The Ears?

[Nightcrawler92]

Hi there!

In the early 1990's, Batman comics in general went through a phase where his batsuit ears were like ... 7 feet tall.

Two questions:

1. WHY were they drawn like this?

2. Was this a popular design?

[Powerboy]

At a wild guess, they were huge in the 1989 Batman movie and maybe DC was just capitalizing on that.

[Michael24]

Like this?



That's always the first image that comes to mind when I think of Batman's ears being drawn big. Haha!

[Brandon Hanvey]

I believe the OP is referring to Kelley Jones who drew Batman in the mid 1990's.

It was just Kelly's style which favored mood and abstraction.

[harpier]

Hi there!

In the early 1990's, Batman comics in general went through a phase where his batsuit ears were like ... 7 feet tall.

Two questions:

1. WHY were they drawn like this?

2. Was this a popular design?

I don't know if you caught it, but earlier this year pop artist Salvador Anguiano put together a poster that went through the history of the designs of Batman's cowl for the character's 75th anniversary. (Here.) It's kind of amazing.

As for the inspiration for the design, certainly some bats have very, very long ears, though none so pointy and useless for, you know, hearing. The longer ears do strike a very distinctive silhouette. However, I have to imagine that the long, very pointy ears of Burton's 1989 Batman movie combined with the 90s comics illustration trend of making everything more whatever it was to render the character's ears quite comically long.

[Vakanai]

Honestly, the 1989 film ears weren't that big, and looked perfectly acceptable to me, unlike some of those 90's comic's ears.

[Minerboh]

I loved long eared Batman. Don't know why, but i do.

[Uncanny Mutie]

Everything was ridiculously big and overly exaggerated in early 90's comics. The guns, the muscles, the shoulder pads, etc. Batman's ears being big and long in the early 90's were no exception, and was really no different from Spider-Man's eyes routinely being drawn huge and bug-like in the early 90's. But over the years, the ears and eyes have respectively gone back done to normal size, though. Styles just tend to change from era to era. Plus, the two examples posted so far in this thread are from Sam Keith and Kelly Jones, two artists who have always been known for their highly stylized art full of characters with exaggerated features.