I’d argue that calling it gritty actually makes it LESS gritty – The Dark Knight Returns Ad

I won’t heap any additional praise on The Dark Knight Returns. Maybe some other time. It’s just that I had never seen this particular ad until the other day. The “1200” limit on subscriptions struck me as rather arbitrary. I guess I can see the “Not available through newsstands” limitation, though that would have squeezed out my living-in-the-sticks self had I been more comics-c0nscious at that point in my life.

And seeing as how Robin was a chick in this, he/she was most definitely as we had never seen him/her before.

The ad’s design reminded me of a treasured old tome on my bookshelves, something I’ve been toting around with me for about twenty years or so:

I thought this was so unbelievably cool when I bought it back in the day with my lawn mowing money. The idea that comics could come bound in leather (“handsomely bound,” as encyclopedia salesmen would be wont to say), like the complete works of William Shakespeare or something, blew my mind. Even the pages had a cool smell — and they still carry that faint scent. I just checked. It has TDKR, Year One, and “Wanted: Santa Claus — Dead or Alive,” a Batman story that Miller drew years before either of those classics.

It’s still cool, though I guess its title is out of date now. It’s not The Complete Frank Miller Batman anymore. Now I just think of it as The Complete Frank Miller Batman (That Isn’t Abyssmally Awful).