[fate man]

What do you think of DC's upcoming batman'66 comic book series?

[narfstar]

Had  not heard of it. I did enjoy some of their Silver Age books awhile back

[jimmm kelly]

I haven't seen much of what this new book will be like. It's rare that DC gets anything right these days.

I liked what Mike Allred did with Batman in his issue of SOLO--Allred's art style has always made me think of Sheldon Moldoff's stilted "Bob Kane" style. And yet DC was so scared of "The Fun Batman," that they made Allred change his Batman SOLO cover for something else.

Also it seems like Mike wasn't allowed to use the likenesses from the TV show--as Alfred and the Commisioner didn't look anything like themselves.

I wonder what has changed that they are able to use the images of the actors now. As far as I know Warner/DC still haven't reached an agreement with 20th Century Fox.

[narfstar]

I often forget that Warner owns DC. Why are there not more Looney Tunes character comics? I think the secret is to not make kid's comics for kids. The original character were made for movie going adults. They are enjoyed forever by all ages. Sponge Bob, Rugrats, Doug and others are enjoyed by all ages. Looney Tunes need to be written for adults (this does not mean foul language and nudity like Hollywood seems to think) so that all may enjoy them.

[profh0011]

Something that must baffle or deeply disturb many superhero comics fans is, BUGS BUNNY and the like were written for adults (all ages).  It's SPACE GHOST and the like that were written for KIDS.  (And you can bet Alex Toth hated every aspect of that.)  It's just that (perhaps due to the worship of Stan Lee) that many superhero fans have got it into their heads that "cartoony" equals "kiddie" material.

JANE'S WORLD proves that wrong!   

I'm hoping my next restoration project will be something that's been tying up space on my computer for too long... the actual 1966 BATMAN newspaper strip.  I have the entire first story scanned in and ready for clean-up.  It was actually my introduction to the comic-book Commissioner Gordon & Alfred, though oddly enough, it featured a cameo by a very recognizable Stafford Repp as Chief O'Hara.  In addition, Bruce & Dick slid down Bat-ROPES (which must have been tough on their hands / gloves). But Catwoman DID wear Julie Newmar's costume. I guess the newspaper strip took place in a universe about halfway between the TV and comic-book versions.

[Roygbiv666]

What do you think of DC's upcoming batman'66 comic book series?

That would be http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/03/22/batman-classic-tv-series-comic-jeff-parker-jonathan-case-michael-allred/

[jimmm kelly]

That's great that you're restoring the Batman Sundays, Prof. My order of getting to know Batman went along the route of seeing the TV show, reading the Sundays, getting the bubble gum cards, and THEN reading the comic books. Like you I found the ropes that they used in the Sunday strip strange, but at least that was somewhat like bat-poles in the TV show. It got more consusing when bubble gum B&R went behind a grandfater clock to go down the stairs to the Batcave, but then comic book Bruce and Dick used an elevator to the Batcave.

Our local paper carried both the Sundays and the dailies (for about a year, anyway) and I'm pretty sure I cut out all the Sundays and saved them--as I did with a few other Sunday comics that I liked. But my parents must have junked all these at some point.

I have since re-read these strips from our local paper on microfilm at the library--but the microfilm is in black and white. So I would like to see these Sundays reproduced in full colour again. Hopefully, DC will get around to it soon.

The tone of these stories (written by Whitney Ellsworth) was pretty over the top, much more "camp" than the comic book. And somehow different from the TV show, as well. I think the strip's humour was more self-conscious and not as witty as the TV show. But the first few stories from the Sundays remain some of my favourite Batman adventures, for sentimental reasons. Also the artwork by the likes of Joe Giella, Sheldon Moldoff, and Carmine Infantino is really great.

[misappear]

The notion of Batman '66 conjures up more negative thoughts than positive.  I was 13 when Batman in all his campiness descended upon the public consciousness.  Having been a Superman aficionado, I started buying Batman comics with issue 164 when I spotted the cover and logo change.  I thought the stories were brilliant, and an immense improvement over the outer space/science fiction Batman so common in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  It was this version of the character that I hoped to see in the TV series.  When it became apparent that the TV show was playing it for laughs, I stopped watching.  I think I only made it to the third week before I had had enough.

