Legendary Batman Artist Suffers Stroke

Some of the happiest afternoons of my childhood were passed in the company of a guy named Norm Breyfogle.

Norm was the artist on Detective Comics back in the late ‘80s. But it might be more accurate to say he was the window through which I got to see Batman patrolling the rooftops of Gotham, beating the ever-loving hell out of drug dealers and triumphing over crazed killers.  For me and many other late-Generation Xers, Norm was the definitive Batman artist.  It was his version of the character (along with writer Alan Grant) that my generation grew up with.

It’s probably hard to appreciate now how innovative Norm’s style was at the time.  I couldn’t have explained back then, of course—I just liked the artwork’s energy and story-telling—but looking back his style was much more expressionistic than his contemporaries’.  Perspective and shadow were distorted to amplify every panel’s mood.

But it wasn’t just a scene’s feel that he cared about.  There was so much energy in Norm’s action scenes as he showed heartbeat-by-heartbeat how Batman defeated a given bad guy:

Long after I’d stopped reading comics, Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies would occasionally make me nostalgic for the version I grew up with.  It was a pleasant surprise to discover online that I was just one of many impressed, and grateful, for Norm’s years on the character.  It made me happy to know that, even decades later, his work on Batman was remembered as one of the best runs in comics history.

My generation’s Batman, still one of the best.  Cool.

So it came as a shock to learn that Norm Breyfogle, just 54 years old, suffered a stroke in mid-December.

He’s expected to recover eventually, but in the meantime the stroke has paralyzed his left side which is especially heartbreaking considering Norm is a left-handed artist. It’s also put him in the hole for $200K on medical expenses. His family has turned to crowdfunding to help with the costs, and has set up a contribution site here.

I gave, and have since been watching the funds-raised bar, hoping it will make it to $200K. It hovers at $70K as of this writing. There’s only 7 days left in the drive.

The comic book blogosphere has covered it, trying to spread word about the crowdfunding effort. But the guys reading those sites will probably skew younger. They’re not of the generation that grew up reading Norm’s Batman. They don’t owe childhood memories to him like I do.

Most guys my age don’t follow comic book news anymore. I only learned about what happened to Norm myself because a friend who has kept a hand in the comics posted it on Facebook. With the clock ticking down, it’s time to get word out to other corners of the internet where his old fans may now be.

Which is why I’m here now. To get word out that a man who brought a lot of happiness to a generation of kids needs help. To let all the people that grew up enjoying Norm’s work know that he could use some of your help now.

If you’re able to, please consider contributing.