Posted in: Batman, Comics, Conventions, DC Comics, Events, Movies, Pop Culture, san diego comic con | Tagged: Arkham Asylum, Clayface, dave mckean, grant morrison, james watkins, jim lee, Tom Rhys Harries
Tom Rhys Harries Read The Diseased Arkham Asylum Version Of Clayface
Tom Rhys Harries read the diseased Arkham Asylum version of Clayface, talking with James Watkins and Jim Lee at San Diego Comic-Con today
Article Summary
- James Watkins says DC’s Clayface movie centers on Matt Hagen, mixing in Basil Karlo for a vengeance-driven horror tale.
- Tom Rhys Harries revealed he read Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum while shaping his Clayface role.
- Arkham Asylum’s Clayface is framed as filth, contagion, and fear, showing a darker psychological take on the villain.
- Jim Lee said Clayface taps DC’s gothic horror roots, with Watkins aiming for a monster movie beyond superheroes.
Jim Lee, Publisher, President and CCO of DC Comics, has been talking Clayface with directorJames Watkins, and actor Tom Rhys Harriesat his fifth annual Jim Lee And Friends panel at San Diego Comic-Con. After he dispersed with the Batman: Hush 2 crew of Jeph Loeb, Scott Williams, and Alex Sinclair,he moved on to Clayface, the movie and the comic book character. Talking with James Watkins about why, out of all the different DC Comics Clayfaces, he went with the Matt Hagen version. Created in 1961in Detective Comics #298 by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, he is a treasure hunter who was given vast shapeshifting powers and resilience after exposure to a pool of radioactive protoplasm.
James Watkins said it was because his story is about vengeance and his struggle with his emotions. But it also mixes aspects of the original Basil Karlo version as well, the make-up man and embittered ex-actor, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in Detective Comics #40 in 1940, who began a life of crime by assuming the identity of a villain he had portrayed in a horror film. We are also asked to look closely at the wallpaper in a Gotham nightclub, courtesy of production designer James Price, as it’s made of meat. James Watkins wants the film to go back to DC Comics’ gothic and horror roots, with Jim Lee affirming that DC is not just about superheroes, and cites DC Vertigo and the 70s horror titles that inspired Sandman. While Tom Rhys Harries talked about reading Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean. This is how that version of Clayface was depicted, as a walking, talking AIDS infection….
In the script, Grant Morrison wrote, “As with the other villains, Clayface is being given a slightly different portrayal than usual. He is seen here as an avatar of filth and corruption, the personification of pestilence and infection, whose impure touch carries instant contagion. Alert readers will perceive him as AIDS on two legs and realise that he represents the fear of what lies beyond the curtain in the Tunnel of Love. If we take all the encounters with villains as corresponding to various psychological states, then this one is Batman’s fear of sexuality as something intrinsically unclean.”
Is this the Clayface we will get in the film? Jim Lee and Tom Rhys Harries also collaborated on a sketch during the panel, which was won by a fan who could name a Clayface who wasn’t either Basil Karlo or Matt Hagen. But I am going to guess that it didn’t look too much like Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s version…
Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!
Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!
