The three classic comic book characters inspired by David Bowie
When David Bowie was crafting Ziggy Stardust into existence, he picked and plucked for a collage of inspirations. “He was half out of sci-fi rock and half out of Japanese theatre,” Bowie once explained. “The clothes were, at that time, simply outrageous and nobody had seen anything like them before.” And this dazzling attack on mundanity proved world-changing.
Over the years, various other characters would enter his roster. “I found it quite easy to write for the artists that I would create,” Bowie once said of his use of characters. “I did find it much easier having created this Ziggy to then write for him. Even though it’s me doing it! I was able to distance myself from the whole thing, but I can become very complicated, f–king fabric with time there. It did bring a sort of sack full of its own inherent problems.” The problem was that the mask began to eat into the face, and he developed fascinations like fascism via his characters. You’d struggle to find more of a comic book motif than that.
Thus, over the years, he has also been a rife launching pad for various comic book creations. Perhaps the most notable being The Joker. When Frank Miller was looking to create the ultimate Batman tale with The Dark Knight Returns in 1986, The Clown Prince of Crime was the only baddy fit for the job. With a Nietzschean sense of his own villainy, The Joker typified Bowie’s creative look at the world.
Batman writer Grant Morrison also picked up on this kinship with The Joker when he was moulding the character. He described him as having “that sort of Euro kind of creepiness, that kind of heroin addict, David Bowie in Berlin seventies vibe and really stick to that sort of shifting persona to the Joker. He’s got that kind of cabaret feel, slightly sleazy and decadent. And I think all these influences make him a lot creepier.”
However, The Joker isn’t the only comic book character he inspired. You see, the thing is with Bowie, once you’re a fan he gets under your skin. Neil Gaiman is a mega-fan and as such he was inspired to create The Wicked & The Divine. The series sees an assortment of Gods descend to Earth and become rock stars therein, just as Ziggy Stardust had before.
However, the depth of the story comes from the message that Bowie extolled with his creations. As The Wicked & The Divine artist, Kieran Gillen said in tribute to the late ‘Starman’: “There’s people who have a fundamental confusion or a sadness, and art saves them. Art allows them to realise that they are not alone. Art allows them to realise their identity more.”
This notion of art inspiring people also touches on the perpetual cycle of influence. And that forms a beautiful segue into the Starman. Originally from a DC comic in 1941, the character predates Bowie’s classic song. However, he would, in turn, go on to inspire the character—once more he is f–king with the fabric of time here.
When James Robinson looked to reboot the character in the ‘90s, he glammed him up and set up the Stardust-inspired premise with benevolence coming from afar. There are a slew of Starmen in the series, just as Bowie had a smorgasbord of characters occupy his universe. In fact, it is a mark of the scope of his artistry that he was able to inspire whole alternate universes and more with his magical music.
