Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1525032
F E AT U R E By Kim Fay A few years back, Timm's bosses at Warner Bros. Animation, Peter Girardi and Sam Register, thought it would be a great idea to revisit the 1992-1995 mega-hit series based on the iconic DC Comics' character. Timm, though, wasn't interested. But in a conversation that was supposed to be about Justice League with then-Writer and Producer James Tucker, "James kept saying, well, what is it about BTAS that you don't want to do again?" says Timm. "I started explaining. I don't want to do the same show. I don't want to do those versions of the characters… I just felt like I had done it." Tucker pressed on, asking if there were things Timm had wanted to do that he couldn't with BTAS. In fact, Timm had wanted the show to be even darker thematically and emotionally. "BTAS could get dark," Tucker explains, "but it was operatic dark. There wasn't despair." Also, in Timm's original pitch bible, Batman was very "weird and aloof. I really wanted to go back to that weird version of Batman's personality, [and] James was all over that the minute I said it," he says. They started throwing ideas back and forth, and walking away from that conversation, Timm realized that some kind of a version of BTAS was now on the table. Countless articles have been written about how BTAS changed the way people viewed the genre, and many Animation Guild members Holy fan favorite, Batman! Bruce Timm is back in Gotham City. But don't expect just another sequel from the creative force behind Batman: The Animated Series. In fact, don't expect any kind of sequel or even a prequel with Batman: Caped Crusader. And while you're at it, give thanks to the animation gods that the new series exists at all. F E AT U R E Thirty years after the trailblazing Batman: The Animated Series, Bruce Timm joins James Tucker to break new ground-again-with Batman: Caped Crusader. 18 KEYFRAME