Does Bruce Timm’s Work Influence Animation?
Bruce Timm was a character designer and producer for Batman the Animated Series (1992). The designs he created for the show have since become some of the most well recognised in animation. He has a blocky, angular, sharp and, jagged style for male characters, but has a curved, delicate style for the female characters. He tends to exaggerate certain parts of characters such as Batman’s chin and, The Jokers overly jagged facial features. It seems that only the male characters get majorly defining features like squared off jaws and massive pecs, almost like a walking Dorito. Women on the other hand tend to have an ‘ideal’ and ‘sexist’ way of being drawn where they have big hips, and small waists. On the other hand his illustrations of women have been described as “cute and coquettish, curvy and charming.” (Jim Steranko, 2013 p.11) Like with most comic book related women, his work is somewhat controversial. His style, while heavily influenced by comics, is a culmination of what he has worked on over the years. Starting out with the company Filmation, he moved to work for Don Bluth for a small period as well as other companies before ending up at Warner Bros. During this time he learnt what worked well for animation, especially when creating entire series’ ready for release later that year. He was taught how to exaggerate and simplify, learning these techniques among others is what allowed him to truly develop his style into what it is today.
Bruce Timm has been quite influential over that last couple of decades especially in the world of superheroes. This starts with his work on Batman the Animated series, where he was a character creator. He has shaped how Batman has been seen in the last couple of decades, especially compared to other intellectual properties. The easiest comparison would be Batman the Animated Series to Spiderman the Animated Series (1994) where Batman the Animated Series has, arguably, stood the test of time much better than Spiderman the Animated series released at a similar time. Obviously all of these are based on comic books, mainly DC at that, this is because most of Timm’s influences are comic book artists themselves “from Ditko to Mike Mignola to Kevin Nowlan to Marc Hampel” (Bruce Timm, 2012 p.12). With influences like these it’s easy to see why Timm’s work lends itself to comics so well, it helps that he also did few bits of inking here and there for various comic book artists. He has a deep understanding of what effort goes into the comic book process from writing to the art, and by by comparing to his knowledge from his work on He-man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), you can undoubtedly acknowledge he has grown as an artist and an animator. He evidently loves his work and even goes as far as to joke about him being payed for doing something he loves so much as a crime. (Jim Steranko, 2013)
An obvious example in how Bruce Timm is still relevant is seen in Beware the Batman (2013). This newest series of Batman is done in CGI but still maintains the style of Bruce Timm from the original animated series that started back in the 1992. It falls into the same category of the other Batman designs shown over the years by mimicking designs previous but still adding it’s own flair to feel new. Obviously because this is Batman and the 1992 show was such a huge success it’s easy to see why DC would want this style for all of their future superhero animations to keep their work recognisable. The work however doesn't have to be superhero in nature it can have any background but it is most visible in the superhero genre. Most obviously in the continuing Batman series' that followed like Batman Beyond (1999), which was Bruce Timm’s work, The Batman (2004) and Batman the Brave and the Bold (2008) both of these shows were not worked on by Bruce Timm but still show essence of his work. This doesn't mean that his influence is just limited to Batman, but it is mostly visible within the DC animated universe, with shows like Teen Titans (2003), Young Justice (2010), and Green Lantern the animated series (2011). Timm has also had a hand in overseeing some of DC’s animated features but not a very heavy hand in it.
