Originally se
rialized in 1996-97, Batman: The Long Halloween restored the Detective aspect to the Dark Knight and not only provided a sense of mystery that had been missing from the Bat-tales of the time, but also a neat gimmick that harkened back to the best stories of Batman’s glory days.
The writing by Jeph Loeb was crisp and taunt, but the real creative star behind this book turned out to be Tim Sale, whose stylish, noir art perfectly captured the grotesqueness that fascinates us about both Batman and his villains.
Essentially built around Batman’s quest to solve a series of murders committed each month around a holiday theme, it introduced a number of new characters tot he Batman mythos and established a number of new facets to his early days of crime fighting that have now become accepted as cannon. It was a 
heavy influence on the film Batman Begins and several elements were also incorporated into the film’s sequel, “The Dark Knight”.
It is about as far away as you can get from the campy Batman of the 60s TV show and belongs in every serious comic fan’s collection. Through the month of October, it is on sale at Ground Zero for 15% off.