SuperHeroBooks - Batman: The Sunday Classics 1943-1946

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Manufacturer: Sterling

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9781402747182
ISBN: 1402747187
Label: Sterling
Manufacturer: Sterling
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: 2007-04-12
Publisher: Sterling
Studio: Sterling

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Summary: BATMAN'S FORGOTTEN CLASSICS
Comment: The 1940's weren't just the golden age for comic books they were also the golden age for newspapers. Still several years before television would become prevalent, newspapers would be the primary way American's got their daily news as millions of copies were sold each day. And of course, inside those millions of newspapers were comic strips of all kinds. Today, the episodic comic is almost dead. With dwindling circulations for most newspapers, people just don't have the time or patience to pickup their daily paper and read the adventures of their favorite characters.

One of the comic's most famous characters was adapted into strip format when Batman & Robin debuted in both daily and Sunday color strips in 1943. This was right smack in the middle of World War II when paper drives reduced the circulation of many newspapers and Batman's debut actually represents a pretty rare spot in the annals of comic strips because of this. The Sunday strips are even more rare as many papers who carried the daily strips opted to not carry the full-color Sundays.

This landmark hardcover edition from Sterling Publishing reprints all of the Batman & Robin Sunday strips from November 1943 to October 1946 and includes 26 different chapters, or story arcs if you modernists prefer. While Batman creator Bob Kane gets the sole credit on each and everyone of the Sunday strips, the fact is that Kane was only involved in a handful of the chapters. Jack Burnley, who just passed away in December of 2006 at the ripe old age of 95, provided the art on most of the strips while the writing chores were handled by longtime Batman writer Bill Finger and also Al Schwartz. While various parts of this era's Sunday strips have been reprinted previously, this is the first time the run has been reprinted in full.

The Sunday colors were given enormous space by today's standards, as each consisted of eleven panels. You had to be a popular character to command that kind of space on a comic page! Each chapter generally ran from four to six weeks and were untitled. Titles have been given to each chapter, usually based on a phrase used in the strip or based on the plot. Thankfully there is an index to each chapter, otherwise there's no way to really tell visually when one chapter ends and another begins.

Batman encounters some of his most famous villains within these pages including The Joker, The Penguin, Catwoman, and Two-Face, although most of the encounters are with garden variety criminals. In "Gotham's Cleverest Criminal" the Joker uses a trick football to escape prison--not to go after Batman, but rather a rival female criminal called the Sparrow who is stealing the Joker's limelight.

In addition to the strips themselves, the book features background notes, including full story credits on each of the chapters, often relating where the story fits in terms of continuity with the regular Batman and Detective Comics issues. This historical information alone is worth the price of the book. You also get detailed biographies on all of the writers, artists, letterers, and editors who were involved in the Batman & Robin strips. The color had been re-mastered and looks stunning...probably even better than it looked when originally published over 60 years ago. These strips are great fun and serve to maintain the legacy of a great character and a bygone era!

REVIEWED BY TIM JANSON

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When Bob Kane’s seminal Batman first reached newspapers during World War II, only a small group of papers published it. So the early Batman and Robin comic strips have remained among the most elusive works in comics’ history. Not anymore: these rare Sunday color pages are now reprinted in a generously sized format worthy of their importance. The many fans of the Caped Crusader will thrill to see Batman and the Boy Wonder do battle once again with both common thugs and outrageous villains in order to save Gotham City from plot after evil plot. Making their nefarious way across these illustrated panels are some of the Caped Crusader’s most indelible adversaries, including the Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, and Two-Face. In addition to behind-the-scenes information and rare promotional materials, this deluxe edition collects the first four years of the classic Batman and Robin newspaper comics exactly as written and illustrated by the strip’s most famous writers and artists. Among the classic stories are: “The Penguin’s Crime-Thunderstorms,” “Catwoman’s Grasshopper Chase,” and “Half Man—Half Monster.”