I blame that TV show for the years, if not decades, of Zap!...Pow!...Bam!...coverage the media assumed whenever it reviewed a comic book-based project or event.  I still got that treatment in the late 1970's and early 1980's when the local papers would do the occasional stories on the comics shops I owned.  I do believe the comics medium suffered greatly from ongoing dismissive attitudes tracked back to that TV show; and it would not be an overstatment to say that it may have set back the potential maturity of the medium by years. 

Certainly some positive things happened after the appearance of the show.  Some folks were probably drawn into the comics medium by the exposure.  Also, the magnitude of the accomplishment of the 1978 Superman movie, a 180 degree departure from the Batman TV show, might not have had such an impact if not for the obvious contrast to the former "superhero" treatment.  But I will say those Batman trading cards from Topps were pretty slick.

I do understand the opinions of those who view the Batman TV show with nostalgia; one of my favorite movies of all time is Robinson Crusoe on Mars so I will not throw stones at people's tastes.  I do, however, vividly remember watching the Batman TV show with horror and a sense of insult as "those people" were making fun of a medium which I was taking pretty seriously as I perceived its growth. 

The trend continued.  When DC began its period starting with the go-go checks on the top of their covers, I was sufficiently alienated to quite reading comics.  Well, I really only gave it a 5 year rest as the larger format in the early 1970's and all those incredible golden age reprints started popping up. 

I still can't watch the Adam West rendition. It just pinches a nerve. 

--Dave

[jimmm kelly]

I can understand the negative attitude of those who were older, but I was only seven when the TV show first appeared. The campy humour was right over my head and I took it all very seriously. If that TV show had never aired, I would never have gotten into comics and comics collecting.

The go-go checks already existed when I started buying Batman and Superman comics. For me that was the DC label. And it made it easy for me to spot DC comics in the drugstore and I was unhappy when that easy visual aid was taken away.

Mind you, as I grew older, I became disenchanted with the TV show and the comics. It took me awhile to make peace with that, but I did.

Thing with history--both cultural and personal--is it's all a very complex domino effect. If you try to reconfigure your own timeline, you lose all the things that made life worth living.

The way that DC reacted to the success and the boomerang failure of Batmania produced a whole host of things that might never have happened--perhaps including the darker 70s Batman (intentionally removed from everything associated with the TV show).

For better or worse, that phenomenon in 1966 changed the history of comics--not just for DC but for every other American publisher--and if we tried to erase it from our timeline, who knows where any of us would be now.

[misappear]

Jimmm,

Well stated.  Re the butterfly effect: events don't occur in a vacuum.  Or, you can't have an omelet without first having had dinosaurs. 

--Dave

[narfstar]

Well put Jimmm

[profh0011]

I haven't gotten to it yet (still working in BIBLE STORIES, just finished 1989 last night). And, I've never seen the Sundays.  This is strange... my Dad used to get the COURIER POST Monday-Saturday.  It only ran 6 days a week.  On Sunday, we got both the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER and PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN-- apparently, for the comics!  But neither had BATMAN. Also, DICK TRACY was never as good as it might have been to me, I found out, because it ran 7 days a week, and I was only getting the "summary" on Sundays.

Oddly, THE PHANTOM ran in the COURIER POST on weekdays, and, THE BULLETIN on Sundays.  (I wonder if THE BULLETIN also ran the dailies? never saw the daily version of that paper back then.)

The '66 TV show was my introduction to the very concept of "costumed crimefighters". At first, I couldn't figure it out. Then I just took it for granted.  Oddly enough, we got our first color TV set on Valentine's Day, 1966.  So about the first 6 weeks of BATMAN, I saw in B&W.  Considering I was hooked on LOST IN SPACE (from week 6-- I missed the first 5-- which I later learned was a 5-part story!!) for the next year-and-a-half it annoyed me no end that the first half of BATMAN was on at the same time as the first half of LIS.  This means, for a year-and-a-half, I kept alternating between missing HALF of one show or the other.  To this day, I can still remember which stories I came in on the middle of.  If they'd put BATMAN on Thursdays and Fridays, there wouldn't have been a problem!

I've read Julie Schwartz, who'd worked to streamline the comics again, was horrified when he saw what the TV show was planning.  The story I heard goes like this... William Best-- an former actor (see THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD-- he's the one who put the electric blanket on top of that block of ice!!) switched over to production, and worked his way up to become Head Of Production for 20th Century Fox TV.  So this was the guy in charge of such shows as VOYAGE, LIS, etc.  He was friends with Hugh Hefner, and was at the Playboy Mansion the night they ran the 2 1940's BATMAN serials, apparently laughing his ass off all the way thru them.  HE got the idea to do a BATMAN tv show.  And then-- just like Roy Thomas when he was Editor at Marvel in the early 70's-- he DUMPED it in someone else's lap.  That someone was William Dozier.  HERE was the problem.  Dozier hated comics, held them in contempt (a lot of people in Hollywood did-- they were, after all, "competition"!!!!!). He felt the "only way" the show could work was for it to be done "as stupid as possible".  (Maybe he really believed that, or maybe he resented having the job thrown on him and hoped it would fail?)

The "problem" is, he hired so much GREAT talent-- writers, designers, actors, and music (Nelson Riddle!!), the show turned out FANTASTIC, in spite of itself! It quickly shot to #1 in the ratings (a feat repeated in 1983 with another brain-dead adventure show-- THE A-TEAM).

Between some good writing and some great acting, the show was better than it deserved to be, given the attitude of the man in charge. To me, it made stars of Adam West, Frank Gorshin & Julie Newmar, and thrust many older "character actors" in my face for the first time (Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero, George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Jack Kruschen, David Wayne, etc. etc. etc.).

After the first 18 week season, story editor Lorenzo Semple Jr. departed, and Dozier, perhaps frustrated that the show had been "too good", PROMOTED his WORST writer to the post-- Charles Hoffman.  Semple's scripts were funny.  Hoffman's weren't.  They were just STUPID. And I suspect that's EXACTLY what Dozier really wanted!

It's almost impossible to do a good job when the people in charge are DETERMINED not to let it happen.

And yeah-- I DO love the show... DESPITE itself.  There are just too many moments when I can see, all too clearly, that with just a LITTLE bit more effort, with things being done just a LITTLE differently, it could have been SO MUCH better!



By the way... it just now occured to me... it's possible THE GREEN HORNET --also done by Dozier-- was treated so much better that BATMAN, because THE GREEN HORNET was not based on a comic-book-- it was based on a RADIO SHOW.  Which was more "respectable". (Even if by 1966, it was considered a "dead" medium in America.

[narfstar]

Interesting perspective on why GH was not done like Batman. I enjoyed GH much more than Batman after season one. I was really dissapointed that GH suffered the backlash when people felt foolish for having liked Batman. Then they did the opposite and made the horrible GH movie that tried to be funny but was not. It failed as a comedy or as an action flick.

[jimmm kelly]

One hears a lot about how Batfans regarded the camp craze in '66, but not so much about how longtime Batfans reacted to the "New Look" in '64. The first issue of Biljo White's BATMANIA (over in the fanzine section on this site) does give a small window on the reaction from old time fans, but not a lot.

I suspect the reaction in BATMANIA is just the tip of an unexplored iceberg. In 1964, disaffected readers would have had few outlets for their anger.

Outside of White and his supporters, most of fandom didn't care about Jack Schiff's Batman (going by how little attention it got in fanzines like ALTER EGO). They cared about Julie Schwartz, Carmine Infantino, and Gardner Fox. If those fans were unhappy about these guys taking over DETECTIVE COMICS, it was only because that took them off MYSTERY IN SPACE (and Adam Strange).

So it's hard to get the other perspective. I'd be interested to know how the loyal readership felt about it, as it must have been an unsettling experience--to see their beloved Batman completely revamped.

[profh0011]

Thanks to Bill Schelly's reprints, I got to be a fan of Biljo White's art some years ago.  Sadly, he passed away before I could tell him so!  But I did quite a few "restorations" of scans of his various fanzines to post at the GCD.

