Comic Book Legends Revealed #297
by Brian Cronin on January 28, 2011 @ 10:26 AM
COMIC LEGEND: The phrase “grim and gritty” first appeared in connection with Batman…on the 1960s Batman TV series!!
STATUS: True
The term “grim and gritty” is sort of a catch-all phrase used to
describe the trend since the mid-1980s to make superhero comics, well,
grim and gritty.
BATMAN #440 (Aug 1989)
DC Comics
Typically, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns
are credited with inspiring this trend… but really, you could go much
further back than that if you’d like. I suppose, though, Moore and
Miller’s works were SO popular that people tended to follow their leads
more so than other similar works.
Heck, Batman was so “grim and gritty” at one point that it even became a
plot point where a young boy, Tim Drake, feels Batman has gotten TOO
grim and gritty, and needed a Robin to balance him out…
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Comic Book Legends Revealed #297 ]