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In August 1968 (Comic book time) Bob
Kane signed a new contract with DC. From now on Kane would be paid
for use of the characters but would no longer be required tosupply artwork,
or be credited with said artwork. The change coincided with the end of
the Batman TV show (which actually went off the air in March). Editor
Julius Schwartz chose that opportunity to try to bring back some of the
serious tone and darkness of the Golden Age version of the character.
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| "Batman! Drop Dead..
Twice!" by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown and Joe Giella.
Detective 378, August 1968. |
"Operation Blindfold"
by Frank Robbins, Irv Novick and Joe Giella.
Batman 204, August 1968. |
| Newspaper comic strip
great Frank Robbins (artist/writer creator of Johnny Hazzard) was the first
writer chosen to provide Batman with real mystery stories to face.
The silly villains of the past few years and the pop art were replaced
by a new, "new look" Bob Brown (1915-77)
started in comics in 1949, kicking back and forth between Marvel and DC
until he landed the Challengers of the Unknown gig when Kirby left
in 1959. He also did Space Ranger in Tales of the Unexpected,
before moving on to Batman. Early on his Batman work emulated
Carmine Infantino, but he moved quickly back towards his own Harold Foster/
Joe Kubert infuenced style pretty quickly. He continued on Batman
through 1973. |
Irv
Novick (1916-2004) was a phenomenon. He began his career
in comics back in 1939, working in the Chesler shop, soon moving on to
MLJ (Archie) where he created the first patriotic hero, the Shield.
He spent most of the fifties doing war books at DC (as well as Wonder Woman
covers!) He returned to superheroes in the late 60's , doing Lois
Lane, The Flash and the Teen Titans as well as Batman,
and his style was not one bit less contemporary than it had ever been! |
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"Punish Not My Evil
Son" Bob Haney andNeal Adams.
Brave & Bold 83, April 1969. |
"The Secret of the Waiting
Graves" Denny O'Neil, Adams and Dick Giordano. Detective 395, January
1970. |
| Neal
Adams (born 1941) is often incorrectly credited with beginning
Batman's move back towards his Golden Age dark roots. He didn't,
but his art was so overwhelming it tended to blind people to every thing
else that was going on that time. The history of Batman can easily
be divided into two phases, BA and AA, before and after Adams. |
Despite the revolution
he caused, Adams' "photo realistic" version of Batman appeared in only
7 issues of Brave and Bold and 16 more stories in Batman and Detective
Comics. After that Adams moved on, leaving other artists to try
to incorporate his vision into their styles. Many used tracing paper.
Few caught the soul and inspiration. |
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| "Warrior in a Wheel
Chair"- Bob Haney and Jim Aparo.
Brave & Bold100. February 1972. |
"Man Bat
Madness"- Frank Robbins. Detective 416, October
1971. |
| Jim
Aparo (1932-2005) was one of those artists who used the Adams
revolution to give himself the freedom to do what he wanted in his own
style. Almost all of Aparo's Batman work appeared in Murray Boltinoff's
Brave
and Bold team-up stories, where he pencilled, inked and lettered his
own work. |
Frank
Robbins (1917-94), as mentioned above, was an artist as well
as a writer, so it was only natural that he try his hand at depicting the
Man-Bat, his own creation. One of the most controversial artists
of his day, Robbins' Noel Sickles/Canniff flavored stylings disconcerted
conservative fans used to Neal Adams' Alex Raymond/Jack Kirby flavor.
Adams, however, thought enough of Robbins to color this story himself!
Robbins drew five Batman stories before moving on to an even more
controversial run on Captain America. |
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| "The Scarecrows Trail
of Fear" Denny O'Neil, Ernie Chan and Dick
Giordano. Batman 262, April 1975. 1975-77 |
" The Dead Yet Live"
Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry
Austin. Detective 471 August 1977 |
| Ernie
Chan (born 1940) had his
name accidentally changed to Ernie Chua by an immigration official who
just couldn't be bothered to do his job right. He later changed it back.
