I've never read it this way before.

Maybe this is what Moore meant when he said "Grant Morrison rewrote it for me, and his ending is both better and the original and actual ending anyway". I'd always assumed he was making a bitchy comment on Morrison's own Batman comics.

Contains major spoiler, obviously, but c'mon, you've read it, right?

Mind blown. No kidding. Wow.

I wonder if this is why Alan Moore famously dislikes Morrison...

I don't think this is a secret.

The idea that the ending is purposfully ambiguous as to what's happening was obvious to me and I've always seen it discussed that way on the internet.

Is Batman leaning on the joker or snapping his neck? Certainly the look on Batman's face seems to suggest something sinister and the angle of Joker's body also looks like he's going limp as if life has left him but it's supposed to be ambiguous.

Another cool moment is when their two shadows merging suggesting their both the same if not being killers but being insane. Heck despite moments before Batman 'proving' he's not insane like the joker the very act of both of them cracking up pretty much spells that in end he is.

I've always thought it interesting how DC from the beginning regarded this story as incontinuity and always wondered if the eagerness at the time to get rid of Batgirl saw 'The Killing Joke' as their best opportunity. I think Moore has even said it was never his intent to get rid of Barbera Gordon.

The continuity thing's weird, though- doesn't he mention Batmite at one point, signalling that it's NOT actually in comics continuity, despite being the one where Barbara's crippled?

It's interesting, though, that when this came out I probably had three or maximum four people to whom I could talk about comics. There wasn't as much scope for chucking around different theories on what happened as there is now, what with the internet and everything. It was probably a lot easier for things to remain ambiguous, or even to be missed entirely.

Thinking about it, same here. There was myself and one other kid in the same year plus one in the year above at primary school who read comics. I read Marvel and DC stuff whereas the other two only read one or the other so for Batman I only had one other person to discuss things with...