Comic Book Plus Forum
About The Comic Books We Have => Wanted Comics => Topic started by: BobS on December 02, 2006, 04:19:45 AM
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At least a couple issues of Target Comics have a Bob Wood Target and the Targeteers story that looks almost more like early Batman than early Batman.
Was Bob Wood a Bob Kane ghost artist too?
Otherwise Target Comics used to seem to me to be pretty mediocre. I'd really like scans of those issues with
Batmanesque Target and the Targeteers tho.
Bob
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I second the motion!
The stories I've read from GoldenYears and Pure Excitement were great!
-Yoc
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Bob Wood drew in the same style as Bob Kane. Bob Wood moved over to Lev Gleason where he drew Silver Street and then became co-editor with Charlie Biro on Daredevil, Boy and Crime Does Not Pay.
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Giving the Wood work on Target a cursory look, I do see some of the similarities to the early Bob Kane Batman (at least in the secondary characters). But since this Wood art is circa 1941, it resembles Kane Batman circa 1939--whereas, thanks to George Roussos and Jerry Robinson, the Batman art in 1941 was going through a metamorphosis.
Also, it would be more correct to say that in 1939 Kane was trying to draw Batman in the style of other artists--since Kane's own style was better suited to cartoon characters as in his "Ginger Snap" or "Rusty and his Pals." Bob was told by his editor--Vin Sullivan--that the action-adventure character Superman was doing quite well, so Kane laboured to produce something that looked like that and the result was the awkwardly drawn Batman which cobbled together swipes from other artists like Alex Raymond. There's also evidence that Sheldon Moldoff helped Kane out on some of those early stories.
Kane, with the assistance of inkers like Robinson and Roussos, eventually developed a style of Batman art that he could pull off more comfortably. Although it always seems to me that Bob Kane was really straining with Batman and it would have been a lot easier for him if he could just do the full-blown cartoon art that was in his comfort zone. Which is no doubt why he was so willing to let other artists ghost the Batman work for him.
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Kane was smart enough to see Batman as a cash cow. He was willing to let someone else do the work as long as he got the credit and the cash.