Batman: The Animated Series is one of the greatest adaptations of a comic book character of all time, and a big part of that is one of the original series’ directors, Kevin Altieri. Altieri recently returned to the world of the Dark Knight with the publication of Batman: The Adventures Continue: Season Three #2, for which the legendary animation director provided the art.
With an over thirty-year career in animation, Altieri has worked on not only Batman, but also properties as varied as Spider-Man, the Transformers and Scooby Doo. In addition to his animation work, Altieri has also written and drawn several comics for DC, Wildstorm and other publishers. Altieri also co-directed the 1998 video for Pearl Jam’s “Do the Evolution,” which was nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Music Video, Short Form.” In this exclusive interview with Screen Rant, the artist discusses his new Batman issue, his love of comics and animation, and what makes an icon like Batman endure over the generations.
Let’s start with Batman: The Adventures Continue. How did you get involved with the new series? What’s it like to be back in the world of Batman?
Kevin Altieri: Well, I never left the world of Batman… I’m always drawing Batman (laughs). The two characters I’m asked to draw the most at conventions are Batman and Harley. Getting involved was pretty cool, though. Working with Paul Dini, Alan Burnett… It was like a high school reunion. They actually contacted me to do the Muscle character, at the end of the last season. I really wanted to do it, that came through (Batman: The Adventures Continue editor) Andrew Merino, but they needed it done really quickly, so it wound up not working out. I’m not fast (laughs).
But the cool thing was, Andrew said, “Let me get you, Paul, and Alan on the phone together,” which was this great reunion between the three of us… We were on the phone for half an hour, and at one point I realized Andrew hadn’t said anything on the call for some time. And he goes, “I’m just enjoying this as a fan!” They had this one-shot story about Harley and Batman, and the rest is history. What I’m most happy about is I got to do my version of Harley, my Batman… kind of in the classic animation style, but not strictly so.
What’s your personal history with comics? What issues or stories left the biggest impact, and which artists influenced you?
Kevin Altieri: There were two I really remember. One was this paperback book of Batman, before the TV show. It had the origin story by Bob Kane and Bill Finger... all the classic stuff, in black and white. That really influenced me. The other comic I really remember was… I was at a train station going to New York, and my parents bought me a comic off the news rack. It was the Red Ghost issue of Fantastic Four… I remember it was the first time I was in New York, and here I was reading about Kirby’s New York in FF. After those comics, I was hooked.
As far as influences… Neal Adams, obviously. When Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil took over Batman, that was my Batman. Alex Toth… One of the bigger influences on me was Mike Ploog, which is also a big animation influence on me. His and Toth’s animation work were huge influences, in addition to their comics. Robert Crumb was actually a big influence on me, from when I was ten years old. At the time, Crumb was doing greeting cards, I didn’t know who he was, but just by chance I bought the Crumb cards. Another giant influence on me is Richard Corben. Hal Foster, Howard Pyle, NC Wyeth… I used to devour the Scribner Classics from the libraries where I grew up in Connecticut. Especially Pyle and Wyeth… just great, interesting storytelling in their art.
Working on Batman: The Animated Series seemed to open up the doors for many of the creators involved to do some work at DC Comics… What was it like getting to write and draw comics at DC? Had you previously entertained thoughts of being a comic artist, or tried to break into the industry before?
Kevin Altieri: Well, I went to the Joe Kubert School for two years, so yeah… I had done comics off and on before I got into animation and film. I would ghost things for Jan Duursema, a friend of mine from the Kubert School, and I did a lot of comic work for TSR in between working for Disney Features and Warner Brothers Animation… I did the Buck Rogers series for TSR for about a year before I got the opportunity to work for Warner Brothers.
Then when I did Batman: The Animated Series, I went back East to visit the DC offices with another friend, the artist Tom Mandrake. And I meet Denny O’Neil, who was actually in Archie Goodwin’s office (laughs). I’m stupefied. These guys are legends, and then they turn it around and said, "We’re such big fans of yours, what you’re doing with the Batman show." Anyway, Archie said, “Hey, you want to do a Batman comic?” And I said I’d actually like to do a Kirby character like the Demon, so they sent me to (then-Demon editor) Dan Raspler, and I wound up writing and drawing an issue of The Demon series.
Having directed twenty-two episodes of what many consider to be the definitive adaptation of the character, what do you think it is about Batman that makes him so popular? Why has the character endured for over eighty years now?
Kevin Altieri: I think it’s the whole Zorro thing… this rich, privileged guy who doesn’t have to care, yet he’ll stand up for the little guy, even though he doesn’t have to. There’s something incredibly endearing about him putting up this front of being a playboy, and yet he’s also the scariest thing any criminal can hope to run into. Also, he’s not an alien from another planet, he hasn’t been hit by gamma radiation… He’s as good as he is because he’s worked at it, and he puts himself in harm’s way on behalf of all of us. You know, when Batman came out, there were no other characters like that… even Doc Savage, the pulp character, is kind of a pre-Batman. But even he was born into this existence, whereas Bruce Wayne could have just taken it easy, and instead he chooses to put his life on the line for others.
Batman: The Animated Series celebrated its thirtieth anniversary last year. When looking back, what are you most proud of? Any episodes in particular you look back on fondly?
