I have some very sad news to share. The Actor Michael Gough has passed away at the age of 94. Of course as Batman Fans we all know & love him as Alfred Pennyworth, the Butler to both Bruce Wayne & Batman. He appeared in 4 Batman films: 1989 Batman, 1992 Batman Returns, 1995 Batman Forever, and 1997's Batman & Robin. He played the character with Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. He is best known for this role but he also had a very long career, appearing in over 150 films. On a personal level, I have always had a lot of respect for this Actor. He played the "Alfred" role perfectly. He was very dignified, proper, and had a great sense of humor. I always enjoyed how he played the character in a "loving, caring" way.
As sort of a tribute to Michael Gough I have posted a few videos. One is a short documentary that covered his Alfred character in the "Batman Returns" movie. The 2nd clip is an appearance he made in one of his many Batman/OnStar TV Commercials. He was a great Actor & will be missed.
I have some very sad news to report. Today, on December 25th, Eartha Kitt, the Award-winning film, theater, music, and TV star passed away at the age of 81 ( Born January 17th, 1927 ). Early reports say colon cancer was the cause of death. Of course all of us Batman Fans know & love her as "The Catwoman" on the 1966 Batman TV Series. As a tribute I would like to ask our readers to watch the following video. It's a RARE 1962 TV appearance where she sang one of her hit songs, "I Want To Be Evil". In it, you will see what a truely original & amazing voice she had. She continued to entertain people, all over the world, all the way up to her passing. She was a very special lady. Also, at the very top of this post ( the 1st large image ), you will find an "Eartha Kitt Tribute Wallpaper" that you can use on your desktop to remember her. She will be missed. Eartha Kitt 1927 - 2008, R.I.P.
Yesterday was a very sad day for many comic book fans. A legend, an icon actually, passed away. Of course I'm talking about Dick Giordano. Mr. Giordano worked in the comic book industry most of his life. He was an incredible artist & was quite prolific. As a very young comic book fan & collector I was always drawn to his artwork. He drew many of the comic book characters that I really loved. I ALWAYS recognized his art, almost right away. He had a very unique style. It was very realistic, especially his background scenes, & always interesting. His line work was sort of fast & fluid, but he always attached a great amount of detail in a way that seemed effortless. He also created a lot of stock art that was used on paperback books, calendars, products, & other bits of marketing. So, even if you didn't read the comics he drew his art seemed to be everywhere! It saddens me to say that I never got to meet him. I know a lot of people who did & every single person has told me that he was totally great to be around, that he was very down to earth, kind to a fault, & very funny. I'll always be a fan of his work and, with his passing, I even sort of feel like I have lost a part of my childhood. So, I want to thank him personally for all of his great work & for his friends & family I hope they find some peace very soon. He will be missed by many many people. R.I.P Dick Giordano, 1932 - 2010. As sort a side note I would like to tell people that the picture down below is a "Tribute Wallpaper" I made last night. Please feel free to use it to remember this great man, thanks.
I received a request from 2 different Bat-Blog Readers to please please please make another JOKER/HEATH LEDGER desktop wallpaper so here's one for each of you, ha ha. I hope you like them Mike & Lisa! Ya' know, you can always check our Archives for more wallpaper backgrounds because we have like over 100 of them here. Please let me know if you use these. I wanna see them at your MySpace pages & I think it's great that you're using them for a tribute page, that's cool.
My e-mail box has been flooding with letters about people expressing their grief over Heath Ledger's death. They have been very touching. Here are just a few of the pictures some people have attached. Jim wrote us that the Official Warner Brothers website released this image today.
Here's a photo sent in by a reader who lives near SoHo in New York City & this is what the front of Heath Ledger's apartment looks like today. I really like the Australian flag, that's a nice sentiment.
This last picture was one I came across while surfing through MySpace. I thought it was pretty interesting.
The Warner Bros viral-marketing website for The Dark Knight Batman movie, called WHYSOSERIOUS.COM, did a small Heath Ledger Tribute. They placed a black ribbon on the main page. Then, when you click a "hidden button" ( just right of the x-acto knife ) the page burns away to reveal a photo of The Joker. The ribbon stays there though & is right next to his face.
