Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth - Conception and Influences

Conception and Influences

In his original script printed in the 15th Anniversary Edition (2004), Morrison remarks on several details behind the genesis of the work:

Len Wein... had written a few short and evocative paragraphs on the history of Arkham Asylum and it was here I learned of poor Amadeus Arkham, the hospital's founder.... 's themes were inspired by Lewis Carroll, quantum physics, Jung, and Crowley; its visual style by surrealism, Cocteau, Artaud, Svankmajer, the Brothers Quay, etc. The intention was to create something that was more like a piece of music or an experimental film than a typical adventure comic book. I wanted to approach Batman from the point of view of the dreamlike, emotional and irrational hemisphere, as a response to the very literal, 'realistic', 'left brain' treatment of superheroes which was in vogue at the time, in the wake of The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and others.

An additional reference to the work as a "response" to trends of the time is made in a later note: "The repressed, armored, uncertain and sexually frozen man in Arkham Asylum was intended as a critique of the '80s interpretation of Batman as violent, driven, and borderline psychopathic." Morrison goes on to explain that this conception of the character is for this book alone, and that his other work involving Batman has cast him in a far different (and more positive) light. He explains,

... the story is woven tightly around a small number of symbolic elements, which combine and recombine throughout, as if in a dream: the Moon, the Shadow, the Mirror, the Tower, and the Mother's Son. The construction of the story was influenced by the architecture of a house — the past and the tale of Amadeus Arkham forms the basement levels. Secret passages connect ideas and segments of the book. There are upper stories of unfolding symbol and metaphor. We were also referencing sacred geometry, and the plan of the Arkham House was based on the Glastonbury Abbey and Chartres Cathedral. The journey through the book is like moving through the floors of the house itself. The house and the head are one.