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Chip Zdarsky & Matt Fraction On How Time Might Be Different In Gotham

Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction on how time might work different in Gotham... does it have a thirty-five hour day?

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Article Summary

  • Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction joke that Gotham time may run differently, with nights stretching far beyond midnight.
  • The Batman event Bad Seeds unfolds over one night, sparking a debate about marking each hour in real time.
  • Fraction says a Gotham night could last 20 hours, creating a bizarre 35-hour day that explains Batman logic.
  • Zdarsky and Fraction compare the idea to Ultimates, saying real-time comic storytelling is clever but brutally hard.

We mentioned Matt Fraction doing the rounds to talk about the upcoming Batman event Bad Seeds, including Direct Edition, talking with Chip Zdarsky. During which they came up with a rather interesting way to write Batman comic books, as Matt Fraction discussed writing Bad Seeds, set over one night in "real time" with hour marks running through the comic book, in a similar way that Marvel's Ultimate Universe with Jonathan Hickman and Deniz Camp did for two years. But chose not to. And Chip Zdarsky, who wrote Batman before Chip Zdarsky, jokingly pulled him up on this. But I think it's a rather fascinating idea…

  • Chip Zdarsky: "Chum, I hate to say this, but I do feel that you're a coward for not doing the 24 marking time idea only because it gives you the opportunity to show that time is different in Gotham and night is much longer. So when you hit midnight, the next hour is 13 o'clock and then 14 o'clock and then 15 o'clock"
  • Matt Fraction: "We call that military time, Chum."
  • Chip Zdarsky: "No, real, for real."
  • Matt Fraction: "So, night is actually 20 hours long in Gotham. The day is still from sunrise, which is around 6 or 7, to sunset, which is around 8 or 9. Then there are 20 hours of dark. It's like a 35-hour day."
  • "Chip Zdarsky: Yeah. It would explain a lot. That's all."
  • Matt Fraction "You know what? You know what, Chum? You're right. You're right. And look, as a former Batman writer, you could have fixed it. Yeah. Although also like, as we were talking about it, Deniz Camp was like, "Yeah, and we just did that in Ultimates. It was really hard." I'm like, "Yeah, you dummies. What the f-ck were you thinking?" The other thing is, it feels like they just did that. So like…"
  • Chip Zdarsky: "Dennis is just new enough that he wants to try those things. We're old enough to be like, "Oh god, no."

Bad Seeds is coming…

Bat Seeds: A Batman And Gotham Event For 2026, With Mayor Poison Ivy
Bad Seeds promo

Chip Zdarsky & Matt Fraction On How Time Might Be Different In Gotham

 

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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of comic books The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne and Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from The Union Club on Greek Street, shops at Gosh, Piranha and Forbidden Planet. Father of two daughters, Amazon associate, political cartoonist.
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