Top 10 comic book-classic mashups

Will Brooker is Reader and Director of Research in Film and Television at Kingston University, London. He is a leading expert on the Dark Knight, author of the cultural history of Batman, Batman Unmasked. His other books include Using the Force and Alice’s Adventures. He edited the Audience Studies Reader and The Blade Runner Experience, and wrote the BFI Film Classics volume on Star Wars.

Brooker's new book is Hunting the Dark Knight: Twenty-First Century Batman.

For the Guardian, he named his top 10 comic book-classic mashups--examples that "demonstrate the criss-crossing, intertextual relationship between comic books and more traditionally literary texts." One entry on his list:

The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot

Talbot, a veteran of 2000AD and Batman, explores gentler territory with this story of a teenage girl running away from domestic abuse and following in the footsteps of her heroine, Beatrix Potter. What begins as a grim, street-level narrative becomes a pilgrimage, a heritage tour and finally a literary epiphany as Helen, accompanied by her imaginary rat-friend and drawing strength from her favourite books, confronts her abuser and embraces a new life in the hills of the Lake District. Talbot's final pages, written and drawn in the style of Potter, wrap up the happy ending.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue