Artwork by James E. Lyle. Batman and all related characters copyright © and trademark DC Comics, Inc.
“If you’re going to swipe, swipe big!” That’s what I told my buddy Aaron when I showed him the pencils for this piece. In comics they don’t come any bigger than Frank Frazetta, and I have been dying to do a swipe of one or more of his Famous Funnies covers for the last 5 years, ever since I saw some of them reproduced in a auction catalog.
But it wasn’t until Jim Amash and I were talking at Heroes Convention ‘07 that I really thought I could pull it off. Then later that day I bought a set of EC Picto-Fiction reprints that contain a previously unpublished story with Frank Frazetta art. The story was “Came the Dawn” from Shock Illustrated #4, and it showed a lot about Frazetta’s process that I hadn’t previously known, and I got real inspired.
One of the scariest images in my childhood was the cover to an issue of Batman that I’ve never owned. In fact, I’m not even sure what issue it actually is. I saw an advertisement for it in a copy of Detective Comics I bought second hand at a school rummage sale when I was in elementary school. (Even then the book was coverless, dog-eared, and around 10 years old. I thought I’d found a golden age copy for a steal of a price at 10¢. Turned out to be a 1963 book done just before the “new look” came to Batman). The image was of Batman transformed into a monster hanging from the top of an Empire State type building fighting against airplanes in King Kong style. As a second grader I was pretty timid and this image haunted me. But even then I didn’t like the style it was drawn in.
When I saw Frank Frazetta’s cover to Famous Funnies #213, over 30 years later, I got that same creepy feeling. And I suppose that’s what finally clicked to create this image. Batman transformed into a monster, but drawn realistically.
I’m inking the image as I write this. Frankly, I’m so excited by the work that I had to take a break before my hands started shaking and I ruined the piece. It will be my masterpiece, I’ve no doubt.
This piece will be super clean as my commissions have been since I did my tenure with Buzz Setzer mentoring me about eBay sales. “Art collectors hate white out!” he always tells me, and so I don’t use it anymore. I have also learned that art collectors prefer no paste up when they can get it. So I’ve learned to reproduce logos by hand. Not too hard since I did that for two years when I worked full time in a tee-shirt factory art department (before computers were in common use).
Before I forget, I chose this logo simply because it’s my second favorite Batman logo of all time. First favorite goes to the late 60s logo used during the Infantino to Brown/Giella period of Batman. This logo I like to refer to as the “transitional” logo. There was a period there where the logo on Batman just couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind. Somewhere in the 210s to 220s this logo appeared. On the cover of 223 the lettering appeared “naked” (with no bat around it) and then for a while, in the 230s the word “Batman” got squashed up into the upper three-quarters of the logo to make room for “and Robin” down below (apparently Robin’s departure from Wayne Manor was actually hurting sales and the logo change assured readers that the “teen wonder” was actually in this issue). There was even one issue of Batman with a Neal Adams cover and a much older cover logo that hadn’t been used since the 40s! But with issue 241 the new “pointy eared” logo made its appearance and was used almost constantly from that point on until the 400s (only losing its place on the cover of 366 because Walt Simonson did such a great job of building the word “Batman” into the artwork that it didn’t need a logo).
Don’t get me wrong, I liked the “pointy eared” Batman logo when it first came out. It just suffered from overexposure. So my second favorite Bat logo got relegated to covers of “The Brave and The Bold” in reduced format next to who ever was guest starring in that issue.
When I was working at that tee-shirt factory, we got the license to do some Batman night shirts, and being the resident Batman nut they gave me the opportunity to pitch some designs. This logo was in the official Batman movie style-book and I told them that this would be a big hit with all the comics fans, particularly if we used a cool color scheme. This idea was rejected, along with most of my other pitches on that project. So using it here may be part of my outrage at them for not using it then.
So the next question has got to be, “why Batgirl, and why not the TV Batgirl since you’ve had so much success with that?” Why Batgirl? Because I couldn’t think of a more effective Batman character to have threatened by this monstrous Batman. Why not the TV Batgirl? Well that’s because of the cover to Detective Comics #371, “Batgirl’s Costume Cut-Ups!” A story in which we fans learned that Batgirl’s costume is subject to runs. There’s simply something goofy about that, and I wanted to incorporate that into this image. Yvonne Craig’s costume may be a lot of things, but it was pretty obviously run-proof. Not so the comic book Batgirl.
Or did you mean, “why THAT Batgirl”, instead of the new one? I don’t like the new one. Sorry. And while I like Oracle okay, I’d rather have Barbara out there doing the Batgirl thing. I’ve got a chip on my shoulder about it too. It always bugged me that the writers and editors made Barbara Gordon a boring character and then blamed her for being that way. She started out interesting. She was a librarian who put on a Bat costume and looked really great in it. That was interesting. And the costume was interesting. Black and sleek with hints of yellow and blue.
Then they decided to make it gray, and make Barbara a congresswoman. Booorrriing.