It's funny that what I said about THE GREEN HORNET never occured to me until this morning.  I've read such polarized comments about the show.  One review in the 80's said it was the "most authentic" translation from one media to another (radio to TV) ever done!  Years later, I found Larry Ivie's criticism of it, where he complained that they "left out every single aspect of the radio show that made it special".  Like-- WHA'  I watched the TV show when it was first run, and in the 70's heard several of the radio shows.  It didn't seem that big a change to me.  I also recall the fun I had one weekend when I went over to Philly (in the late 70's) to see a triple-bill of "chop socky flicks" at a mostly-"black" theatre.  The main feature that day was KATO'S REVENGE-- 3 (or 4) episodes of the GH spliced back-to-back.  Imagine getting to see that on a big screen!

In the few scenes he'd get per episode, Bruce Lee always stole the show.  Van Williams was cool, his Britt Reed was "all business".  But Kato-- that guy had an "attitude"!!! In a fight, The hornet would clobber and move on.  Kato would beat the crap out of someone, then SWAGGER, projecting an unspoken "Kicked YOUR ass, didn't I?"  What fun.

What a shame Lee never turned up as a guest-star on STAR TREK...

[SuperScrounge]

Comic Book Legends Revealed has dealt with the Batman TV show from time to time.

Here's a link to an all Batman TV installment.
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/02/01/comic-book-legends-revealed-404/

[paw broon]

I've stayed out of this too long.  I never liked the TV show - apart from the Green Hornet episodes and I only saw those in the late '80's.  Despite distribution of American comics only starting here in '59/'60. some always showed up, having been sent from relations in N. America.  And as a change from our usual diet of British and Aus. comics I was able to read those wonderful Worlds Finest, Bats and detective comics.  I have always been a huge fan of those "silly" s.f. stories and the art in W.F., even though I hadn't a clue about who was drawing it, just got me.  When DC changed the format, adding the spotlight to the Bat symbol, I just didn't like it much, in fact I didn't like the look of the checkered tops at all.  I gave up on Batman till the darker stories arrived.
The t.v. show was just too corny, especially as we had The Avengers (which slowly became more and more surreal and imaginative) and Doctor Who.
So, I don't fancy a comic which goes back to those unimaginative, ugly times - and many Batman/ Detective DC covers were ugly then, imo.  In fact, the interior art was a bit of a turn off at times.
In for a penny, in for a pound.  Please feel free to have a go. 

[narfstar]

At 9/10 years old it was not the silliness I objected to so much as the repeatativness. Every episode ending trapped then escaping at the start of the next. I did not like the comics signed by Bob Kane (who was not actually drawing them.) That blocky style Batman did not appeal to me. I was not really reading much of the Batman comics at the time.

[jimmm kelly]

I've stayed out of this too long.  I never liked the TV show - apart from the Green Hornet episodes and I only saw those in the late '80's.  Despite distribution of American comics only starting here in '59/'60. some always showed up, having been sent from relations in N. America.  And as a change from our usual diet of British and Aus. comics I was able to read those wonderful Worlds Finest, Bats and detective comics.  I have always been a huge fan of those "silly" s.f. stories and the art in W.F., even though I hadn't a clue about who was drawing it, just got me.  When DC changed the format, adding the spotlight to the Bat symbol, I just didn't like it much, in fact I didn't like the look of the checkered tops at all.  I gave up on Batman till the darker stories arrived.
The t.v. show was just too corny, especially as we had The Avengers (which slowly became more and more surreal and imaginative) and Doctor Who.
So, I don't fancy a comic which goes back to those unimaginative, ugly times - and many Batman/ Detective DC covers were ugly then, imo.  In fact, the interior art was a bit of a turn off at times.
In for a penny, in for a pound.  Please feel free to have a go. 

I'm always interested in seeing both sides of a question. Sure, I have my own perspective, but that's old hat. For me, it's more challenging to think and write about the other guy's p.o.v. It's always instructive to see the world in another way.

Of course, I can't help but confess I was a total Batmaniac at seven or eight years of age. It was an all-consuming passion. I had the T-shirt (two--the first one got too small and I was shocked one day coming home to see my mother using it as a cleaning rag), the mask, the belt. I used my sister's old blue skirt as a cape. I geared up before each episode. I planned to grow up to be a crimefighter, never get married but somehow have a kid partner who would do everything I told him to do--and I planned to be a millionaire without every having to work at a paying job.

I had the bubble gum cards, the board games, the plush Batman doll, the model kit Batmobile, the toys, the coloring book. I'm not sure if people understand what a big deal Batman was back in 1966-67. It was the next biggest thing in my life after the Beatles.

