Ross Hutchinson
Oh, what could have been… In case you missed it yesterday on Twitter David Lapham (Stray Bullets) shared a link to a free PDF of an unpublished Batman story by legendary artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Some 22 pages and two splash pages of the first issue of a 12 issue story called City of Crime, which Lapham did the breakdowns for and would see the one of a kind, Sienkiewicz, spin a story in his unique fever dream style where the City of Gotham would be as visceral a character as the various villains that the storyline had planned to include…
SERIOUSLY!!! Not nearly enough people have gotten this absolutely FREE PDF of @sinKEVitch unpublished Batman story. 22 pages + 2 splash pages FREE! So, I'm posting the LINK here. RT this! You DO NOT have to sign up for our email list https://t.co/B0qBCu4Cix pic.twitter.com/h2C6CllQIp
— David Lapham (@DavidALapham) July 6, 2019
So why was it never published? According to Lapham, there are various reason from logistical to editorial at the time that forced the book to be delayed then canned. It would be sent back to the board and given to a new artist at the time. Years later there was talk of publishing it as a stand-alone but by then the originals had been sold off and the hi-res images dumped from the DC archives…
Lapham has provided a free link to the entire thing along with his detailed explanation of why the project never happened which you can download in its entirety by clicking here…
Sienkiewicz himself retweeted Lapham saying he himself had tried to track down the original pages but had made no real headway.
I posted a similar plea for owners of the originals to contact me years ago, w unfortunate minimal headway. I'm thrilled that David found a PDF of all the pages. The non-publication of this story comes down to a mix of corporate budgetary matters, poor timing & simple bad luck. https://t.co/L7myobRAhc
— Bill Sienkiewicz (@sinKEVitch) July 6, 2019