posted February 15, 2003 12:14 PM               

The psychopath stuff came in with Denny O'neil, who in his infinite wisdom, fired the current writers and artists, injecting his own new blood (In all fairness, sales were down, and I believe he was trying to do what Schwartz did.)

The funny thing is, Dark Knight aside, Batman since 1985 isn't really that different from those Infantino tales. There is alot more emphasis on fighting and violence, but the character is essentially the same. Doug Moench's late 90s run was excellent. Even the current hyped title is okay (Interesting if nothing else, to see a 90s style Marvel artist interpret Batman.

I don't know what was wrong with DC in the 70s. Most of their stuff was well-done, but Batman was very lackluster.

For example, last night i read three circa 1976 stories.

One story featured Triplets dressed as Batman. Then the Flash pretending to be Batman. The point of the story? I don't know, something about Captain Stingaree stealing secrets from Captain Cold.

Another story was a murder mystery in which the killer was a bald man, so naturally everyone assumed Alfred did it. Of course the real murderer wore a toupee. How did Batman figure it out? He could smell the adhesive that kept the toupee on in the crime scene. Right.

The last one I read was a Detective Giant from the 70s. These too are strange, because the Batman stories are usually good, but the Backups are atrocious. The Batgirl, Robin, and Manbat stories aren't worth mentioning. The Superman Family Giants are much more enjoyable.

Is it me, or does Kurt Schaffenberger's style not fit with Batman.

Sorry to get off-topic, but after reading 70s Batman, I can't wait to read the new-look stuff.

posted February 15, 2003 05:34 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Osgood Peabody:
Well - I'm sure India Ink will step up to the plate here at some point

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For reasons stated in another post, I do wish the Dynamic Duo archive was never published (in its present unfortunate form), but that has nothing to do with the actual stories or actual artwork contained in this volume.

Somewhere in my clutter of junk I have a fax page of a Sam Kieth thumbnail cover sketch for an issue of Batman. This was sent to me in the early eighties by a good assistant editor (I wish I could remember his name now--no doubt he's gone on to do great things), sent as a thank you for letters I had written. Back in the day, Julie Schwartz sent out original pages to his LoCers, but I got a fax page. Well good enough--it's the thought that counts.

Now this Sam Kieth thumbnail sketch is very crude (nothing like the intricate Neal Adams thumbnails you see reprinted in Comic Book Artist)--it just gets at the basic idea--faxed to the DC offices for approval, before Kieth works up the idea into his high style cover work.

For those dissatisied with the early "new look" I tell you it's a thumbnail sketch. It's trying out the ideas that will later be worked up into better forms (or at least different forms of the same idea). It's not just a thumbnail sketch for the works of Fox/Infantino/Greene (my all time favourite) or Fox/Stone/Giella, a few years down the road. It's really a thumbnail sketch for anything that happened thereafter right through the seventies and into the mid-eighties.

A few examples: Playing with the Batman costume (later done by Neal Adams, Marshal Rogers, Frank Robbins, Don Newton, Norm Breyfogle, et al). Playing with the cast and the look of the cast (adding Aunt Harriet, maturing Dick Grayson and changing his hair, killing off Alfred (he came back but other supporting characters have been killed off over the years), playing with the look and feel of Commissioner Gordon (in another three years he gets the shaggy white moustache instead of the Clark Gable one). Modernizing and jazzing up the Batcave and equipment (new Batmobile, hotline--later, in the seventies, Bruce changes to new digs, trys out more Batmobiles, new methods of detection). Taking stories in more serious directions (in retrospect we might not realize the degrees of difference between stories, but the stories in the DD archive do get more serious than what preceded them). Developing Gotham City as a character in the stories (most obvious instance being Gotham Village, but there's lots of others)--in the early Batman stories (30s/early forties), we did see some character in Gotham City, but by the fifties Gotham is a kind of generic comic book city.

In this first volume, it's still daylight a lot of the time. But by the second volume, we should see a darkening. Most of the "new look" stories had a split between Batman patrolling at night, and Bruce Wayne socializing during the day. Contrary to what some believe, Neal Adams did not discover that Batman was a creature of the night--he already was.

If for no other reason, we need the Dynamic Duo to set the record straight. If an archive line began with the O'Neil/Adams stories then it would solidify this misapprehension that they were the guys who changed Batman from the old Finger/Moldoff/Paris version into the new version. A DD line (should it continue) would establish how we got from Finger to O'Neil, and all the stops along the way.

You could lay these comics book pages end to end--Finger/Moldoff/Paris; Herron/Moldoff/Giella; Broome/Infantino/Giella; Fox/Infantino/Greene; Robbins/Novick/Giella; Robbins/Brown/Giordano; O'Neil/Adams/Giordano--and you would see the gradual shifts and changes as the thumbnail sketch becomes a developed work of art.

posted February 17, 2003 12:14 AM            

Ironically, Infantino was pulled off Adam Strange to do Batman in the first place, which made just as little sense to me.

posted February 17, 2003 03:08 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gmp:
No offense meant to the fans of this archive, but I couldn't help but wonder what the logic was in releasing Infantino's Batman, and not his Adam Strange, which fans have been clamoring for.

Ironically, Infantino was pulled off Adam Strange to do Batman in the first place, which made just as little sense to me.

Glenn

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posted February 17, 2003 08:36 AM               

I've a damn near complete Batman/Detective run from the mid 60s, so I've "seen" it all, so to speak, yet...

this Infantino/Giella (and for me a lesser extent, Sid Greene) incarnation is my favorite - granted, I was only 10 or so at this time, but the -for lack of a better word "nobility" their visuals brought to the character "defined" him for me. Certainly, Novick, Adams, Chua/Chan, Newton, etc brought different "gifts" to the table, but the dynamism of that style v the static work of Kane and the "ghost" crew was, hell, indeed a New Look!
Oddly, though, I don't know if I'd buy a volume 2 - I may have those original issues.

posted February 17, 2003 01:50 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by REKLEN:
Well, Detective had that great Englhart/Rogers run around 1978, and then from 1980-1985, Batman was again a well-done consistant feature (I mean Newton and Colan, every month, the feature hadn't looked that good since Infantino, and hasn't since.)

The psychopath stuff came in with Denny O'neil, who in his infinite wisdom, fired the current writers and artists, injecting his own new blood (In all fairness, sales were down, and I believe he was trying to do what Schwartz did.)

Reklen

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I just re-read the Englehart/Rogers stuff not to long ago and was disappointed. I liked it the first time around, but I was not overly impressed with it 20 plus years later. I can’t put my finger on why it doesn’t stand up for me. The art was wonderful, but the stories were not all that extraordinary. Your mileage may differ.

A kinder, friendlier Batman seems to have emerged after the “Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive” arc. He was on the verge of becoming unlikable. The new stuff that’s appearing in Batman and Detective is pretty good. There’s less emphasis on the psycho aspects of the character.

I have no problem with the theory behind the Dynamic Duo volume. I do think that someday the archive program will come to an end and DC should get as many different facets of its publishing history out there as possible. As long as we get a run of stories in chronological order, I don’t care what era they come from. If this book is successful it would be nice to finally see a silver age Superman volume and maybe a volume of the “new look” Superman stuff form the early ‘70s by O’Neil, Swan and Anderson.

posted February 17, 2003 04:05 PM            

These archives are still printed to make a profit. I'd like to think an Adam Strange archive could make some money, but I doubt it would be one of the really big sellers.

Of course I can't figure out the economics of comic books at all. I mean, three decades ago comics were selling in huge numbers--at its height BATMAN had a print-run of a million copies--yet writers, artists, and editors were underpaid and overworked.

By the second half of the seventies comic book companies didn't have enough money to pay the great artists like Adams or Wrightson. And these guys were bad at meeting deadlines. Comics had to be pumped out on schedule, and with decreasing profits DC was employing artists who would meet the deadlines and work for the minimum. That's why you see such a dog's breakfast of artists in the later seventies. It's just dumb luck that an up and coming artist like Marshall Rogers was actually halfway talented, but look how fast he moved on to better paying projects.

And now comics make even less profit, have smaller print runs, but the artists and writers are paid relatively high salaries and given relaxed deadlines. Go figure.

posted February 17, 2003 11:51 PM            

I wished at the time it had been Joe Kuebert

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Brilliant idea James. I can just imagine how incredible it would have been.
It's hard to believe it never occured to anyone at DC, as it seems like the perfect matchup, but until you brought it up, I never thought of it either.

Your points about Infantino's career were also well taken, and opened up my thinking beyond my self-centered fan perspetive.

Concerning another point made in this thread about Adam Strange probably not selling as well as Batman, I may be wrong, but I disagree. When and if an Adam Strange archive is released, I think it will sell just as well as Batman. Archive sales seem to be driven by hard core fans, and among that group, Adam Strange is a favorite. Of course, none of this is meant to denegrate the fans of Batman, but rather to voice the frustration of the fans of Adam Strange.

Glenn

posted February 18, 2003 08:01 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gmp:

...Concerning another point made in this thread about Adam Strange probably not selling as well as Batman, I may be wrong, but I disagree. When and if an Adam Strange archive is released, I think it will sell just as well as Batman. Archive sales seem to be driven by hard core fans, and among that group, Adam Strange is a favorite....