In response to a previous post made today about a piece of "Heath Ledger Tribute Art" by Jim Lee a Bat-Blog Reader from Italy wrote, "Hi, I'm an Italian reader of the Bat-Blog. I've seen the great tribute by Jim Lee to Heath Ledger and I think you may appreciate this tribute by Massimo Carnevale, cover artist for Y The Last Man, Northlanders, and a lot more. Bye, Bapho. P.S. Sorry for my English, I know it sucks a bit :)" Ha Ha, No Bapho, your English is very very good & we sincerely appreciate you sending us this very beautiful piece of art, it's wonderful. Please tell your artist friend that he has done an incredible tribute. Thank You.
The famous comic book artist known as JIM LEE is a favorite of most Batman Fans for his work on this classic character. He's an extremely talented artist but the great thing is that he's also a pretty cool, down to earth, guy! Recently, at his personal blog, he posted a picture he had drawn as a gift to Heath Ledger that was a birthday gift to him & for getting the Joker role. ( Be sure to click on the graphic for a much larger, more detailed, photo ). He posted it has sort of a tribute with "RIP" labeled under the graphic. It's an awesome drawing of the Joker with the inscription, "For Heath, Happy Birthday GO NUTS! HA HA, Jim Lee 2007". Heath was know as being a very good person & it's nice to see how so many people cared. This post goes out to you Heath, R.I.P.
From all the e-mails we're getting we know that a lot of Heath Ledger Fans are really hurting. This makes us very sad, but we have to remember to honor those have have passed away. Today, our good friend Dave sent us this very nice "Batman Heath Ledger Tribute" Desktop Wallpaper he made as a way to honor him. Heath Ledger is best known as an actor, movie star, idol, or whatever. But it's important to remember that he was also a really great guy. Ya know, right now the media are all talking about his role as Ennis in Brokeback Mountain but after they see how great he is in The Dark Knight, as The Joker, they're all gonna change their tune. Thank you Dave for sending this. I know all of his fans will really appreciate this, I do.
This is pretty cool! In a small Government Building in the Capitol Reef National Park in Utah there is a small plaque hanging on the wall that is a Tribute To Dick Sprang. Of course he was one of the original comic book artists of the Golden Age of comics!! Here at the Bat-Blog we totally love his artwork, he's really great! This weird piece of Bat-History was discovered by our friend Wayne Smith, who stumbled upon it while on vacation! Take a look at his photo & read what the message says, it's pretty interesting! ( Thanks for the pic Wayne )
Our good buddy Chris Mason recently did an amazing painting of Adam West as Batman, sort of like a "tribute". I mean, Adam West is a total ICON! Don't believe me? Well, Check out the 2nd photo showing Adam West's STAR at the "Walk of Stars" in Palm Springs...that's proof right there! If you read it, it says, ICON, ha! ( Thanks to Chris for allowing me to post this wonderful artwork ).
Today, April 4th, would have been Heath Ledger's 29th birthday. He was born in Perth, Australia in 1979. This is his 1st birthday since his death & I thought it would be nice to do a small tribute. He was a great actor but was also a person who was loved by many. All the reports I have ever read said he was a really nice guy, that's cool. He will be missed. My warmest & most sincere thoughts go out to his friends & family members who must be having a really hard time today. Happy Birthday Heath!
I got an email tonight from a Bat-Blog Fan named Damon. He sent us some photos of a few Batman-themed costumes he has had in the past where he dressed-up like the JOKER from The Dark Knight movie ( Heath Ledger version ). The costume looks great & the make-up effects are out of this world! This would be the perfect Halloween Costume, it's very well done. He also sent us some pics of his 1989 Batman film costume & some of his tattoos too. I plan to feature those later, but for right now I thought I would share this one picture that I used to make this desktop background. I mean, ya gotta admit that this image makes a great Joker Wallpaper! ( Thanks Damon, Please look for the other pics later )
A friend turned me on to this website the other day Called BATTLE ROYALE WITH CHEEZE & I have to admit that I'm very impressed with it so far. Basically, it's the online artwork portfolio of a Graphic Artist named Steve Willaredt and it looks like he has been doing a tribute to the old 1960's BATMAN TV Series. He's doing some very funny caricatures of the characters from the show & they really look like the actual actors. In fact, the art is pretty cool! As an example I'm showing just a few here but please be sure to visit his site to see the rest, click HERE!
