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Interesting and news to me. Jim Aparo is one of my favourite Batman artists.
I loved his Aquaman. I am familiar with Spectre, but haven t seen anything by Aparo. The Phantom Stranger is a stranger to me.
Another favourite. The 70s were a golden era.
Neil Gaiman
A short, but powerful if somewhat experimental story from one of the great minds of the fantastical.
It's a good story, @Thunderfinger, but then more Gaiman's celebration of his Batman fandom than some big Batman story. Definitely worth de time.
This is the most recent one that I bought:
Before that I was reading:
And I've ordered the new volume of "The Killer" (De killer in Dutch) plus a few Kriss of Valnors.
A great story, with a great twist. However, I narrowly prefer its spiritual predecessor: Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Simply because it’s nice to see Superman’s villains together and not just Lex Luthor on his own.
Agreed.
Meanwhile, another interesting collection:
Batman: Elseworlds
One of my personal favourites when it comes to DC experiments.
Excellent books. I've got them both in hardcopy.
Volume 4 spans 1944 to 1946 and shows Batman at his Golden Age zenith. No more crude early stuff--the comic is now a finely tuned machine, the art is better than ever before and the writers have risen to the challenge of telling a mystery-thriller in 12 pages.
If you're used to the grim post-1970s Batman, you have to understand that these comics had a different aim and audience. They were written for kids and barely literate servicemen and should be considered children's literature. That's not an insult! Editor Jack Schiff (who happened to be a socially conscious Stalinist!) took his work seriously and its shows in the craftsmanship of these tales.
Most were written by the two greatest Golden Age bat-scribes, Bill Finger (Batman's co-creator) and Don Cameron. Finger's stories demonstrate his wide-ranging research and eclectic imagination, while Cameron's display his customary light humor and heart. A third notable writer is Alvin Schwartz, an intellectual whose stories have a veneer of clever sophistication.
The art is by another set of stars: Dick Sprang, the most dynamic and stylized Batman artist of the Golden Age; Jerry Robinson, distinguished for his graceful, flowing figures; and Win Mortimer, whose style was more illustrative and down-to-earth. The least impressive artwork is credited to "Bob Kane and Ray Burnley," but that is a mistake. Kane did not draw any stories in this volume (he was busy with the Batman newspaper strip). The artwork is actually by Paul Cooper, a journeyman artist. He drew the "Dinosaur Island" story glimpsed above.
Excellent choice, sir!
I finished the first two stories of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's wonderful THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN.
This is an amazing story, supported by wonderful art and cool dialogues. Moore's love for "old" literature is apparent. I'm glad that I have caught most if not all references.
Technically, this is not a comic or graphic novel, but a written story published with a few drawings. Moore does an obvious Lovecraft hommage, especially in terms of his 'Lovecraftian' choice for words and idioms. It's not quite an easy read in that sense. What's interesting is that Moore pulls John Carter, Rudolph Carter and H.G. Well's Time Traveler into an Allan Quartermain story, almost told as if it were a part of Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, but rather serving as a take-it-or-leave-it prequel to LXG Vol. 1. For the record, I love Alan Moore's writings; I dig his prose. But when reading a comic, graphic novel, ... I want to keep going. Watchmen, Providence, LXG, ... all come heavy with supplementary literary material. The completist in me feels compelled to work his way through it. I usually find the effort rewarding, but also very intense and time-consuming. And there's an even bigger appendix coming with volume 2...
Youri Jigounov is one of my favourite comic book artists. If only I knew French and could read the comics he illustrates! So far, the only work of his I've found published in English, is early issues of Alpha.
The only classic Batman villain in this collection is the Joker. The other bad guys (Pomade, The Iceberg, Swann the conman) don't wear costumes but they're unique to the strip and suitably grotesque-looking, thanks to Bob Kane's art. Kane was more of a cartoonist than a comic book artist, but he had the ability to draw imaginatively warped characters and create a creepy, "mysterioso" mood. Furthermore, in this book he's inked by the great Charles Paris, who went on to spend 22 years inking the regular Batman comics! Kane provides a close majority of the art, but the excellent Jack Burnley handles several stories and shows his smooth, illustrative skill. Dick Sprang shows up for just one story and it's a wild affair that involves Robin in drag. Recommended and easily available at cheap prices.
I'm looking forward to it! All this self-isolation makes me impatient to see friends in-person again. I'll have to check out 80 Years of Batman too.
Ross work in this is fantastic, I have a few prints of his work.
I’m reading 80 years of Batman now. It’s phenomenal! I highly recommend it for anyone!
