The Joker.

Thanks to Heath Ledger’s dead-bang interpretation of this force of chaos in The Dark Knight, the world has new eyes for him. Comics professionals and your average readers already knew the depths of madness that could be reached with this character. Film-wise, all anyone else knew of Joker was the dark sardonic glee of Jack Nicholson and the infectious, camp laugh-o-matic antics of Cesar Romero.

Fewer still knew of Mark Hamill’s Joker run on Batman: The Animated Series. His work there is easily in the Top 5 of insane clown portrayals. Say what you must about Luke Skywalker but Hamill knows how to give voice to the insane.

Now we have a new take on the Clown Prince of Crime by Brian Azzarello. Eisner Award winner Azzarello‘s works were unknown to me until I learned of his upcoming Joker graphic novel(pictured above).

Brian told Newsarama that fans of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight are “gonna love our book” insisting that Nolan’s Joker and his Joker are “very, very eerily similar.”

The book description compares Azzarello’s Joker to Alan Moore’s THE KILLING JOKE. All of you Dark Knight fans who have not read THE KILLING JOKE need to run, not walk, to the nearest book/comic book retailer. This book is where they grabbed Ledger/Jokers M.O.

By the time you’ve done this I, hopefully, will have bought and read this newest version of clown-on-Gotham City violence.

(via slashfilm, Joker 4 page preview on myspace )

Extra Credit: Clown Prince of Crime.com