| In 1964,
Julius Schwartz became editor of Batman and Detective Comics
and
introduced what was touted as the "New Look". Carmine Infantino
was brought in to redesign Batman. Infantino was assigned to draw
every other issue of Detective Comics, employing the sleek style
he had pioneered on the Flash. |
Because there
was no way that fans would not recognize his art style, Infantino became
the first Batman artist not to sign Bob Kane's name to his work. |
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| "Mystery
of the Menacing Mask" by John Broome, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella.
Detective 327. May, 1964. (Note, in one of the great comic book
bloopers of all time, Batman is using a gun.) |
"Two
Way Death Trap" by John Broome?, Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella, Batman
166. Sept 1964, |
| Carmine
Infantino had been one of the first generation of comic book fans,
too young to be drafted during the war, they became replacements for men
they had idolized just a few years before. Starting on DC's Ghost Patrol,
Infantino was soon drawing Flash and Justice Society stories and went on
to become one of the mainstays of the Julie Schwartz "look".
Known for his clean, bright science fiction strips, Infantino's own natural
style was darker and more urban than the way Giella and others inked him.
Ironically, that inking style, which would have been perfect for Batman,
was only exhibited on the backup Elongated Man stories. |
Because the
new style was supposed to help sell Batman to the new audience Schwartz's
other titles were reaching, "Bob Kane" (akaSheldon
Moldoff) was supposed to emulate that style in his stories as well.
To help accomplish this Joe Giella was
used to ink both artists. Moldoff had already been slimming down
the stocky Batman of the fifties, so the final step in the transformation
wasn't as big a stretch as it might seem. |
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|
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| Detective
361- Dynamic Duo's Double Death Trap by Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino
and Sid Greene. March, 1967 |
|
| Batman
170 "Puzzle of the Perilous Prizes" by Bill Finger and Joe Giella, March
1965 |
Batman
169 A Bad Day for Batman by Ed Herron, Sheldon Moldoff and Sid Greene 2/65 |
| Joe Giella had
been working in comics since 1946 primarily as an inker. He was considered
one of the most reliable at DC and was often used for high profile licensing
projects. Besides inking the Batman comic book, he also pencilled
and inked the revived Batman comic strip in 1966-67. He also pencilled
an occasional comic book story, doing his best to imitate Sheldon Moldoff
imitating Bob Kane. Currently, he draws the Mary Worth comic strip. |
A later development
was the addition of Sid Greene to
the inking staff. Sid had been toiling in comics since the pre-war days,
doing everything from super-hero to romance. He had became a mainstay of
Schwartz's sceience fiction titles as a penciller,but by the mid-sixties
he was concentrating on inking. Greene's smoother modeled approach was
so overpowering to the pencil line, that it almost became difficult to
tell Moldoff and Infantino apart!. |
|
|
| "Batgirl's
Costume Cut Ups" by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene Detective 371,
January 1968. |
"The Riddler's
Prison Puzzle Problem" by Gardner Fox, Frank Springer and Sid Greene. Detective
377, July 1968. |
| After Carmine Infantino
became DC's editorial director, he gave up his regular art assingments.
A number of artists then drew the non-"Kane" Detective issues, (although
the stories no longer strictly ran in Detective) including Gil
Kane. Gil Kane broke into comics during WWII among other places,
working in the Simon and Kirby shop, ghosting the Sandman for Jack Kirby.
When the word came down from DC management that artists were supposed to
emulate Marvel, Kane was one of the few equipped for the task. His
Batman was action-packed but hardly dark and mysterious. |
Frank
Springer. Frank spent most of the sixties with Dell and Gold Key, where
he worked on (among other things) the fabled Brain Boy and a lot of mystery,
western and crime comics. The handful of (well, two) Batman stories he
did were for DC directly, not for Bob Kane. After the sixties, he
seems to have divided his time equally between Marvel and DC, concentrating
on inking |
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| "The Man
Who Radiated Fear" by Mike Friedrich, Chic Stone and Joe Giella. Batman
200, March 1968 |
"Mr Freeze's
Chilling Death Trap" by Gardner Fox, Chic Stone and Sid Greene, Detective
373, March 1968 |
| Kane's final ghost was Chic
Stone,
a journeyman penciller and inker who had worked for various
companies including Marvel, where he had inked Jack Kirby and ACG, where
he drew
Nemesis.
He filled in for Sheldon Moldoff on and off even
before the "New Look" began. |
In 1967/68, Stone's
Batman work showed a profound Kirby influence and can primarily be identified
by his penchant for drawing Batman's fists bigger than his head. |
In August 1968, a 2nd Batman revolution
occurred. Bob Kane signed a new contract with DC which removed him
from producing artwork for the title. Now all Batman artists would
receive credit. Bob Brown and Irv Novick became the artists for Batman's
new "Noir" look, as writers Mike Friedrich and Frank Robbins ushered in
the era of the Darknight Detective. |