I'm looking forward to joining that get-together! @Revelator, you've mentioned an artist whose name I'd not heard before -- Paul Cooper -- so thanks for that. @Birdleson, it's interesting that you don't care much for Alex Ross' work, no accounting for taste I suppose. Lots to talk about when next we can get together!
Now is a real good time for re-reading old comics. Awhile back, started re-reading the entire run of early '60s Marvel Comics, using the EPIC collections as my source material. These are really great in that they follow the coloring of the originals and don't try to "correct" any of the bloopers that other reprint volumes try to edit out of the Permanent Record. If Reed Richards tells his teammates that "there was no reducing gas" on the final page of FF #7, when he MEANT to say "no enlarging gas" -- as is actually the case in the original -- then bless us all, the text stays as printed, even though it's a substantial error and many other efforts at representing the classics take it upon themselves to copy-edit that sort of goof out of existence. So starting with FF#1 (November 1961) then #2 (January 1962) and #3 (March 1962)... and after #4 (May 1962) I added HULK #1 (also May of 1962) to the rotation. "The Man in the Ant-Hill" got folded into the mix just a bit earlier than that (TALES TO ASTONISH #27, January 1962) with Ant-Man proper commencing his own series in September of 1962. Spider-Man debuts in AMAZING FANTASY #15, of course, from August of 1962...and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 comes along several months later in March of 1963. But before that we have the debuts of Thor (JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83, August of 1962,) and Iron Man (TALES OF SUSPENSE #39, also March of 1963) plus the Human Torch's own solo strip commencing in STRANGE TALES #101, October 1962. So here I am, following the timeline of releases for the Marvel Age of Comics...and I've just now made it to September of 1963. Man! What a cornucopia of comics we've got here! Not only are there the regular monthly releases of Fantastic Four, Thor (JIM,) Iron Man (TOS,) Ant-Man (TTA,) and the Human Torch (ST)...PLUS the (currently) bi-monthly releases of Spider-Man and Sgt. Fury in their own titles, cover-dated September of 1963...BUT WAIT! Beginning this month we have the first (bi-monthly) issues of THE AVENGERS... THE X-MEN... and, the release of not one but two Marvel Annuals! Strange Tales Annual presents the Human Torch's first team-up with Spider-Man...and the Fantastic Four Annual featuring the Sub-Mariner's reunion with lost Atlantis. If I may point out the obvious: that's one heck of a lot of great comics, all released in one month! A creative explosion of this type just doesn't happen all that often, and I'm really enjoying it. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers, Don Heck, Joe Sinnott... 9 regularly scheduled comics and 2 annuals. All in one month. Pretty awesome!
I learned about him from this fascinating site, which in turn links to the fellow who made the original attribution. The rest of "Who Drew Batman" is equally fun to explore.
I just finished 80 years of Batman. A MUST HAVE for anyone who’s a Batman or superhero fan. Causal or hardcore, this book is an awesome and enjoyable piece of history.
Batman is blackmailed into tomfoolery in "The Case of the 48 Jokers!"
This volume collects every Batman story published between March 1948 and November 1949, a period that marked Batman's 10th anniversary in comics. Behind the scenes there were important personnel changes.
The first section of volume 6 contains the final stories written by Don Cameron, one of DC's best 1940s writers. After he left editor Jack Schiff scrambled to find writers to take his place, sometimes with mixed results. We still don't know who wrote nearly half of the stories in this book--they're credited to "Unknown." Fortunately Batman's hard-working co-creator Bill Finger was still onboard and he's responsible for most of the other stories. The most famous is "The Origin of Batman," still the best-ever story about Batman finding his parents' killer; rarely has poetic justice been so brutal.
The other stories fall into several categories. Some are noirish postwar "crime does not pay" tales (like "Killer For Hire" by Edmond Hamilton) where crooks pay the wages of sin. Others are mysteries and human interest tales involving ordinary people. Carrying on a Golden Age Batman tradition, there are also time travel stories: The dynamic duo go back to renaissance Italy, viking Scandinavia, and medieval Baghdad; they meet Leonardo da Vinci, Henry "Bloody" Morgan, and Marco Polo. Last but most important come the costumed super-villain capers, featuring the Joker (he pops up in almost every other issue), the Penguin, Catwoman, and Two Face (he makes only one appearance, and an atypical one). This volume also features the introductions of the Riddler, the Mad Hatter, and that Lois Lane knock-off Vicki Vale.