Which is not to say that I thought “The Killing Joke” was bad. But it was more of the same for Barb. She even looked old in that book. Older than Batman. “Ho-hum, life sure is dull after you’ve been a congresswoman, guess I’ll read another book.”
When you make the day job more interesting than the nighttime adventures what do you expect the readers to think? The Clark Kent paradigm works. He’s a wimp when he’s Clark, and he’s interesting when he’s Superman. Barbara was powerless and boring as a librarian, but powerful and attractive as Batgirl. That was the point.
Makes me wonder what the point is of having her cowering at the feet of this monster-Batman. Hmmm. That’s going to take a while to figure out. I run the risk of being in the position of Spinal Tap trying to defend themselves over “Smell the Glove”. But she’s still on her feet! She’s got a look of concern on her face, not total abject fear. We all know that if this were the comic that she’d find the antidote and change Bruce back before the tale was over.
Another reason comes to mind. Back when I was first trying to become a comics artist., (around 1980) I drew a sample cover based on an idea from my sister-in-law. The idea being that Batman has so played the “creature of the night” angle that a little kid who didn’t know who Batman was would be scared of the Dark Knight. I thought this was pretty good stuff and showed the cover to Rich Buckler who was a guest at a show. He said the drawing was okay, but there was a “sort of taboo in comics of showing little kids being threatened”. So I never showed the art to any editors. But Batgirl is no kid. She knows Batman, and so this is a call back to that idea too. The idea that Batman can be scary at times, can I make him even scarier?
So what’s with the tattered cape? That goes way back too. When I was a kid I was a big Batman fan (what? You’d guessed already?) Even as a preschooler I saw Batman in everything. I thought the Traveler’s Insurance billboard in my hometown was somehow related to Batman, because I didn’t get that umbrellas weren’t scalloped to resemble Batman’s cape. Scallops have been a big part of my design sense ever since. I still love umbrellas as a design motif; black, satin, scalloped. The say, “Batman” (or “Penguin”, which relates to Batman, so it’s the same thing).
A lot of other designers have seen this potential in scallops. The designers of the Fokker Triplane for example. The designer of “Birdie” from Airboy obviously got this. In fact it seems pretty obvious that the Penguin was just an attempt to get more scallops into Batman comics.
When John Byrne took over Superman in the 80s he made Superman’s cape tearable. I got what this was about immediately. If you can’t scallop a cape (like Batman’s already is) then you tear a cape. The design possibilities become myriad at that point. So when I did T.H.U.N.D.E.R. at Solson I made sure that NoMan’s cape was tattered.
With this image, I wanted to make Batman more and more scary. So I added the tatters. Tatters are, simply stated, very complex scallops. At least that’s how I draw them.
Now, why did I do the complicated Wally Wood styled background? Well, for one that was in the Frazetta piece. But there’s more to it than that. I always feel like the Batcave should be more complex than is usually shown. It should have myriad passages like no other secret base in the whole of comic-dom. The agents of AIM should see the Batcave and drool. Modok should see it and think, “I gotta get me one of THOSE!”
So I figure this is an unused corner of the Batcave.
Why the water on the floor? I can’t explain why, but I keep thinking of the line from Thomas Dolby’s song “Weightless” and the line, “she went to the basement; fruit juice everywhere!”
Well, actually the line is, “she bent to the basin, fruit juice everywhere.” But when I first heard it the line was the former. So I’ve always thought of the line meaning a basement full of fruit juice. If I color the piece that liquid will probably look like orange or possibly cranberry juice. The trick will be to keep it from looking like some bodily fluid in the process.
Speaking of bodily fluids, what’s up with the Batarang dripping grue? I have no idea, other than it’s just supposed to be creepier than if it was just a Batarang alone. It’s not Batgirl’s blood, there’s not a scratch on her. Other than the runs in her outfit (which is, admittedly, a difficult proposition) she’s intact.
Funny how that word “creepy” keeps coming up. I have considered that this is sort of like a “what if?” proposition. That is, “what if Jim Warren had somehow gotten the rights to do an issue of Creepy Magazine featuring Batman?” This might have been the cover. Frazetta would have drawn the most amazing Batman covers ever. But he never did. So I get to. Okay, nobody assigned the work but me alone, but I’m still having fun with it.
Now, getting back to the whole thing of swiping from a Frazetta piece. My wife even asked me, “can you do that?” My response was that Howard Chaykin did a number of covers to American Flagg! that were direct swipes from Harvey Kurtzman covers. So I guess I can.
Actually there’s a long tradition of swiping poses in fine art. One of the most obvious would probably be “The sleeping Venus” by Giorgione in 1509, the pose swiped by Titian in 1538 for “The Venus of Urbino”, and much later (1863) appropriated by Manet for “Olympia”. So I defend my choice of appropriating this pose.
Summing up; What’s the point of it all? The point of it all is to have fun. If I can’t own a Frank Frazetta piece I can make an approximation of it. That’s one of the great things about being an artist, anything I can visualize I can, in essence, make my own by simply drawing it. Sometimes this is a curse. In situations like this it’s a real treat.
Hope everyone enjoys it. I’ll be working on the inks and enjoying them.
