BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT #2 pg.15 – Joker & Harley prelim splash by Sean Gordon Murphy

Batman: White Knight is an eight-issue comic book limited series written and illustrated by Sean Gordon Murphy. Murphy’s core premise for White Knight was to reverse the roles of Batman and the Joker by portraying Joker as the hero and Batman as the villain. His goal was to depict a more realistic take on Gotham City, where crime could not be stopped with a fist, i.e. Batman’s methods. This led him to turn the Joker into a politician, using the character’s intelligence and charisma to win the people of Gotham over.

Batman: White Knight is Murphy’s most lauded series, and the one for which he is most known, making all pages high-demand. The innovative story-line and the multiple callbacks to various incarnations of the DC Cinematic Universe have made it a cult favorite, and sales of the series were well above expectations with #1 receiving a fourth printing, #2 receiving a third printing, and #3 and #4 receiving a second printing.

This page is a preliminary splash page from Issue #2, page 15 (indicated as 2.13) bottom left) and features an anguished Joker at his desk while Harley Quinn waits for him in bed in the next room. Presentations of domesticity between Harley & the Joker are quintessential to this series, and this one (with an inset of Batman) is one of the most stylish of the whole series–and a splash page, no less!

I’ve posted a comparison of this preliminary page and the published page (which is not included).