MARSHALL ROGERS
The character of The Batman has inspired many fine interpretations by artists since his creation in the 1930s. One of these artist certainly has not gotten the respect and recognition in recent years that he deserves. Marshall Rogers (January 22, 1950 – March 24, 2007) came to prominence illustrating the Dark Knight in the pages of Detective Comics back in 1977-78. His collaboration with writer Steve Englehart was, for many years, held up as one of the shining moments in the character's history.
While artists like Neal Adams presented a muscular Batman, Rogers' though was lanky, athletic, tall, but not bulky. His Joker, was as memorable: extremely thin, perfectly dressed, wide mouth revealing the whitest of smile. Perfectly creepy.
Not to be forgotten, Terry Austin's solid inking style gave Rogers' art an angular, precise quality that was integral to the look of the art.
There is no currently available trade paperback or hardback collection on the market and honestly the production value on the latest incarnation was lackluster. I would urge you to seek out the last 4 issues of the reprint collection Shadow Of The Batman, published back in 1985. In those, Rogers had the opportunity to re-color the issues and the whole presentation was of high quality.
While Rogers continued producing work on a regular basis until his death in 2007, none of it quite achieved the high level of his Batman work.
