Photo Source: liz373 on deviantART

But something about the buttocks symbolizing “love” makes me think of prison movies.

By the way, is there a… classier term for “tramp stamp”? I couldn’t think of another way to describe that Batman tattoo without dragging this entire post into the gutter.

And there’s no room left in the gutter since my mind took the place over.

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But Kori’s Batman sideboob tattoo? That’s a first.

Photo Credit: Danielle on deviantART

Thankfully, Kori didn’t heed Westley‘s lament about damaging any of the short supply of perfect breasts in the world. Forget that. Who says a pair of boobs shouldn’t be decorated like a Christmas tree, eh? What about that? Happy holidays, I say! Firefly Serenity ornament nipple rings and Star Trek pasties for everyone!*

* Not everyone. My nipples are very delicate. Also? No boobs.

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Not that I don’t appreciate the wonderfully-batshit (no pun intended) fans who do this kind of stuff.  Keep up the high-quality crazy, people!  Daddy needs blog content.

I had the Batman logo that’s been used for the last few years on my back. Not massive, but I think it’s a decent size.  It’s about 5-6 inches at the top of my back, and sorry, don’t have another pic.

I’m sorry you don’t have another pic, too, Lewis.  Because, hey, it’s not like the ladies have been banging down the door after my last Adsense check and skin is skin, am I right?

No. Not at all. So stop nodding your head.  The only man with the power to turn me gay lost his chance when he took on the lead role in a formulaic CBS ABC show called Castle.

Damn you, Fillion.  It could have been beautiful.

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Hell, it might even make some of the Batman tattoo pics I get from sketchy shirtless dudes a bit more tolerable.  In terms of their hilarity, of course.  Not in terms of their appropriateness for the password-protected “Special Me Time” folder on my computer.  Obviously.

Vicki Vale (real name withheld by request) tells us a bit about her work:

I have a classic Bat logo one. I had always wanted one since I was 17, but the time never felt right. I had it done on November 26th, the day R.I.P. finished (I will not comment on that storyline). It sits on my left hip, as you can see. A plain one, looking at the rest of this site. I’m still damn proud of it.

Oh, Vicki, don’t mistakenly compare your ink to the other colorful, artistic, massive and otherwise eye-popping Batman tattoos here on GWS.  Instead, judge it against my woeful little Battoo.

As in most cases where you might compare yourself against me, I guarantee you’ll come out feeling like the fresh-scented winner of life.

Except for building blog machinery out of LEGOs, cake fondant, costume fabric, and tattoo ink.  I’m the undisputed master of that (tiny, tiny) domain.

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Angie rubs her supposedly-superior level of Batman fan-ism in my face:

I have been a huge Batman fan since I was 2. [My mom] made me a Batgirl costume for Halloween and I wore it out. I’ve met Adam West and Yvonne Craig, my heroes :) So when I decided I wanted to get a tattoo, I figured it should be Batman. So my first tattoo was the black and yellow Bat symbol on my hip.

Well, one time I saw a guy on the street in New York selling bootleg copies of Batman, and that guy totally looked like a bald Tim Burton. So… I guess we’re even on that score.

After I got my Batman and saw how good it looked, I decided to get the Batgirl symbol on my other hip. They both came out great. My last tattoo is going to be a Joker card that I design and that’s going in the middle of my back, between Batman and Batgirl. :)

Oh, really?  Three tattoos?  That’s cool, I guess.  If you’re weak.  I’m, like… going to have a belt tattooed around my waist made up of the faces of Batman’s gallery of villains.  Right after I change my middle name to Bruce Wayne Alfred Dick Grayson. I have an appointment on, uh, Tuesday or whatever.

So.  There’s that.

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But I don’t have one, because my considerable ego wouldn’t tolerate that sort of annoying reminder of my alleged less-than-perfection. GWS reader Ben, on the other hand, is one of those glass-is-half-full types who takes full ownership of his distinctive physiological quirk.

This geek’s waddling gait–caused by a skeletal malformation–inspired the proudly-brandished tattoo of a penguin commando from Batman Returns on his shoulder.

That’s cool, I guess. If you’re into positive attitudes and that sort of thing. Whatever.

I got this tattoo this spring in London on Camden High Street. I got it because I have a malformation in my hip joints that causes my legs, and thus my feet, to face diagonally outward making my walk more of a waddle at times. My name is Ben so in Middle school I was nicknamed “Benguin” which I was quite fond of. Add that to my love of Batman, penguins, and explosives, and the tattoo was really just inevitable.

You’re a good man, Ben. Getting teased in middle school plus a fondness for explosives would have manifested a lot differently here in America.

Do you have a geeky tattoo you’d like to show off? Contact me with a photo and description, and I’ll consider profiling it in a post on this here blog.

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What do I look like? Craigslist?

Anyway, I shan’t complain, because first, I sort of asked for it, and second, it’s my own fault for not starting a blog about nude swimsuit models with birthmarks shaped like Star Wars characters.

And I’m still kicking myself over that one.