Two friends of the Bat-Blog, named Danny & Brad, each sent me an e-mail of their new JOKER / HEATH LEDGER TRIBUTE Tattoos... on the same day! What are the odds of that! The 1st one belongs to Danny. He lives in Forney, Texas. He chose his favorite character & the artist did an amazing job on it! The 2nd one is Brads & he wrote that he is a HUGE Batman Fan, mainly the villains. It was done by Tim Bowling at Sacred Ink in Indianapolis, IN. Thanks guys, both of these Joker Tattoos are really great! I appreciate both of you sending them in. I'm still kinda shocked about receiving these at the same time & both of you guys live in totally different states, that's awesome! If any other readers have got some ink recently please shoot us an e-mail.
It's pretty well known that I'm a big fan of art in all shapes & forms, especially if it's Batman related, so I was really excited to receive an e-mail from a Bat-Blog Reader named Jose who had this to share. It's a large-sized artwork of Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight Batman movie. Now the thing is that it's made out of many many tiny little plastic beads ( Click on the small pic up above for a more detailed version ). The artist's name is Serena Azureth & she lives in Illinois. She's a member of the PIXELGASM Forum where she shows a lot of her other Bead Sprites artwork. There seems to an entire subculture of fans & artists who totally worship pixel art. And I can completely see why because if you search in that world just a few minutes you can see some really cool stuff! Basically they all love the old school video games where, if you remember, were rendered in total 8-bit graphics & were always kinda crude & simple. But even back then graphic artists took a lot of care to squeeze all the form & color they could in that simple artform. There's been a lot of recent artwork in this area of art that's really great but I knew everyone here would at least appreciate this one of Heath's Joker, she did an awesome job! I wanna thank Jose for sending this, Thanks Dude!Oh yeah, if ya wanna investigate more art like this check out this link:
BATMAN AND THE FARSIDERS! Yes, you read the title correctly. Here's a totally hilarious parody comic book cover done by our new friend ( & great Graphic Artist ) Jim Mohan. It makes fun of the old 1980's BATMAN & THE OUTSIDERS #1 Comic Book Cover by replacing a few superheroes with characters from Gary Larson's famous comic strip, THE FAR SIDE. It's also sort of a tribute to the original artist & creator Jim Aparo. The artwork is awesome & it is really really funny! ( Thanks Jim )
A new friend of mine on Facebook, named Michael Valentine, had this video to share that he actually made. Well, he used footage from the Batman: The Animated Series & added his own audio of himself doing the Joker's voice ( he sounds exactly like Mark Hamill! ).The main focus of this piece is that it's a tribute to Heath Ledger ( Joker from The Dark Knight movie ) who had just died. It shows the Joker cartoon character all upset hearing about Heath's death...it's pretty well done. Thanks for letting me post it Michael, ya did a great job on it! Readers, if you would like to see more of his videos then check out this LINK.
Ladies & Gentlemen: For your viewing pleasure! Please join us in celebrating the caped crusader's return to the silver screen with the latest movie tribute music video from HOLY LIGHT OF DEMONS! (( SIDE NOTE: Has anyone else been having problems the last 2-3 days viewing YouTube videos here on the Bat-Blog? I know I have & I'm wondering if it's my computer or is YouTube having problems? Mainly, I'm concerned if my readers can enjoy them. Please let me know, thanks. ))
Today, April 4th, would have been Heath Ledger's birthday. So, to act as sort of a tribute to him I created this Desktop Wallpaper you can use to remember him. He is missed very much by all of his fans & it's still a shock to me really that he tragically died so young. I was so happy he won the Oscar for his performance of the Joker in The Dark Knight, he really deserved it, but at the same time I was sad he didn't get to go on stage to receive it. Besides being a great actor, and more importantly, he was also a really great person. Happy Birthday Heath.
