The most well known of many creative references in popular culture to Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs is found in Batman's nemesis The Joker.

The character's co-creator, Bob Kane, described in a 1970 interview how a photo of Conrad Veidt's Gwynplaine was an early influence on The Joker's appearance.

Like Gwynplaine, The Joker is also the victim of a horrid disfigurement, though the comic book character's face is changed by an accident in which he is immersed in a vat of chemicals, bleaching his skin and discoloring his hair. Unlike Gwynplaine, who is a truly heartbreaking victim with an origin born of a stark, historical reality that leaves him somwhat reclusive, The Joker is a sociopathic serial-killer with a psychotic sense of morbid showmanship.

James Ellroy also invoked the image of Gwynplaine in his novel The Black Dahlia as a clue to revealing the motive behind one of the victim's many grotesque wounds.