NOVEMBER: ART FIND OF THE MONTH        

BATMAN: "FREAKS" PRESENTATION BOARD

I found this pencil page recently and I thought it would be fun to share it with everyone. This drawing was from an Elseworlds proposal by David Michelinie and me. Obviously, the pitch wasn't accepted but I loved the basic concept of Batman and his Rogue Gallery all being circus people. Oh, well...

I will sell this presentation board--but only with the stipulation that I can ink it first.  I generally don't like to sell my unfinished work.

Anyway--here's a quickie, paraphrased synopsis of the proposed storyline:

BATMAN:"FREAKS"

When young Bruce Wayne is orphaned in Crime Alley, he's placed in foster care. However, the trauma of his parents' brutal killing makes him unstable and uncontrollable. Eventually, Bruce runs away from his foster home. He hooks up with a traveling circus and is taken in by a family trapeze act known as The Flying Graysons.  As time passes, the Graysons become suspicious of the Circus' Ringmaster and his preoccupation with his " disturbing human oddities" who perform in his sideshow. Amongst the collection is : The Joker--an albino jester who cackles madly as he dines on spiders and worms, a man who is half-man: half penguin--complete with flippers, a ferocious man-lizard and a freak whose body seems to be made of living clay.

Eventually, as the Graysons discover that the traveling circus is a cover for criminal activities, a trapeze  "accident' is arranged that ends in the family's death--save for Bruce and Dick Grayson.

Together--disguised as creatures of the night to protect their identities from the other circus folk, the two act to bring the Ringmaster and his gang of murderous oddities to justice.