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Article http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2020.07.002

Having a Bad Day: Explorations of Good and Evil in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke

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Joel West

Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

*Corresponding author: Joel West

Published: September 7,2020

Abstract

While Alan Moore’s entire oeuvre may be called controversial, and, while The Killing Joke is not without its own controversies, one of the reasons that we are more than satisfied with this classic graphic novel is the themes within it which have transcendent resonance. It is not just the parallel narratives in the novel itself, though those do illuminate to us the insanity of the Joker; it is in the parallel tales that we gain sympathy, or at least empathy for Joker and as such we see the tragedy of his life. It is in the same narratives where we understand that Batman is equally obsessed, and so that we realize the tropes of “good” and “evil” may also be mediated by a third category, that of “human”.

Keywords

Batman, Joker, Alan Moore, Killing Joke, Graphic Novels, Graphic Religion, Brian Bolland

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How to cite this paper

Having a Bad Day: Explorations of Good and Evil in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke

How to cite this paper: Joel West. (2020) Having a Bad Day: Explorations of Good and Evil in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 4(2), 94-98.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2020.07.002