lots of people loved it, apparently. The problem is: it's not really any good.

Sure the art, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2009

Jason rated it:

I must admit that I was very excited to read this book. I didn't realize that there was a book of the same name as the recent (and excellent) Batman videogame and so I decided to check it out. The game doesn't borrow too much from the plot of the book. They both have Batman in an asylum captured by the inmates and run by Joker and they both have the journals of Amadeus Arkham woven throughout the narrative, but everything else is changed.

Lo and behold, the game is better. Not that th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 31, 2009

Tezzle rated it:

I went into this story completely blind. No idea what I was getting myself into. What I was expecting was a Batman story...WOW. Bad idea if you haven't read this, folks. This isn't a Batman story. It's a psychological mind-frack with Batman characters in it.

Half of the time I couldn't even tell who the villains were supposed to be. Scarecrow had something I would consider less than a cameo. He just...walked by. I didn't even get his purpose in that single page he was in until I looke More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 09, 2011

Karissa rated it:

I have been wanting to read this graphic novel for awhile and was excited to get it through paperbackswap. This is a very dark horror that was wonderful, but a bit disturbing.

I think pretty much everyone is familiar with this story. Batman is called to Arkham Asylum to face down the Joker and all the other depraved inmates there. As he goes through the asylum Batman is forced to consider his similarities and differences to the crazy lunatics of Arkham asylum.

This is defini More...

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May 23, 2011

Jr rated it:

i read this many many years ago. i am revisiting it thanks to a loaned copy from a good friend.

i am moved by grant morrison's ability to convey deeper complexity than one would off-the-cuff ascribe to comic book characters. the artwork by dave mckean is in a similar vein, pushing boundaries of the medium's form firmly into a palimpsestic art. many point to this work as a pivotal moment for comics and they may well be right. the choice to use such iconic and well-established chara More...

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Nov 16, 2010

Jason rated it:

After losing his mother to madness, Amadeus Arkham, namesake of Gotham City's famous asylum for the criminally insane, returns to his childhood home in order to create of it an asylum and to free those taken hostage by mental illness. In the process, he confronts his deepest darkest fears and plunges headlong into into his own madness. After losing his parents to a back-alley hold-up, Bruce Wayne becomes the Batman, and in order to free hostages taken by the inmates of Arkham Asylum, he goes int More...

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Nov 12, 2011

Kyle rated it:

Arkham Asylum is a visually and darkly written tale of Batman as he heads into “the heart of darkness” after the inmates, the psychos, have taken over the asylum, as well as Arkham, the founder of the asylum.
The point of view shifts from Arkham, when he was a child living in the house that would one day become an insane asylum, to Batman fighting the Joker inside the asylum years later. Morrison transfers from Arkham’s plot and narration to Batman’s plot while continuing to use Ar More...

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Sep 08, 2011

Sesana rated it:

I admit, I picked this up for a re-read after playing Arkham Asylum. Fantastic game, by the way, well-written, with great action and incredible voice acting. But this is not about that game, about which I could rave for hours.

I remember loving this graphic novel when I first read it, but reading it again I can't exactly remember why. It's still well-written, and the Arkham backstory is interesting enough that it's apparently been kept. But pretty much everybody that shows up feels ou More...

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Mar 01, 2010

Kat rated it:

Quite the compelling read, and even more so when you take the time to read the full script of the graphic novel (which is effectively the second half of this edition). Like Alan Moore, Morrison has put A LOT of thought into his work, much of which is not immediately visible. I don't think of myself as especially obtuse, but I easily missed most of the symbolism that the author so painstakingly inserted into the story (to be fair, some of these elements were omitted by Dave McKean when he illustr More...

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Dec 16, 2011

Cyrielle rated it:

J'aurais bien mis 3 étoiles et demie.

Visuellement, c'est splendide. Spécial, et pas ce dont je suis fan, mais c'est quand même impressionnant.

L'histoire m'a captivée. Le sujet traité ici est un de ceux - liés à Batman en particulier - qui m'intéressent beaucoup, à savoir la part de folie en chacun de nous. Et la folie tout court, aussi.

Je trouve malgré tout que ce n'est pas tellement profond. La partie qui m'a le plus intéressée reste le flashback. Des théorie More...

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Aug 28, 2010

Justyn rated it:

This is #4 on the Top 25 Batman list and I wholeheartedly disagree. Interestingly enough, this was written the same year as "Blind Justice" and the two could not be more different.

Arkham Asylum is a very unique look at Batman through the lens of madness. The story is largely concerned with the origins of Arkham Asylum where all of Batman's foes inevitably end up once captured. The story is very hallucinatory in it's construct. In part due to the writing of Grant Morrison bu More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2009

Dan rated it:

I think I'm done with Grant Morrison. I don't like having to require footnotes for my comics. Seven Soldiers, Final Crisis, Doom Patrol, and even going back to this, they're all supposedly genius, or are claimed to be by the fanboys. Woe to the person who doesn't "get-it" but come on, I like my books to be deep, but also understandable and fun (which Morrison does in All-Star Superman).

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 30, 2011

Michael rated it:

Having just reread Grant Morrison and Dave McKean's 1989 masterpiece, I have developed and even greater respect and appreciation for the amount of effort and research that went into creating it. This is because the original script for Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is included along with the comic itself... and the script is absolutely essential. Without it, Arkham Asylum stands as an interesting and unique interpretation of Batman from a visual stand point... but the script, wh More...

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