Trivia / The Killing Joke

• Black Sheep Hit: The Killing Joke is this for Moore. Alongside Watchmen and V for Vendetta it's his most famous and influential story. The success of The Killing Joke has likewise made Moore a prominent influence on Batman to the point of being consulted by Tim Burton, despite the fact that Moore is not a fan of Batman in general, and that the superhero Moore prefers is Superman and the DC licensed character he worked for the longest was Swamp Thing which paradoxically has had comparatively little cross-media influence on its respective characters compared to this Joker one-shot^note Moore's Green Lantern short-comics expanding on its lore and Worldbuilding, especially "Tygers" was the other influential work he did on licensed superheroes; and is otherwise not really representative of his style and themes, his work in superhero stories in general, his work in DC, or his work in The '80s. Moore has stated that among the two Batman comics he worked on, "Mortal Clay" a brief story on Preston Payne/Clayface III is his favorite.
• Creator Backlash: Alan Moore has all but said he regrets writing the comic — in an interview, he described The Killing Joke as "the work of mine I'm least fond of" and elaborated "Brian Bolland did a wonderful job on the artwork, but as for my writing, no, that's not one of my finest hours." Specifically, Moore has said that he regrets the story's lack of interest in how Barbara herself dealt with being shot and paralysed, and the contribution that its fully canonical status made to the whole DC universe getting Darker and Edgier. He also felt that the seriousness and overly psychological approach in the story ultimately did not reveal a great deal about the characters and that it became just another "nasty" story about Joker and Batman.
• Follow the Leader: The "why aren't you laughing?◊ panel has been (deliberately in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader) cribbed multiple◊ times◊.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Moore is reputed to consider this the weakest of his DC works, as he believes that the aesthetics of Watchmen were a poor fit for a "mere" Batman story. He later explained that ultimately Joker and Batman were intended to function as comic-book larger-than-life figures and are entertaining as such, but attempts to introduce realism would end up making the story nasty but without being as fun as a superhero comic. This later informed his attempts at Reconstruction of superhero comics in Supreme and America's Best Comics label. Moore also states that of the two Batman stories he worked on, "Mortal Clay" is better.
• Referenced by...: In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Scourge paraphrases Joker's infamous "one bad day" quote by telling Sonic that, "all it takes is one bad day, and you'd be just like me."
• Shrug of God: In his afterword in the deluxe edition, Brian Bolland says that he'll address the interpretation that Batman kills The Joker at the end. As he's addressing it his aforementioned 800 word count cuts him off mid paragraph. Alan Moore would eventually debunk the theory in 2016.
• Surprisingly Lenient Censor: In a 2004 interview with Wizard magazine, Alan Moore was also critical about his decision to cripple Barbara Gordon:
  I asked DC if they had any problem with me crippling Barbara Gordon – who was Batgirl at the time – and if I remember, I spoke to Len Wein, who was our editor on the project...[He] said, "Yeah, okay, cripple the bitch". It was probably one of the areas where they should've reined me in, but they didn't.
• Word of God:
  • When Joker snapped those nudes of Barb after he shot her (to use to drive Commissioner Gordon insane), it was all softcore. As opposed to some fan speculation, he didn't rape her.
  • While it was originally vague, Alan Moore eventually debunked the theory that Batman killed the Joker in the comic's ending when asked about it on Goodreads in 2016, explaining that his intention was that they were simply laughing over their "preposterous situation". Furthermore, while not done by Moore or Brian, later stories that follow up on Killing Joke's events by other creators such as Oracle: Year One: Born of Hope and Batman: Three Jokers would back up Moore's statements and debunk the theory.

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