Kevin Altieri: I’m just really glad that people still love it. I think the episode I’m most proud of is “Showdown.” There are rare opportunities in animation, especially at that time, and we always wanted to do something like the Fleischer Superman, Miyazaki, the good stuff… We finally got that with the first script, “On Leather Wings.” But then, even beyond that, we reached this point where Bruce (Timm) and Paul (Dini) say, “Kevin, what’s the most preposterous character you want to do in animation?” And I say I want to do Enemy Ace, but then I go… "Jonah Hex." Paul and Bruce get really excited, but then there’s the issue of: how do we do an Old West character like Jonah Hex in Batman? But then we brought in Ra’s al Ghul, who’s immortal, and we realize we can do it as a flashback episode, and everything just fell into place. That one is nuts, because I got to do all my favorites: ironclad airships, Gatling guns… And then we got Malcolm McDowell to voice the villain!
One thing I do remember fondly is there was one line of dialogue that didn’t make the final cut. Jonah Hex gets thrown into a jail cell, and the guard says something like, “Sweet dreams.” And then Hex goes, “Hope you don’t mind me dreaming about your mother.” Obviously we couldn’t use that in a Saturday morning cartoon (laughs). Joe Lansdale wrote that episode, and that’s such a classic Lansdale line. And then we got Bill McKinney to voice Jonah Hex… He was such a great actor.
Changing gears, how did you get involved with the Gen 13 animated movie? Were you a fan of the original comics, and how did that open the door to you later doing comics for Wildstorm?
Kevin Altieri: That happened just because I wanted to keep doing what we started on Batman, moving animation to an area that was more for adults, like it is in Japan. We wanted to crack that more sophisticated adult market for animation. Actually, the original concept I had was for Hellboy… I was talking to Mike Mignola and Dark Horse about doing that as an animated feature. But then I ended up talking to Jim Lee, who was willing to put up the money and do the whole thing through the direct market, have it as a video sold exclusively in comic shops.
At the time, I didn’t know what Gen 13 was, because the first issue hadn’t even come out yet. But Jim showed me the comic, and I really liked it. I really dug J. Scott Cambpell's art, so I thought an adaptation of that was a winner. It was very low budget, basically my team and a handful of freelancers, and it was animated overseas in Korea. When we were waiting on the animation, (Wildstorm editor) Scott Dunbier reached out and asked me to do comics for them while we were waiting. (Gen 13 hero) Grunge and the others always talked about surfing, so I wanted to do this one issue where Grunge and his girlfriend Roxy go to the beach, and I based it on surf spots I would go to back then. I did another Grunge comic, and then I did DV8 (a spinoff of Gen 13). They wanted to do these one-off issues of characters in different time periods, so I wanted to do a D-Day version, like the Dirty Dozen version of the Wildstorm characters. I actually almost got (famous DC war artist) John Severin to ink me, but it wound up not working out.
The music video you directed for Pearl Jam, “Do the Evolution,” is so wildly creative, and contains so much in its four-minute run-time. What was it like working with Todd McFarlane and Pearl Jam on that project?
Kevin Altieri: It was the best of times of time and the worst of times (laughs). I was contacted by Epoch Ink, Joe Pearson’s company, a very small animation house, who called me up with this Pearl Jam project saying, “Only you can do this.” So then I ask, “When do you need it?” And Joe says, “We have twelve weeks to airdate.” And I’m like, “You’re out of your mind.” He then tells me to listen to the song, so I go out and buy the album. And as I’m listening to the song, when they get to the chorus, I see a little girl in France in 1913, and then it cuts to the very next year - it’s World War I and it’s hell on earth. And then I realize this video can be the history of the world in four minutes… Where we’ve been, and where we’re going as a species.
So then I talked to Todd (McFarlane) on the phone, and I convinced him it could be done, but it had to all be done at a small studio, because a bigger studio will just be a headache; more heads involved, more people to please. So we hit the ground running… We made it in ten weeks. It was an incredible experience, but I can’t say that it was fun, because it was too much work to be done in such a short span of time. But at the same time, that video is kind of like looking inside my head. It comprises all of my interests.
But yeah, Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam) was great. When the video started airing, MTV complained about every single frame. And, I mean, god bless Eddie Vedder, who told them, “Don’t play it then.” He was a big part of the editing process of that video, and was just a fantastic collaborator. Lo and behold, this rock-and-roll superstar, who’s the front-man of one of the biggest bands in the world, winds up being the sweetest guy and the most cooperative person you could ever hope to work with. I knew everything was going to be all right when I was pitching all these ideas to him. I say, “It’s got dinosaurs, and WWI soldiers, and cavemen, and crusaders, and it’s basically the history of the world in four minutes.” And then Eddie says, “…for stoners.” He’s the Keanu Reeves of rock and roll. He’s the best.
Finally, what are you working on next? Can fans expect any more comic book work in the near future?
Kevin Altieri: At the moment I’m working on a project I can’t really talk about, but it’s an R-rated animated project that hopefully will be a series. It’s got a couple of famous actors in it, but I can’t say who just yet. But I’d love to do more comics, and more Batman Adventures, in particular. I have a couple of ideas I want to do… I’ve always wanted to do another Mr. Freeze story. After I did the episode “Deep Freeze,” where Mr. Freeze is left floating with his wife… I’d like to see my version of what happens next.
Special thanks to Kevin Altieri for taking the time to talk with us. Batman: The Adventures Continue: Season Three #2 is on sale now from DC Comics.