The art is less varied in this volume. Jerry Robinson had left Batman and Win Mortimer was now only doing covers: their contributions are much missed. Fortunately Dick Sprang, the greatest Golden Age Batman artist, was still at work and is well represented here. The other artists are less distinguished. Jim Mooney's art is competent but bland; you can tell he'd rather work on a less stylized comic. The remaining stories are crudely handled by Bob Kane himself and his ghost Lew Sayre Schwartz (Kane drew Batman and Robin, Schwartz everything else).
If you're mostly familiar with modern Batman comics, you'll need to approach the Golden Age with different expectations. The tightly plotted 12 page stories in this book were meant as escapist children's literature. The writers and editors weren't concerned with the repercussions of time travel because they were focused on giving Batman incredible arenas to romp through. Similarly, the super-villain stories are in the spirit of children's hi-jinks: the villains tell Batman to come out and play by leaving clues daring him to guess their next crime, which is inevitably based on a clever gimmick or theme. Batman and Robin puzzle it out and tussle two to three times with the bad guys before sending them to prison, which is nothing more than a time-out before the next round of play (when the villains inevitably escape).
This collection then is Golden Age business as usual, and I wouldn't have it any other way. However, there are hints of the sci-fi/fantasy elements that would overtake the strip in the next decade (invisibility elixirs, shrink rays, mermen). At other times the new writers lean too hard on whimsy (as in "The Wonderful Mr. Whimble"). This volume also contains another novelty: a real-life "Guest Star," bandleader Kay Kyser.
This collects every Batman comic published between December 1949 September 1951. By now Batman had celebrated his 10th anniversary, and his editors and writers were intent on keeping him up-to-date and further building his world. So Batman receives a new Batmobile and Batplane, and a redesigned bat-signal. And for the first time the secret origins of the Catwoman and the Joker are revealed. We even learn Commissioner Gordon's backstory! The comics have also grown cognizant of their own continuity, and references to old stories fill "The Thousand and One Trophies of Batman" and "The Strange Costumes of Batman."
As usual with golden age Batman, there's a mix of tightly plotted 12 page mysteries, crime capers with mobsters, and supervillains committing gimmick crimes. Joker and the Penguin pop up in almost every other issue. In the now infamous Bill Finger story "The Joker's Comedy of Errors" the Clown Prince of Crime makes a dumb mistake during a robbery and gets mocked by the newspapers. And this happens:
The Joker goes on a crime spree based on history's greatest errors, and threatens to make Batman commit a few too:
All of this has Commissioner Gordon very worried:
Luckily good triumphs over evil, despite being forced into a boner.
In common with past omnibuses, there are a few time travel stories, with the dynamic duo venturing to old California, ancient Egypt (where they meet Cleopatra and anachronistically work on the great pyramids--built 2,000 years before Cleopatra was born), and even 100 years into the future.
Other stories rely on newer hooks, such as Bruce Wayne switching professions: he becomes a private detective, riveter, and crime reporter (and Batman becomes a prison warden). Multiple stories revolve around Batman's secret identity being threatened or even found out, in which case he has to make the villains doubt their eyes. Perhaps this subject was inspired by Superman's own secret identity issues?
Several stories take a look at the relationship between Batman and Robin. In "The Trial of Bruce Wayne" he almost loses custody of Dick Grayson. In a later story Dick fears Batman intends to replace him with the trainee hero Wingman, and in the book's final story a guilt-ridden Grayson dreams of himself as with Batman II, with his son as Robin Junior.
Two new villains are introduced in Vol. 7: Deadshot, an aspiring crime lord posing as a crimefighter, and Killer Moth, an anti-batman who rescues underworld villains when they flash the moth-signal. In his third appearance he anticipates several future villains by impersonating Bruce Wayne and Batman.
A large number of stories still credited to "unknown." Many are by David Vern, who has a knack for corny but fun high concepts (Millionaire island! A Criminal academy! A club for policemen who've been shot!). A majority of the stories are by Bill Finger, the original bat-writer, and they're usually the best of the bunch (aside from the boner one). Finger's trademark use of giant props is evident in this volume.
Almost all the covers are by Win Mortimer. As for interiors, Jim Mooney drew a handful of stories in first half, but art is mostlly split between Dick Sprang and Bob Kane's ghost Lew Sayre Schwartz (whose Batman and Robin figures were often retouched by Kane). Schwartz was an okay cartoonist, but his attempt to emulate Kane's cartoony style looks almost as stilted and hammy as the original. Sprang by contrast demonstrates what made him the greatest Batman artist of this era: cinematic staging, intricately varied compositions, and an exquisite knack for drawing ultra-stylized characters that retained solidity and dramatic plausibility.