Man-Bat page 19

Script, rough sketches, pencils and inks.  This is the final page from the Man-Bat story in Secret Origins #39, April 1989. The editor, Mark Waid, didn't like the idea of Batman just walking through a door in his kitchen to access the Bat Cave so I took out the door knob in panel three.  I guess the thought was that he had to go down a hallway or maybe another door before entering the cave. I inked the line work and the shadows as two separate steps in the final panel.


Jan Strnad's script called for a milk mustache on Bruce but DC strongly objected.  That's why you see him wiping his mouth in the second panel of the layout. I've heard that Bruce Timm has a rule against showing Batman like this, mostly still in costume, but with his cowl down.  It surprised me when I first heard about it but it makes sense now.  It takes away from his mystique.  Bruce Wayne's, not Bruce Timm's.  Nothing could diminish Bruce Timm's mystique.