If you thought that Heath Ledger's Glasgow grin in The Dark Knight was gruesome, consider that it may have actually been tame. Peter over at /film has scanned in a bunch of images from the making-of book, and they illustrate a few of the early Joker ideas that were created in pre-production, before Ledger was cast (check out a couple in the gallery below, and more over at Slash).

It's always fascinating to see how a character came to be, particularly one that's proving to be as iconic as Ledger's joker. The facial scars were apparently decided on quite early, with varying degrees of severity, but the spiky hair was an interesting choice. I remember there was a lot of complaining initially about Ledger's long and "greasy" hair, but I prefer it to the short and spiky look, which says Mark McGrath more than clown-faced madman. I have no idea how much Ledger brought to the table in terms of his look, and it doesn't sound like that's mentioned in the book, either. Creepy stuff -- frankly, if this is how dark Christopher Nolan's team can go, I can't wait to see what they could do with a new villain altogether.