I guess I started with comics captivated by the art of artists such as Jim Lee, Quesada, Coipel and Alex Ross. Those, super detailed, realistic, and beautifully inked pages of Hush, House of M, Kingdom Come has probably kept me entertained for weeks, reading and admiring the art work over and over again. I'll admit that I've never been into stylized comic art until reading Hellboy and BRPD. Somehow, Mike Mignola's art managed to intrigue me, and over time I've learnt to appreciate his illustrations. Having said that, I still don't really get the popularity of comics drawn by the likes of Tim Sale, Romita Jr... I dunno... perhaps I'm simply not enlightened enough to be able to appreciate 'em.
So now that it's been established that I'm a Mignola fan, I guess it's a good time as any to say that I'm very, very impressed by this Batman statue from DC Direct's Black and White series, based on Mike Mignola's art. The sculptor, Jonathan Matthews, did an absolutely great job sculpting it. The translation of a 2D art to 3D isn't easy, and from any angle you look at it, the 3D statue becomes 2D, as though somebody printed out a scan from a comic book, and pasted it on the wall. Apart from the sculpting, this illusion is actually possible only with a well designed paint app. The shadows of protruding forms on the sculpt are permanently painted to a darker shade of grey, and the sharp clean tones without any gradients adhere much to Mignola's art.
This recent release is, however, a repaint of an earlier statue that was released a couple of years ago. The original sports a large black bat insignia, rather than the repaint which sports the oval shape logo. Some other noticeable changes include the bat grapple hook, which was upside down (and made sense) in the original release. Also, the zig-zag shadows on the belt sports smaller teeth on the original than the current one. Lastly, the base on the original statue was dominantly black. A good pictorial of the original statue may be found here.
Truth be told, I very much prefer the original too. SO why did I still get this one? Well, the original one was getting pretty rare by the time I realized it existed, and it commands 3-400% its original price! Having said that, there was a significant price hike from the original for the repaint (approx 35%), which is kinda hard to swallow, but compared to the insane prices on the secondary market, I decided to bite. The various design changes were introduced largely to appease fans and owners of the original statue I guess, but they were all poorly made decisions. Still, on the whole, this reissue was a great opportunity for those who missed the boat on the 1st release, to own a suitable replacement that is a close replica of the original.
While the sculpting and paint design is genius, I must say, I had a hard time choosing the perfect piece from the shop... DC Direct's quality control seemed to be non-existant. The 1st piece I opened had a finger print across his face. The 2nd piece had sloppy black glossy paint on his glove. The 3rd piece had some blemishes on the white areas of the bat logo. Most unfortunately, I had to settle on one of the above. I didn't remember having so much trouble looking for a good piece for the four WODCU statues that I picked up (which was quite some time ago I guess)... so I was kinda surprised and disappointed.
The statue is pretty small and well scaled with the Hellboy comic figures made by Mezco and based on the same artist's art. Don't own any of those, unfortunately... but I bet they'll look good together. Hmmm... I love how the statue managed to capture Mignola's art so well. The posture is simple: slouching slightly with knees bent; a cold stare from a looming figure that is the Dark Knight.
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