Hello everyone.  Swank-mo-tron here.  It’s my turn for the countdown, leading us straight into The Dark Knight.

I have a pretty big collection of Batman graphic novels and I dug deep to come up with one that I doubt a lot of people have had a chance to read and if they have, they probably haven’t read it in a while.

I would advise everyone to grab a copy of this and read it repeatedly. Gotham by Gaslight tells the elseworlds tale of a turn-of-the-last-century Gotham that is paid a visit by the infamous Jack the Ripper. The story of Bruce Wayne is much the same, though he returns from studying abroad to a Victorian-era Gotham and is forced to deal with the worlds most mysterious serial killer.

Written by Brian Augustyn (who did Crimson and Out There, both good books from Cliffhanger) and drawn by the ever fantastic Mike Mignola, Gotham by Gaslight is one of the few Batman elseworld stories that I’ve found that was engaging, well-written and well drawn enough to keep me coming back to read it again and again.

Another plus about the book is the introduction by Robert Bloch. Those of you not cool enough to be in the know, he is the very same Robert Bloch who wrote the book Psycho (of which Hitchcock’s brilliant film is loosely based on). His introduction is written in the first person as Jack the Ripper and his recollections of the Batman. It’s a really great literary piece that is part of the package that makes this book a must own for me.

And seriously… Mignola. That guy can do no wrong…

Okay, okay… Rocket Racoon. You got me…