Our previous post, with side-by-side scans from the original versus the new edition, has drawn a lot of reader feedback for and against the new coloring.

Here’s Bolland on the removal of Batman’s yellow oval, which — judging by the level of the aforementioned comment activity — was apparently a big deal to many:

“You’ll notice that I got rid of the yellow oval round the bat-symbol on Batman’s chest,” notes Bolland. “It was introduced in 1964, and I could never see the point of it. In 2007, it looked kind of anachronistic and I got rid of it. I made the choice without consulting naybody. I could have enlarged the black bat-symbol to the size it is today, but that would have involved too much work. Objections to my decision run along the lines that it’s sacrilegious to rewrite history — as if the original Killing Joke is some kind of sacred document written on tablets of stone. Alan, admittedly, does look a bit like Moses, but it’s just a comic book, and I had the freedom to make it the way I thought looked best.”

click for full-size

Bolland offers a number of other interesting tidbits, including rendered colors vs flat colors and the Joker being “the one who brings the color to an otherwise drab world”.

Wizard #211 is out today.

I might just have to buy this (especially since I gave my copy away years ago…)!

ORIGINAL	RE-COLORED
ORIGINAL	RE-COLORED
ORIGINAL	RE-COLORED