The Man Who Laughs Exploring the Clown Prince of Crime

The Man Who Laughs Exploring the Clown Prince of Crime

$24.95

Have You Ever Danced with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?

DC Comics' Joker has been a goofy trickster, a giggling lunatic, a psychopathic killer, a methodical mastermind, a failed comedian, and an unstoppable force. It all depends on the writer and artist telling the story. He's the Clown Prince of Crime, the Man Who Laughs, an agent of chaos. He has no special abilities or superpowers, but also no moral code or grip on reality. The Joker is charismatic, terrifying, unpredictable, and downright hilarious. The only method to this criminal's madness is that there is no method. This anthology offers more than 20 perspectives on the yin to Batman's yang, written by respected comic creators, historians, and industry insiders. So step into the mouth of madness. The joke is on us, and we'd like to let you in on it.

Co-Edited by Rich Handley & Lou Tambone

Foreword: Who Is the Joker? A Question from the Answer Man By Bob Rozakis

Text Messages of the Dark Knight By Tom Mason

The Banter and the Bat By Michael Jan Friedman

My, What Big Teeth You Have! By Bobby Nash

Delicious! The Joker as Latin Loverboy By Jim Beard

One Card Short: Missing the Joke(r) By Brian Cronin

Something Tastes Funny—That’d Be the Clownfish By Duy Tano

Why I’m Fed Up with the Joker By Alan J. Porter

Is the Joker Gay? Queer Representation and the Clown Prince of Crime By Valentina Rossi

Joker: Stop Punching Down By Jo Duffy

The Joke Book: Laughing Along with the Joker’s 1970s Solo Series By Lou Tambone

The Joke’s on the Audience By Robert Greenberger

One Hell of a Joke: From Laughing Magician to the Man Who Laughs By Rich Handley

Empathy for Emperor Joker By Paul Cornish

Don’t Get Even, Go Mad: Joker and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days By Joseph F. Berenato

Why Do We Care That the Joker Hates Nazis? By Alex Galer

Toward a Short Comparison and Contrast of the Joker with Trickster Characters of African Folklore By LaMarrison Forte

Whatever Joker Wants, Joker Goetz By Keith R.A. DeCandido

Fixing the Laughter: Voice Casting the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series By John Trumbull

The Joker: Just How Crazy Is He? By Glenn Hauman

Mountebank to Monster: The Bloody Road from “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge” to The Killing Joke By Paul Kupperberg

Afterword: The Last Laugh By Steve Englehart

About the Book
About the Author
Glenn Hauman

Before his relocation to the Fort Lee Home For The Tall, Threadbare And Twitchy, Glenn Hauman was a pioneer of electronic publishing with the groundbreaking BiblioBytes. When the caretakers let him use writing implements, he also wrote numerous short stories; his Star Trek e-book, "Creative Couplings", got worldwide press coverage for its portrayal of the first Klingon-Jewish wedding. In addition to Star Trek, he's written other licensed tie-in works for X-Men and Farscape, and urban fantasy for Baen Books.

After they took the pencils and gave him crayons instead, he became the colorist for Mike Grell's Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes Of Eden graphic novel and the award-nominated biography The Original Johnson by Trevor Von Eeden.

Now that electronic publishing is no longer considered crazy, he is slowly being integrated back into society, and works at ComicMix where they let him play with computers all day long.

For more on Glenn and his mental state, follow him on Twitter @GlennHauman, read his personal website, and be sure to check out ComicMix.

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