The different paths we take define our lives. Twenty-three years ago, a simple walk home changed mine in ways I couldn’t imagine. In a few seconds, my life was shattered, a brutal attack leaving me broken in body and in spirit. The comfortable world I had created for myself was gone, and it was painfully clear to me that the long path to recovery, if I chose to walk it, was one I’d walk alone.

Well, perhaps not entirely. Somewhere between imagination and hallucination is a twilight realm where a writer’s creations dwell. It was into that world I’d frequently go to seek counsel from the characters then at the forefront of my consciousness: Batman and his cadre of enemies and allies. As a writer of stories in which the hero always arrives in time and villainy invariably falls to justice, I found myself no longer able to maintain any belief in what I was writing. There had been no hero to pick me up that night, tend my wounds, and later help me through a long recovery process.

And yet, through the running discourses with my cerebral phantoms, I was convincing myself that even without the aid of a four-color hero, I could stand up and survive. Now, more than two decades later, I feel I have gained a deeper perspective of the incident, and that I can tell my story to people who might find themselves at a similar crossroads.

DARK NIGHT: A TRUE BATMAN STORY is the graphic novel document of that pivotal moment in my life. Powerfully rendered by Eduardo Risso (100 BULLETS), it forges a path between despair and deliverance on a route that travels through reality and fantasy. I invite you to take that walk with us.


DARK NIGHT: A TRUE BATMAN STORY by Paul Dini and Eduardo Risso is now available from Vertigo in print and as a digital download.