thedeadairchannel011

The Wound Man is a medical diagram that first showed up in the Fourteenth Century. It is meant to be something of a how-to manual for surgeons; designed to show every malady the human body could encounter, it was often the index page of the texts in which it appeared, the weapons and skewerings numbered with the pages on which the appropriate cure could be found.

There are numerous iterations of the design, but this one from Hans von Gersdorff's Feldtbuch der Wundartzney is probably the most instantly recognizable culturally.

There is something tantalizing about the design. The Wound Man stands, rather than lies, bearing his injuries with dignity. He looks serene. He might even be smiling at us a little. He does not feel his suffering, or perhaps he enjoys it. Perhaps this is because his suffering allows him to help others.

I thought for a long while about co-opting this idea for a story at DC; hell, even the name comes ready made in the standard super-character format. So when I began developing Batman: Dark Patterns with editor Arianna Turturro, I knew I wanted this to be the first new villain we introduced for the dark detective. An enemy built to foil Batman's own Hippocratic oath to do-no-harm.

I think this is in fact the first specifically bat-villain I've co-created at DC. I remixed some old ones with DaNi in Arkham City, probably most prominently the Ten-Eyed Man, but this is the first cut from whole cloth, despite having been writing books for the Gotham office for a fair few years now. If I was going add to the rogue's gallery, I wanted to start with a memorable one. I feel Hayden and Triona have made sure of that.

In the next few issues, Batman is going to investigate who the Wound Man is, and how he came to be. The story was ignited by a true historical occurrence- one of those 'stranger than fiction', swept under the rug scandals I stumbled across in research and couldn't believe I hadn't heard of before.

I'll write about that next month, after issue 2 drops.

Sincere apologies to anyone who was hoping to come out and get their Batman: Dark Patterns #1 signed at Ultimate Comics in NC last weekend. I was very much looking forward to coming over, but the flu I was hit with last week got worse before it got better. We'll figure something out in terms of rescheduling, so I can come over and not cough plague all over you. These things happen, but they're always a bit of a gut punch.

A sincere thank you to all who've picked up and enjoyed the book since last week. It's an interesting time to launch a new Batman #1, alongside the behemothic and deserved success of the Absolute title, but the release couldn't have gone much better. It's been gratifying to see a lot of people online immediately click with exactly what we were going for with the title. I've seen a fair few comparisons to titles like Legends of the Dark Knight. We did actually have some early discussions about resurrecting that title for this book, before deciding that we wanted our project to stand on its own. Hence we went with Dark Patterns.

Tomorrow sees the release of Nightwing 121, the third issue of my run with Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini and Wes Abbott. So have some preview pages:

This issue marks a bit of a turning point for Nightwing and Bludhaven, as things start to turn sour between the city and its golden boy. It's an action packed one, with one of my favourite fight scenes Dexter has drawn so far. I hope you pick it up. I hope you enjoy it.

In the maelstrom that was last week, I forgot (until 30 seconds after hitting send on this newsletter, naturally) that The One Hand and the Six Fingers tpb has also just been released. This collects the two entwined sci-fi crime books in exactly the order they were meant to be read, so you can follow the cat-and-mouse story through both titles from beginning to end.

The design by Tom Muller on the completed package looks gorgeous, and I'll admit I sat down and read the whole thing from beginning to end when my comps showed up. I'm proud of what we pulled off here, particularly with two creative teams working in tandem. I think we managed to leave certain things implied, when they easily could have been overstated and lose their magic. A nebulous third tale exists between the two stories, and it's my favourite of the three.

If you enjoy my work, I'd implore you to check this out. It's 10 oversized issues for 20 bucks, and I don't think you can say fairer than that. I'm also told it's been making its way onto some end-of-year lists, which is always nice.

Since I spent the week feeling like a corpse, I figured I might as well read about some. So I dove into Stiff, by Mary Roach, which artist Anwita Citriya recommended to me- if you don't know Anwita's work, you should remedy that immediately. I feel we have a very similar taste for the macabre.

I've read a fair amount of books on forensics and pathology- about how corpses can be dated using coffin fly larvae or identified through tiny fragments of bone. This book is rather different, in that it's more a study of what uses cadavers can be put to.

In a memorable early chapter, Roach walks into a laboratory to find dozens of decapitated human heads lined up on benches, like rows of bowling balls. They have been prepared for a medical workshop training cosmetic surgeons to perform facelifts. Perhaps not what many of us assume we'll be used for when we tick that organ donor box.

The book has an inevitable morbidity to it, but handles heavy topics with a lightness of tone and spirit- a kindness which makes it an entertaining read and an easy recommend if you're looking for a holiday read or a last minute stocking filler for your favourite goff.

Image Comics just sent over an advance copy of Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar's Bug Wars #1, which I went into with no idea what to expect. I enjoyed the hell out of it. This is Aaron in Goddamned mode, taking a concept that could have been twee or daft and dialling it up until it becomes a horrors-of-war tale. Comes out February, I believe.

Next weekend I'm visiting family I haven't seen in years for the holidays, in a place I haven't been since I was a child, and I'm very much looking forward to a break. Which means I'll probably switch over from reading about horrible things for work and start reading about horrible things for fun. But then again, this week's newsletter has sort of turned into a list of books- so it'll be good to emerge and reconnect with some solid ground. Some non-book entities.

There's a possibility I'll skip the week here, since who wants a bloody email on Christmas Eve? If I do, I hope you have a safe and pleasant holiday season. Things are weird out there, and it doesn't look like that's going to change much, does it.

This has been thedeadairchannel. A transmission from the desk of Dan Watters. Please do subscribe.