[profh0011]

And now, something I've been wanting to do for years...  the 1966 BATMAN newspaper strip!

Weeks 1-2
http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/06/batman-1966.html

[jimmm kelly]

I can't stress enough how happy it makes me to see these!

[profh0011]

Thanks.

If they'd have bothered to reprint them when they did the stuff from the 40's, I wouldn't be "having" to do this!   

[profh0011]

Just posted at CAPTAIN COMICS...

"...Did the strip launch on a Tuesday "

I wondered about the date.  I read the strip started on May 30, but the 5th strip I had was clearly from Saturday.

Here's the thing... Monday May 30 would have been Memorial Day.  I'm not sure if THE COURIER POST published a paper that day!  Keep in mind, back then, they only published 6 days a week.  No Sunday papers!  And while we did buy both THE PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN and THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER-- only on Sundays-- and mostly to get the color comics-- neither of them ran BATMAN, either.

I mention that because THE COURIER POST ran THE PHANTOM... and so did THE BULLETIN.  So I did get to read THE PHANTOM 7 days a week-- which was 2 completely separate storylines at any given time.  As was, I've found out, BATMAN.  Except to this day, I've never read any of the Sunday stories from that run.

I also wondered if there might have been a "teaser" strip for May 30, just to promote the new strip, without any actual story.

As far as I know, I managed to get EVERY one of the strips in the 1st story.

I also collected the 2nd & 3rd stories, but never got around to putting them in scrapbooks.  Also, I recall MISSING several episodes in the middle of the 3rd one-- possibly because we took a (rare) trip for us away from home for a few days.  I also have a strong feeling I never read the end of the 3rd story, either...  THE COURIER-POST long had a had habit of dropping adventure strips, and ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, in the middle of a story.  The feature editor was clearly an (FILL IN THE BLANK).

I don't remember ever seeing a SUPERMAN strip in our area... though I do (vaguely) remember THE WORLD'S GREATEST SUPER-HEROES strip... was that the name?  Late 80's or so?  Was never thrilled with the art (George Tuska?) or writing on that one.

I've been reading some blog articles by other fans, and it seems the 60's BATMAN strip got dropped by a LOT of paper before too long.  This may explain the repeated changes in artists.  If they were getting paid based on how many papers the strip appeared in, each drop in circulation might have been followed by a lower-paying artist taking it over.

[profh0011]

Well, whatta ya know?  Thanks to Steve Thompson ("Booksteve"), I found out the '66 BATMAN strip DID start on 5-30-66 after all-- and, he sent me a scan of the FIRST strip, which I have never laid eyes on until today!!!

Weeks 1-2
http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/06/batman-1966.html

[profh0011]

The latest illo.  No nudity this time!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j2C6S0pAa1Q/UePl7aw_ASI/AAAAAAAAM_o/lKF7yl243d8/s1600/W279__07+04++C700.jpg

[profh0011]

TIM HOLT #14  /  February 1950

Now this was a real SONOFABITCH to clean up!!!  I started (3 years ago) with a scan from the GCD, which I cleaned up quite a bit.  But as with everything at that site, it was too small (400 pixels wide).

The biggest image I could find (for now) was at the Comic Book Plus site, clocking in at 968 pixels. Still smaller than I'd like, but a big improvement-- if only, size-wise.  Unfortunately, it was a HORRIFIC mess. And fuzzy. So even when I finished (and it took QUITE A FEW HOURS to fix), I'm still left with one where the sharpness and color isn't as good as the smaller one.  Oh well.

Anyway, here's the steps...

GCD after clean-up
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hKtMfq3G6zI/Ud4euCCFV_I/AAAAAAAAM14/Mg6lZSRMTvo/s1600/TH+14_cb_GCD_HK++C.jpg

CBP before clean-up
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WkKJcvukU5U/UeVgA6HkaAI/AAAAAAAANAI/zm1xyWGcPU8/s1600/TH+14_cc_CBP_HK++A4.jpg

clean-up in progress
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PFdmMsXWEA4/UeVgA9f_UxI/AAAAAAAANAY/lGwVBrkFZng/s1600/TH+14_cc_CBP_HK++B4.jpg

FINISH
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UvHWdoxRLeA/UeVgBFlYyoI/AAAAAAAANAc/0yzQ2pzCPWA/s1600/TH+14_cc_CBP_HK.jpg

Look now, because eventually, I'll be taking down the "in progress" versions.

If anyone can supply me with a MUCH-bigger and MUCH-better scan, I'd appreciate it!

[profh0011]

TIM HOLT, Part 2
http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/06/tim-holt-part-2.html

Issues #11-19 plus GHOST RIDER #1-2, all stunningly restored!!!

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The BIBLE blog...  all 10 versions of the story of "Joseph", from BOYS' LIFE magazine, back-to-back!
http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/07/joseph.html

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The Bible blog...  all 10 versions of the story of "MOSES", from BOYS' LIFE magazine, back-to-back!  This took up so much space, it required 11 whole blog pages to do it!!
http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/07/moses.html

As "M" once said... "This is the BIG one, 007!"