As far as "Bob Kane" art goes. I've changed my mind about that a few times over the years. But I trust the little boy that I was. He had good instincts about art and stories. He saw things that an older person overlooks or dismisses. As Sheldon Moldoff was the usual Bob Kane ghost and we know that Moldoff was a skilled artist--I look at his ghost work as an amazing peformance. He had to master a certain style of art where he was both visible and invisible at the same time.

The most important thing is that it got the job done. The artist never lost sight of his main goal, which was to tell a story as simply and clearly as the work demanded. Teenagers might want their comics to be gallery pieces, but little kids need art they can understand.

[misappear]

To address the specific on Batmania regarding the comics, I find the span in Detective from 327--347 and in Batman from 164 to 191 the character defining issues.  As much as the TV show irritated me, these comics presented the character well. (imo).  As I said previously, the checks marked my stopping point.  The artwork provided by Moldoff and Infantino was a welcome relief from the Sprangish-type cartoony styles. Just look at the cover of Detective 326.  Batman and Robin in some cage surrounded by aliens.  No thanks. Just a non-powered, cartoony Superman.

With the new look, The writing was by some of the best.  Gardner Fox, John Broome, and Robert Kanigher.  Herron provided a great many solid stories in Batman, and Bill Finger (not my favorite) did a few issues.  All in all, solid '60's material. Probably by company directive, the go go check era tried to be hip and looked unbelievably foolish doing so.  I don't know if the Batusi was on the TV show or in the movie, but that was like the comic industry shouting out loud, "Don't ever take us seriously!"  And no one did for years

I realize, as stated in posts here, that the TV show was a starting point for a lot of young fans.  That's a good thing.  But I still can't help believing that the comics medium would have matured sooner and better had that show not existed. 

Zap Pow Bam to ya

[jimmm kelly]

The comics were better than the TV show. Once I got into them, I preferred them over the TV show. Also the bubblegum cards, with their Bob Powell/Norman Saunders painted art, told a continuing story on the back that had a cool pulp novel vibe.

Schwartz never really gave into the whole camp craze, except for a few issues (only one of which was really awful). He continued on the same track he had started with the "New Look"--other than that he was compelled to bring back Alfred and introduce Batgirl (neither of which were bad moves, from my perspective).

Julie held out on using any of the TV villains--the Riddler and Penguin had already been brought back before the TV show and Eivol Ekdal had appeared in the comics first. Mr. Freeze (aka Mr. Zero) only returned late in the game. But I do think Schwartz was wrong to delay so much in bringing back Catwoman (it seems like there were issues related to the Comics Code that kept her out of the comics for so long).

Gardner Fox and Bob Kanigher were my two favourite "New Look" writers. Fox's Batman was intellligent and fatherly. And Gardner wrote plots that had the precision of Swiss clockwork. Kanigher's Bruce Wayne was a playboy, who coached his ward on how to get dates. If Schwartz had wanted to stick closer to the TV script, then Kanigher would have been his man, since Bob tended to give his stories a hipper, swinging slant, with weird villains.

I'm pretty sure the Batusi was on the TV show. While I appreciate some of the hip humour in the show (especially in the earlier episodes), I feel that "camp" is a low form of comedy. There was already lots of comedy in super-hero comics--but their comedy was more sophisticated. More New York than Hollywood humour. To write the kind of "camp" humour that was in fashion--many writers had to dumb down their scripts.

For instance, a Jimmy Olsen story is funny because Otto Binder understood character and irony and a lot of the comedy comes from Olsen's personality. Herbie, the Fat Fury, was funny because Ogden Whitney had a wicked sense of black comedy. But the 60s revival of Plastic Man is just dumb and trying too hard to be with it and cool. And there's nothing funny about the Blackhawks as Junk-Heap Heroes.

[profh0011]

When did Catwoman return to the comic-books? She was the first villain in the newspaper strip-- May 1966!

[jimmm kelly]

Catwoman's first new appearance was in SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE 70, on sale September 22, 1966, in a modified version of her classic costume (wearing leggings instead of a skirt). However, around the same time she appeared in a Batman Pop-Tarts giveaway, wearing the same outfit.