GWS reader Josh provides the details on his Batman symbol back tattoo. (Note that he’s courteously done away with capitalization and punctuation in the interest of providing you with an unadulterated stream of information.)

it took only an hour and a half to do and i dont think its insane…just pretty damn painful[.] but the guy (jason from soild image tattoo) kept messing up like when he was drawing it so that was an extra hour…which took longer than expected

The guy messed up a Batman symbol? Yikes. I’d hate to see what he’d do with a complicated tattoo. You know… one with more than one color and an image you couldn’t just trace from a fuggin’ comic book.

Do you have a geeky tattoo you’d like to show off? Contact me with a photo and description, and I’ll profile it in a post on this here blog. And I’ll even be gentle about it.

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See my words and mark them: Someone or someones you know will soon use superlatives like “brilliant,” “amazing,” or “fuggin’ fuggtastic” in the course of telling you that (a) The Dark Knight is perhaps the best superhero movie ever, and (b) Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You might just find yourself jaded by the cacophony of broken-record hype. Which is too bad, because the movie really is, well… fuggin’ fuggtastic. And deserves all the credit it gets.

That’s why I’m putting out a call for genuinely novel and creative ways for fanboys (and -gals) to express their enthusiasm for the newest Batman film from director Chris Nolan.

You could do worse–well, depending on how you look at it–than to take a cue from the dude who emblazoned a tattoo of the Batman symbol from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight across his back, courtesy of Tony Siemer of New Breed Tattoo in Dayton, Ohio.

As Tony explained to me:

My customer is a total Batman freak! He had an old nasty dark tattoo that he wanted covered up so we used the symbol and I added the beveled edge which seems to really work!

Hell yeah, it works. It looks like someone cut the Batman symbol from a plate of steel and slapped it onto his back hard enough to leave a welt. Seriously, though. You can see the red marks.

Badass, yo.

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Robert dropped me a note after my post in December profiling portrait tattoo super-artist Nikko Hurtado. Turns out that several of the stunning tattoos that I highlighted in that post decorate Robert’s appendages.

Check out the other sweet Batman tattoos here on Great White Snark.

After seeing the work that Nikko had done on some of his friends, Robert–who now lives in Los Angeles, about an-hour-and-a-half from Nikko’s studio in Apple Valley–sought out Nikko to give Robert his first ink: a portrait of Axl Rose on his arm, followed by a portrait of Slash on his chest. After these first two pieces , a friendship developed:

I think we just had a lot in common, so he was always excited to do the pieces that I wanted.

Robert has been “huge into Batman” since he saw the original Tim Burton Batman movie when he was twelve. The movie even inspired a continuing, 18-year streak of comic book collecting (including every issue of Uncanny X-Men since 1988).

So, when Nikko was looking for inspiration for a “cool” tattoo to submit to a contest, Robert produced an image from a Batman Returns book. The subsequent Batman tattoo that Nikko created on Robert’s leg was Nikko’s first color portrait; now Nikko is world-renowned in tattooing circles for those portraits.

The guys still aren’t done with that tattoo, either. It’s been steadily evolving, and they intend to add the Batmobile and “maybe the Batwing.”

Robert has seven tattoos, all done by Nikko. Following Batman came the Joker, Catwoman, and Peguin.

Most recently, they’ve added a portrait of Spike, which is the beginning of a “Buffy themed leg.” Check out this video of actor James Marsters (who portrayed Spike on Buffy) getting blown away when he sees the tattoo at a convention. (E-mail subscribers and RSS readers, visit the post to see the video.)

Even more than Buffy or Batman, however, Robert is big-time into Star Wars. He plans for some Star Wars tats “somewhere down the line,” and lives in a two-bedroom apartment just to accommodate his collection of Star Wars memorabilia. Not to start a nerd-fight with the toy collectors among you, but he claims the collection “blows people away.” His favorite piece? A working replica lightsaber.

Thanks to Robert for sharing the pics and your story. I hope you’ll keep us updated as the “Buffy leg” develops. In the meantime, readers, you can check out more of Nikko’s work on his MySpace page.

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Then I realized two things. First, I’m far from the first dude in the world to get a Batman (or even a superhero-themed) tattoo. Second, as far as Batman tattoos go, mine falls dramatically to the ‘unimpressive’ side of the scale.

Even those among the GWS readership have demonstrated more artistry–and certainly more commitment–with their Batman symbol tats.

But nothing I’ve seen thus far in my geekadelic travels compares to the beautiful, hyper-realistic work of tattoo artist Nikko Hurtado of Ignition Tattoo in Apple Valley, CA.

So lifelike, you’ll want to reach out to touch Michael Keaton’s chin stubble. But all you’ll get is leg hair.

Check out the other sweet Batman tattoos here on Great White Snark.

Don’t you look at this and hear his cackle in your head?

How’d you like to wake up for the rest of your life and look into those creepy-ass eyes?

Happy or sad?

Nikko’s genre work isn’t limited to comic book characters; he’s also completed an impressive set of classic movie monster tats. You can check out all the goodness (including higher-rez images of these photos) in his portfolio of work on the Ignition site.

I tried to arrange an interview with Nikko, but, alas… to no avail. Not a single response to my admittedly overly-exuberant e-mails. Not even a “Leave us alone, we’re too busy being tattoo-artisting badasses to humor a geekazoid like you.”

Oh, well. We’ll always have the internets.

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