[profh0011]

This is no doubt jumping the gun, but I figured I'd send this around anyway.  I just started a new blog page, which so far consists of ONE western cover, stunningly restored, and ONE Bob Powell cover, "in progress"

For the "in progress" cover, there were 2 TERRIBLE versions online (one at the GCD, another at Comic Book Plus).  Fortunately, Heritage Auction had 2 whopping big images... but BOTH were terribly off-rotation!!  I picked the best one, corrected the rotation (on both of them), then copied the "M.E." logo from the 2nd image and pasted it down on the 1st, getting the size just right before cutting out the parts I didn't need.

This should give you an idea of how I do cropping.  I wanted to make sure I had enough space for the ENTIRE "M.E." logo, and not lose any detail down the right side.  But I also cropped a lot of excess sky off the upper-right, and the entire bottom edge was cropped drastically, because there just wasn't anything down there except a mangled edge that otherwise would have needed cleaning up.  And as you can see, I have a lot to do as it is!

That helicopter is something else!  Man, Bob Powell was TERRIFIC back then.

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-1.html

[narfstar]

The cover pops but I would rather have the mangled corner than the cropped corner

[profh0011]

It's often a choice between cropping and losing art detail, or "filling in" missing art so as not to lose anything important.

In this case, the only stuff I cropped was the upper part of the right edge, and the entire bottom edge.  IN both cases, there was NO detail to lose.  But you can see where I added a LOT on the lower right, the top, and especially, down the entire left side (mostly just so I'd have the "ME" log INTACT-- and I had to grab the left edge of that from a separate image, for reference, then "fix" it all with airbrush & copy-and-paste).

Now, isn't THIS better?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S9dzR7_oBU4/Ue1Dwaw-JVI/AAAAAAAANlA/7CB7lsHxLj0/s1600/A-1+130_cc_HA_HK.jpg

[profh0011]

Just for you guys...  BATMAN 1966, week 3!

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/07/batman-1966-pt2.html


Halfway thru this project.

[jimmm kelly]

Thanks, as always, for putting these up. I don't recall having read that week's sequence in our local paper. I suspect that our paper skipped it so they could catch up with the series. If you read the continuity, there's not a lot that happens to advance the plot--so I wonder if that week was written deliberately as something that could be left out for those papers coming in late.

There's so much that's tongue-in-cheek in this strip. All in good fun.

[profh0011]

My favorite bit...

"How d'ya like the luxurious hideout we fixed up fer ya, Cat Woman?"
"It's crummy.  yawn..."

I'm reminded of a bit from ROCKY & BULLWINKLE...


"I's a BAD girl, I is!!"

[profh0011]

While upgrading the formatting on my various blog pages, I discovered I'd somehow MISSED the 1957 version of "The Creation" (art by Irv Novick).  FIXED now!

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/03/tales-from-bible-1957.html

[profh0011]

Another "naughty" pic from my FORBIDDEN ZONE blog.  Be warned!  Contains nudidity!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TG8Qyk9WnlM/Ufcf7boB5BI/AAAAAAAANtY/zl2lGZTI2fM/s1600/W279__08+04++C700.jpg

[profh0011]

I must be the only guy I know who likes to go back and make changes to previously-posted blog pages.  While going back over this series, I finally found the exact point where the text began to be reused.  It was the February 1986 episode, which reused text from the December 1975 episode.  This actually makes me wonder, if this might have been the point where writer Al Stenzel was replaced?  I know he passed away in 1979, but it's possible he retired from the strip a few years earlier.  A new writer might have felt more comfortable reusing his own text.

It might also "explain" the inconsistencies that cropped up in the story of "Joseph", when, abruptly, instead of his brother selling him to Ishmaelites, it says some Midianites sold him to the Ishmaelites while they were arguing about what to do. And then, it says the Midianites sold him to the guy in Egypt.  They couldn't have sold him TWICE! Like, wasn't the writer paying attention to his own work?  This mistake went out twice, but was finally corrected the 3rd time that version of the text was used.

It's fun noticing things like this...

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The Bible blog...  one of the more obscure stories, "DEBORAH", which only appeared twice in BOYS' LIFE, in May 1960, and then not again until December 2006.  That's a gap of 46-1/2 years!!!

http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/08/deborah.html

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The Bible blog...  the slightly-less-obscure story of "GIDEON".

This one has been done 4 times, with art by Irv Novick, Curt Swan, Anthony Castrillo, and Tim Salamunic.

http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/08/gideon.html

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The Bible blog... the story of "SAMSON".

This one has been done 6 times, with art by Creig Flessel, Irv Novick, ??, Anthony Castrillo (twice!), and Tim Salamunic.

http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/08/samson.html

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The Bible blog... the story of "DAVID".

http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/08/david.html

This one has been done 8 times, with art by Creig Flessel (twice!), Irv Novick, ??, Frank Bolle (twice!), and Anthony Castrillo (also twice!).

I wish I could figure out who did the art for the 1970 version.  Earlier episodes look like Curt Swan, but by this point, I don't see his style anymore.  There are so many artists with similar styles, at times it's amazing anyone can recognize some of them.

[narfstar]

I am that way with most artists. How can people identify them

[profh0011]

Just added to my Professor H Revisits The Bible blog... the story of "SOLOMON".

http://professorhrevisitsthebible.blogspot.com/2013/08/solomon.html

This one was done 6 times, with art by Creig Flessel, Irv Novick, Curt Swan (??), Frank Bolle (twice!), and Anthony Castrillo (very briefly).