After that, in DETECTIVE 364, on sale April 27, 1967, there was a Catwoman statue on a float, wearing a version of the costume from the comic strip. And she sort of appeared in WORLD'S FINEST 169--but not really (it's a spoiler for the story so I won't reveal it here)--on sale July 25, 1967.

Catwoman then appeared in three teaser panels at the end of the Batman story in DETECTIVE 369, on sale September 28, 1967--never seen completely, but wearing an intriguing black outfit. That story set up her full-blown return in BATMAN 197, on sale October 19, 1967--there wearing a green costume similar to the comic strip costume (made her look like a fish). This story had a "Bob Kane" credit box, but the GCD credits it to Frank Springer, with Sid Greene doing inks--however it shoud really be credited to someone's swipe file, since the story is littered with swipes from stories by all kinds of different artists.

The appearance in BATMAN 197 is really her first active appearance in a Batman story edited by Julius Schwartz. It seems strange that she was popping up in teaser stories for all that time, before Schwartz decided to use her as a villain in a Batman comic.

Before that, Catwoman also appeared in reprints: I think her first comic book appearance since 1954 was in 80 PAGE GIANT No. 5, on sale October 29, 1964--that reprinted a story from 1954 and in the letter column for that issue Jack Schiff explained who she was. The 80 Page Giant BATMAN 176, on sale October 7, 1965, reprinted the 1946 Sunday newspaper story (this Giant was unusually credited to editor Schwartz--not Schiff or Bridwell--and it has a line-up of stories that might've been a promo for the Batman TV show).

[profh0011]

I checked my scans.  Oh my goodness... I scanned in the Catwoman story back in 2004.  That's 9 YEARS ago!  9 years the thing has been tying up space on my hard drive.  Absurd.

Well, I've started cleaning it up now.  Unlike when I do normal interior page clean-ups, these are SO dark, the cheap newspaper printing is so dodgy, that for the sake of generating really SHARP images, EACH individual dailky strip is so far taking me about the time of a "quickie" COVER clean-up.  I figure, if I do one a day, I oughta get the story cleaned up by the end of a month.


I checked Wikipedia, and was surprised to see they credit Shelly Moldoff as illustrating the first 2 stories.  I say surprised because, about 9 years ago, I read that interview with Joe Giella in ALTER EGO, which said that HE was the first artist on the revived BATMAN strip.  It also mentioned he drew the first few stories in a different style to the later ones, going more for "Bob Kane" at first, afterwards doing his own natural style.

I've seen so much misinformation posted at Wikipedia, I hate to take what they say without questioning it.  Can anyone deny or confirm?

[jimmm kelly]

Joe Giella was in error. Sheldon Moldoff did the first strips--Sundays and dailies. Then I think Carmine Infantino did the Sundays with Giella inking--but that was a very short bout for Carmine who long wanted to have a newspaper strip (the sign that a comic artist had made it), but had to give it up because he was overloaded with Batman promotional work. So Giella took over the Sundays. On the dailies, I'm pretty sure that Joe took over directly from Shelly. Although, as Giella says, the first couple of continuities were more like what Moldoff had established, and after that Joe's work became more typical of his own style (with a certain Infantino touch). While Giella's initial work is Moldoff-ish, it's still distinct enough that you can tell it's Giella.

The wonderful thing about the Moldoff work is that he must've inked his own stuff. You got a chance to see his work done in his own way, unaffected by another inker. And I really liked that Catwoman story. I love the bits where she's in jail wearing prison stripes but in stiletto heels. Makes me think of that Gwen Stefani video.

I haven't bothered to go through my papers (and the old 3.5 discs I have, where I might have written some of the details, don't work on any functioning computer I have), so I'm giving you this off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure it's right. And the BATMAN SUNDAYS book has an article on this strip in the back of the book and it will back me up on some of what I say.

Many years ago--in another lifetime, when the DC Message Boards were a happening place--I researched all this. And I photocopied some of those strips. However, to do so I had to photocopy the microfilm at UBC library, that had the VANCOUVER SUN, and when you did that the microfilm reader had striations on the glass, so you couldn't photocopy anything without getting all those streaks on the copy. I tried to clean it up on my old computer, using MS paint, but it was a long process to try and pick out all the lines and I never could get a very good copy.