Having the Joker as the primary villain in next summer's Batman film apparently makes viral marketing easy.  The Joker's whysoserious.com Website, which was unveiled at San Diego last summer (see 'Art and Marketing in San Diego'), has recently come alive with interesting game-like activities that yield a phone number, which if called can provide the clever consumer with text messages from the Joker himself.

The Joker's 'Why so serious' trope surfaced again in the striking new poster for the film, which is surely one of the most stunning designs in the history of Batman posters thanks to its clever graffiti-like usage of a white brick wall, two black circles and the rendering of a red bat to create a perfect image of the Joker himself.  If The Dark Knight turns out to be a classic, this is likely to be the poster that  fans want. Certainly if director Christopher Nolan's second Batman film is half as clever as its devilishly smart viral marketing campaign (Does anyone want to pick up a cake for 'Robin Banks'?) and this iconographically ingenious poster, we are all in for a great ride next summer.