One cold night, Akrham Asylum is taken over by the inmates. They have a few demands, and their last is this: Batman must join them, take a look inside, and see if he fits in. And if he survives the night, they will let him go. On the other side, Amadeus Arkham narrates his journey from philanthropist to psychiatrist to patient in Arkham Asylum itself, and the toll it took on his psyche.
This book is very hard to read. And I don't mean that as a matter of content, but rather the pages; I bought the physical DC Compact Comic, and while it's quite impressive they managed to shrink down the painterly masterpiece into a $10 format, it's very clear that's had an adverse affect on the art. I was squinting and adjusting my lights to get a better view of the art, and only reading it under a bright light are the beautiful details revealed to me. The paper quality is also cheap, and Joker's red text is chaotic and hard to read even under that bright light. It was almost an enjoyable reading experience, to try to parse meaning from the alternating shades of black, but to be honest I think you'd be better off reading a digital version, or at least reading with direct light.
As for the book itself: it's of two parts. I think it's fascinating to se the abstract and surreal art for these characters, that distort and twist them into nightmares. Indeed, the dreamlike and maddening quality of the book pulls me along like a kind of hypnosis, and I found myself enthralled in the details the entire time.
The story itself, I think, is less interesting. Maybe it's my fault for looking for meaning in a story of madness, but I didn't understand much that was going on. Revelations fell weightless and great actions were displayed with little fanfare. I almost feel the story and narration weakened the overall book, like the words take something away from the visuals. Batman feels weirdly out of character here, easily scared and on the back foot most of the book. The only really stand-out example of the art and words working together was Two-Face. The story itself is fairly simple, and carried along by the visuals and odd atmosphere the book creates.
If I were to prescribe a fix - or at the very least a change in mentality when you read this book - I think it's better to have it as a nightmare Bruce Wayne is having. This causes the dream logic and surrealism to benefit rather than detract from the overall book. But that's just from me, a known surrealism hater (although I will note that Grant Morrison shares this suggestion in the 15th anniversary version; I was unaware until after I wrote this paragraph, so it's nice the themes are theming).
I think the book is worth reading even so. The art is splendid, trippy and beautiful to look at, and you can get lost in these pages just taking it all in. But the storyline you follow through its pages is not so twisting and turning as you might believe. It's rather like a haunted maze; dark, moody and creepy, but designed to get you in and out in as straightforwardly as possible.
