DALLAS, TX.- There's no shortage of sites eager to answer why some comic book readers love the Joker more than Batman. The answers vary, but it's usually something along the lines of: The Clown Prince of Crime possesses the "unbridled id" or he's a "pure nihilist" or "because there is objective truth in his beliefs." Or, in the parlance of the psychiatrist enlisted by GQ earlier this year, the Joker's just an "agent of chaos," and maybe saner than the costumed billionaire always trying to toss him in Arkham Asylum.
As the Joker says in Batman: The Killing Joke, "When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit." Which might be the most reasonable thing anyone has ever said in the funny pages.
Ask this question of Robert Ben Garant — Why the Joker? — and you will most decidedly get a long, thoughtful answer. Part of that's because he's one hell of a writer: Garant was a member of the comedy troupe The State, whose series ran on MTV from 1993-95; he co-created Reno 911!, on which he stars as Deputy Travis Junior; and co-wrote among numerous films the Night at the Museum franchise. He's also among the world's foremost collectors of comic books featuring the Joker, especially when he cackles all over their covers. That includes tiny comic books given away with Fruit of the Loom underwear, cereal company giveaways and a promo mini-comic that came with bottles of Prell shampoo in 1966.
"Something about tying people to a big giant birthday cake that was going to kill Batman and Robin really fascinated me," Garant says. "There was something about that I thought was really funny and very suspenseful at the same time. And I just liked the way the Joker looked. There was something about him that was so weird. Clowns are scary. And as a kid, I loved that there was this clown that everybody was scared of."
On Dec. 7, Heritage will present the first in a series of auctions offering The Joker Collection of Robert Ben Garant, which contains more than 115 lots from his extraordinary assemblage that began taking shape when he was a 7-year-old in Tennessee spending summers with Adam West's Batman and Burt Ward's Robin. More events will follow in 2024 as Garant parts with more than 1,200 offerings devoted to the Clown Prince of Crime.
The Dec. 7 auction's offerings include some of the Joker's most famous covers, among them every one featured in Comic Book Resource's 2009 list of the "Top Five Most Iconic Joker Covers": Batman: The Killing Joke(including two pages of Brian Bolland's preliminary art from Alan Moore's definitive work and eight foreign-language editions), Neal Adams' ace-of-spades entry for Batman No. 251 (including one copy graded CGC Near Mint-Plus 9.6), Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin's laughing-fish wrapping for Detective Comics No. 475 (also a Near Mint-Plus 9.6), Joker co-creator Jerry Robinson's Detective Comics No. 69 (among them, a copy graded CBCS Very Fine-Plus 8.5) and Alex Ross' Batman: Harley Quinn featuring a very Jack Nicholson-like Joker (as both a CGC Near Mint/Mint 9.8 book and limited-edition Ross-signed giclee print printer's proof).
There are classic early appearances (Batman No. 11 and Detective Comics No. 69, from 1942), the first telling of the Joker origin story (1951's Detective Comics No. 168, which went beneath the Red Hood) and several books from the vaunted Promise Collection, which means his copies of Detective Comics Nos. 58, 124 and 149 are the world's finest known examples. There are more modern books, too, and, yes, that Prell ad.
Garant's journey with the Joker began with Cesar Romero's prank-pulling Clown Prince of Crime, who was about as terrifying as the mustache beneath the grease paint. He bought all the comics, then stashed them in a plastic bin before heading off in 1988 to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he met his future State-mates. For about a decade, he barely had money to eat. Garant only returned to collecting after MTV, Comedy Central and the movie studios' checks started clearing. And then he started buying the meaningful books — the valuable books — and, sometimes, one to slab and one to read.
The timing was perfect: The wisecracking clown with elaborate pranks had become a terrifying villain by the 1980s and 1990s, never more so than in the books written by Moore and Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns). Cesar Romero had given way to Heath Ledger, whose Joker just wanted to watch the world burn. This was ideal for someone writing for kids (Herbie: Fully Loaded, the Night at the Museum films) and adults (Reno 911!, Hell Baby) and liked dipping his cute-and-silly into a little horrifying, like the time Garant's Deputy Travis Junior dropped a cat into an air-conditioning fan.
"When I became a writer, I began to love the evolution of the Joker," Garant says. "In those early comics, he was just a gangster and he was going to kill somebody unless you gave him the money. They didn't even really explain why he looked like that, which was fascinating. And then you show he was dipped in acid in Detective Comics No. 168 and that's what made him like that. And then Killing Joke added to that: He didn't even want to be a criminal, and it drove him insane."
Garant's parting with his comics, original art and other material because he always vowed to let them go when he turned 50 — that, and he "didn't want to be the worst father ever because I yelled at my kids if they ever found and tried to actually read my collection." Garant says it's just time for someone else to appreciate the books that inspired and delighted him since he was a little kid in Tennessee.
"Honestly, I wish I had a better explanation for why I like the Joker so much, but originally, I just liked how he looked and how the books looked," he says. "I just loved the weird combination of whimsical and crime. There's nothing like it. And some of the covers over the years are just so much fun. It's an element of fun that's not in the faces of the Riddler or Catwoman. There's an element of whimsy to them, but behind that whimsy, there's darkness. And I just think it's great."