Influence isn’t just limited to the DC inspired series’. Bruce Timm’s angular style can be seen in cartoons like Gargoyles (1994),Hellboy: Sword of Storms (2006), and The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (2010). Gargoyles is a heavily gothic inspired series, which helps in relating to Bruce Timm’s style which, in itself, was set in a Gothic styled city. The similarities are most strong in comparing the main characters, Batman and Goliath. These characters have the same body shape, being big, bulky and, angular. They also have very similar jaw lines in how squared off they are. If we look at the lead female character Demona they have an extremely similar body type to Bruce Timm’s stencil like design of women, like Poison Ivy or Batgirl. Greg Weisman, the creator of Gargoyles, says that Batman the Animated Series was one of his influences for the show so much so that he employed some of the crew that worked on Batman to work on Gargoyles (Christopher Erickson, 2007). The grounds for this is because they have a similar setting of a dark city, as well as translating very easily over to comic books, this style assists with gaining momentum of fans since it was already made popular by Bruce Timm it’s easily recognisable. The idea of it also translating well into comics, while making sense with Batman the Animated Series, seems like it would be more of a marketing ploy with Gargoyles though Weisman has proceeded to create comics of the show. It is unknown whether this is because of Bruce Timm’s background or for other reasons. Bruce Timm has also stated that he dislikes Gargoyles “Yeah, that whole premise of Gargoyles was kind of namby-pamby anyway, with all that Celtic fantasy crap” (Emru Townsend, 1999). This demonstrates that even though someone has been influenced by your work they aren’t necessarily going to like it.
Not all animation is the same though it doesn’t just have to be a traditional 2D style, it can be 3D, it doesn’t even have to be on the television it can be in a game. This is what a couple of relatively new game developers have said. They have drawn influences from a number of artists including Bruce Timm (Andrew Clouther, 2013). This is stated in an interview for their kickstarter campaign, a website where the public can fund your idea, for their game Comic Conquest (no date). While the game doesn’t look like it will ever see the light of day it’s quite easy to see the inspiration they’ve drawn from Bruce Timm’s work, mainly in the female character designs. While the facial features may not be replicas of Timm’s work the line art in itself certainly seems to mirror that of his work, and definitely draws something from his work. The way it’s done seems to be to draw in a wave of nostalgia from those that know and recognise his work.
On the other side of the spectrum this could also show that Bruce Timm could have possibly put the style of superheroes into a rut, as many of the designs can be seen as being very similar to Bruce Timm’s original concepts. This can be seen in, at the very least, DC’s immobility to design very little outside of this on the animated side of things. Even when the animation and design is based on another artist's work it still page this homage to Timm’s work as seen in Justice League War (2014). Overall though I feel Timm has certainly given more to the medium with his style than broken it. A quick google search would show many new, budding artists trying their hand at his style while combining it with their favourite show or game. As for mainstream media outside of DC’s main animation, Timm has come back a couple of times to do work for the anniversaries of Batman and Superman in the form of shorts. Elsewhere his influence can at least be seen, mainly in superhero works, but it’s assuredly there. Not even necessarily in the realm of traditional animation it can be seen in games and 3D works. His work is always one that draws a crowd and echoes through the medium of animation, maybe not as loudly as it originally did but undoubtedly audible, which is sure to be heard for years to come.
Bibliography
Books
Nolan-Weathington, E. (ed.) (2012) Modern Masters Volume Three: Bruce Timm. 5th ed. Canada: Twomorrows Publishing.
Steranko, J. (2013) Naughty and Nice the Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm Big Pocket Edition. 2nd ed. Santa Cruz: Flesk Publications.
Websites
Clouther, A. (2013) Kickstarter Interview: Comic ConQuest: Rise of the Hoarder will have you step in the role you’ve always fantasized about [Online]. [Accessed 17 May 2015]. Available at: <http://www.gamezone.com/originals/kickstarter-interview-comic-conquest-rise-of-the-hoarder-will-have-you-step-in-the-role-you-ve-always-fantasized-about>
Erickson, C. (2007) A Fanboy's First Visit to a Con [Online]. [Accessed 17 May 2015]. Available at: <http://www.comics101.com/guestlecturer/?mode=project&action=view&project=Guest%20Lecturer&chapter=51>
Townsend, E. (1999) Bruce Timm & Glen Murakami [Online]. [Accessed 17 May 2015]. Available at: <http://5x5media.com/eye/inte/btimm.php>
With this work I wanted to explore one of my favourite animators, Bruce Timm. I learned more than I thought I would about his process and how he ended up where he did