Chan did his own job right however, and ended up being one of the stars
of DC's "Phillipine Era", pencilling Batman for three years, and
being DC's chief cover artist for eight years! |
Marshall
Rogers (born 1950) drew eight Batman stories but caused
almost as big a stir as Neal Adams had a decade earlier. It had become
pretty much comic gospel that Adams' "photo realism" was the only way to
go. Rogers went for a post-Ditko Bauhaus style, however, and blew all the
tracers away. |
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| "Batman Ex-
as in Extinct" by David Vern, Mike Grell and Bob
Wiacek. Batman 287, May 1977 |
"Where Were You
The Night Batman Was Killed?" by David Vern , John Calnan
and Tex Blaisdell. Batman 291, Sept
1977 |
| Mike Grell, burst
into comics after two years working as Dale Messick's assistant on
the Brenda Starr newspaper strip. He began at DC with science fiction
oriented work on the Legion of Super-Heroes and Green Lantern,
so it wasn't immediately apparent that his natural inclinations lay more
along Batman's dirty alley. He only spent a few issues on the book,
but returned to the neighborhood for a decade or so with his own masterful
creation Jon Sable, Freelance. |
John Calnan
came from the world of commerical advertising and the Catholic comic Treasure
Chest. He spent three years doing Batman pencils from 1977-79. He was
all over the DC universe in the 70's and early 80's but left the field
around 1980. |
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| "and a Deadly New Year"
by Denny O'Neil and Dick Giordano. Batman 247,
Feb 1973 |
"Port Passed" by Doug
Moench and Klaus Janson- Detective 554, September 1985 |
| Dick
Giordano (born 1932) is
usually thought of as an inker, joined at the hip with Neal Adams.
Giordano, however, had a much longer, and arguably more influential, career
in comics than his sometime partner, starting as an artist and later editor
at Charlton, where he championed Steve Ditko's Blue Beetle, and DC, where
he brought Jim Aparo to Aquaman. After a decade in commerical art,
he returned to DC in the early eighties as Batman editor and later
Managing Editor of the whole company where he pioneered DC's move to go
after older readers. Somewhere in there, he found time to occasionally
pencil a Batman story, like "Deadly New Year" above and Detective
457's classic "There Is No Hope in Crime Alley". |
Another artist often
considered to be primarily an inker, Klaus
Janson (born 1952) made a major mark on Batman
history when he inked "The Dark Knight Returns" over Frank Miller's pencils.
Jansons' career began in the early 70's as an assisstant to Neal Adams
and "the Crusty Bunkers". He piled up a long career at both Marvel
and DC, where his rarer pencil jobs showed a high degree of design. Janson
often used tones, mechanical overlays and color to achieve spectacular
effects. |
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| "The Perfect Fighting Machine" by Denny
O'Neil, Don Newton and Dave
Hunt. Detective 480- November 1978. |
"Target Practice" by Doug Moench, Don
Newton and Alfredo Alcala- Batman 369- March 1984 |
| The incredible
Don Newton
(1944-84) tragically died at the age of 40, but left behind
a substantial body of classic comic work on every feature from The Phantom
through Captain (Billy Batson) Marvel. He pencilled Batman
stories from 1978-85 in a style that was simultaneously classicly clean
and dark and mysterious. This is hard to do. Jack Burnley and Berni
Wrightson come to mind. |
The majority of Don's stories were inked
by Alfredo Alcala (1925-2000).
Alcala had already had a lengthy career as one of the most famous artists
in the Phillipines before he came to America where his lush inking style
made him perfect for the darker DC titles. Alcala's inks were widely
considered capable or rescuing even the most inadequate of pencillers.
Thankfully, that was not necessary here. |
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| "Calling Doctor Death"- by Gerry Conway,
Gene Colan and Klaus Janson -Batman 345, March 1982 |
"The Face of the Chimera" by Doug Moench
Conway, Gene Colan and Alfredo Alcala- Detective 531, October 1983 |
| Gene
Colan (born 1926) came to DC after a long stint at Marvel in
1982 and immediately began making waves as THE Batman artist of the decade. |
Colan had a number of different inkers
during his five years on the strip, the most frequent being Bob Smith.
His most striking inker was probably Alfredo Alcala, who usually inked
Don Newton's stories. |
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| Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake "Ebon Masquery"-
Batman 387 September 1985 |
Doug Moench, Pat Broderick and Bob Smith-
"Dr. Harvey and Mr. Bullock" -Detective 549 April 1985 |
| Tom
Mandrake (born 1956) channeled the major artistic influences
of the Sixties and Seventies, primarlly Joe Kubert and Neal Adams, into
his own darkly exuberant style. His run on Batman was a short
prelude to his defining run on the Spectre, with writer John Ostrander. |
Pat
Broderick (born 1953) was another artist who came out of fandom
in the seventies. He began as an intern at DC under the "Junior Woodchucks"
program and went on to make his mark on Firestorm and a run on Swamp
Thing. His Batman run was short, but full of dynamic, if not
very accurate, anatomy. |
