In May 1939 Batman was introduced in the pages of Detective Comics #27 in a story by Bill Finger and Bob Kane-- the character was in response to the incredible success of Superman a year earlier in Action Comics. In those days of Newstands sales results took months to come in so National Comics wouldn't know the character was a hit for several months after his first appearance.
In that first appearance story "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" Batman (or The Bat Man as he was called) took on a simple murder mystery. In his second appearance in Detective Comics #28 he was relegated to a small cover blurb at the top of the book;
In this appearance he took on a dapper but not very interesting supervillain in the form of Frenchy Blake...
Yawn.
Batman needed a Rogues Gallery the same way Dick Tracy had one-- and the first actual qualifying supervillain in the Batman Mythology has to be Doctor Death. Written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Bob Kane Doctor Death was really Karl Hellfern-- with a name like that I think he was destined to be a villain.
I'm not sure why early Batman villains liked monocles or formal wear but they did. Dr Death also had an able bodied henchmen in the form of the giant Jabah;
The exotic bodyguard is likely taken from horror movies of the time, in 1934's THE BLACK CAT with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, both men have large foreign manservants who also act as bodyguards when the need arises, and the early comic book creators often took liberally from Pulp Magazines and Movies.
Dr Death is likely based on Lionell Atwill's character in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM from 1933-- and we'll soon see a correlation between the two.
Over the next few months I'll be offering my adaption of the story at least until DC Comics tells me I can't. No profits are taken from this and I ask that you not copy or reproduce any of the pages yourself.
In between the pages I'll be doing some of these histories of the original so you can see both where I'm taking inspiration and also get a bit of a behind the scenes look at what the original creators did.
Meanwhile, here's page one of my adaption, my thoughts and notes follow the image;
This opening page was done to match what Kane did in 1939-- starting with an image of Batman and then rolling into the story. I made some subtle changes including the decision to hold off the big reveal of Dr. Death until page two. I also slowed the pacing down a little bit so you can get a feel for the room Dr. Death is working in. I'm doing all of the black and white artwork by hand for this one, no digital, and I'm trying to keep a little of Kane's crude style in too.
Tune in for the next one soon!
In that first appearance story "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" Batman (or The Bat Man as he was called) took on a simple murder mystery. In his second appearance in Detective Comics #28 he was relegated to a small cover blurb at the top of the book;
In this appearance he took on a dapper but not very interesting supervillain in the form of Frenchy Blake...
Yawn.
Batman needed a Rogues Gallery the same way Dick Tracy had one-- and the first actual qualifying supervillain in the Batman Mythology has to be Doctor Death. Written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Bob Kane Doctor Death was really Karl Hellfern-- with a name like that I think he was destined to be a villain.
I'm not sure why early Batman villains liked monocles or formal wear but they did. Dr Death also had an able bodied henchmen in the form of the giant Jabah;
The exotic bodyguard is likely taken from horror movies of the time, in 1934's THE BLACK CAT with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, both men have large foreign manservants who also act as bodyguards when the need arises, and the early comic book creators often took liberally from Pulp Magazines and Movies.
Dr Death is likely based on Lionell Atwill's character in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM from 1933-- and we'll soon see a correlation between the two.
Over the next few months I'll be offering my adaption of the story at least until DC Comics tells me I can't. No profits are taken from this and I ask that you not copy or reproduce any of the pages yourself.
In between the pages I'll be doing some of these histories of the original so you can see both where I'm taking inspiration and also get a bit of a behind the scenes look at what the original creators did.
Meanwhile, here's page one of my adaption, my thoughts and notes follow the image;
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Tune in for the next one soon!
Very interesting article that and pleased to see the Batman '39 look getting an airing.
ReplyDeleteHope you can get some more pages out there.