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posted February 18, 2003 08:29 PM            

It's safe to say that there are many more Batman fans than there are Adam Strange fans. However, these Batman fans have about a billion products to choose from. Adam Strange fans really only have one: the TPB of the Bruning/Kuberts mini-series.

posted February 18, 2003 11:21 PM            

it's my opinion that creators count a lot more in these kinds of sales than DC seems to believe.
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I completely agree, and I think the sales figures of the Archives points to the same conclusion. The question remains though, when is DC going to wake up to the fact that the fans who buy the Archives are more motivated by the name of the creators, than they are by the name of the character?

posted February 19, 2003 11:00 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by NecessaryImpurity:
Not everyone IS motivated by who the creator is. Some people ARE more interested in the character than the artist. I'll wager the majority of Archive buyers is more interested in character than artist, although you will be able to get quite a few people to buy a character they normally aren't interested in if there is an artist of note involved.

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I'm one. Sure, I love all these GA and SA artists, but I would never, ever buy an archive of a character I didn't like, or even wasn't familiar with, just for the art. For me, it's character first, followed by writing quality, with art quality a coming in at a distant third.

posted February 19, 2003 02:32 PM            

Batman is stretched thin and most of the Batfans seem to be interested in new product. Every time I drift over to the Batman boards and try to get a discussion going on anything pre 1985, there's a flood of disinterest and the topic soon dies.

I still think there's a strong vanguard of Batmaniacs out there and the Dynamic Duo archive potentially has a wider market than an Adam Strange archive, but connecting that market with archives doesn't seem very successful sofar. While Strange fans are a loyal breed desperate for some product to come their way.

posted February 19, 2003 06:40 PM               

quote:

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Batman is stretched thin and most of the Batfans seem to be interested in new product. Every time I drift over to the Batman boards and try to get a discussion going on anything pre 1985, there's a flood of disinterest and the topic soon dies.

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Well, this may be better posted on the Batman board, but let me just say that I haven't been able to recognize the character in decades. I understand that the heart of the character is melancholy--as it should be, given his origin--but most of what DC has done with him since, say, Year One and Dar Knight has annoyed me. That's why I say, proudly and for the record, that the REAL Batman stories these days are being published in the Batman Adventures books. Other than collections of older Batman material, the Adventures books ae all I'm willing to read. I don't like the current Batman continuity, with the giant overextended "Batman Family" and their constant crossovers. I don't like that Batman inexplicably thought it would be a good idea to give his costume to Azrael over Dick when he was injured way back in Nightfall. So as far as I'm concerned, it didn't happen. So I read the Adventures books instead. Frank Miller said that "Mad Love", a Batman Adventures story, was "the best Batman story in a decade." He was right. The Batman Adventures series have always been criminally underrated by fans who don't have any idea what they're missing out on. And, frankly, they're much more worthy of Archiving, judging by sheer quality, than pretty much any of the Batman stuff we've gotten in Archives yet.

Mark

posted February 19, 2003 10:52 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
Don't get me started on that damned Bruning miniseries....

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posted February 19, 2003 11:38 PM            

Not everyone IS motivated by who the creator is. Some people ARE more interested in the character than the artist.
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Yes, you're right. I got too carried away with my point and worded it too strongly. What I should have said was, "When is DC going to wake up to the fact that many Archive fans are more interested in the creator, than they are the character."

Personally, I think there's enough room in the archive schedule to placate the fans from both perspectives, if enough thought is put into it. Even better, I'd love to see the release schedule expanded to fully acommodate both camps.

posted February 20, 2003 12:15 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Melkor:
Well, this may be better posted on the Batman board, but let me just say that I haven't been able to recognize the character in decades. I understand that the heart of the character is melancholy--as it should be, given his origin--but most of what DC has done with him since, say, Year One and Dar Knight has annoyed me. That's why I say, proudly and for the record, that the REAL Batman stories these days are being published in the Batman Adventures books. Other than collections of older Batman material, the Adventures books ae all I'm willing to read. I don't like the current Batman continuity, with the giant overextended "Batman Family" and their constant crossovers. I don't like that Batman inexplicably thought it would be a good idea to give his costume to Azrael over Dick when he was injured way back in Nightfall. So as far as I'm concerned, it didn't happen. So I read the Adventures books instead. Frank Miller said that "Mad Love", a Batman Adventures story, was "the best Batman story in a decade." He was right. The Batman Adventures series have always been criminally underrated by fans who don't have any idea what they're missing out on. And, frankly, they're much more worthy of Archiving, judging by sheer quality, than pretty much any of the Batman stuff we've gotten in Archives yet.

Mark

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