Three cheers for the artistic architect of some of Batman’s most outlandish adventures!
Sheldon Moldoff had a lengthy, varied comic-book career but for Batman fans, he’s known as the Guy Who Drew Batman’s Silliest Adventures.
Before Carmine Infantino gave us Batman’s New Look in 1964, the Caped Crusader — no Dark Knight he — was primarily the purview of Mr. Moldoff and writers who gave us such ridiculous creations as Polka-Dot Man, the Rainbow Creature and the Zebra Batman. (Moldoff continued on Batman after the New Look, but that’s for another time.)
Now, most Batman fans like to forget this early Silver Age period even exists. Others, like Grant Morrison, see it as a challenge and work overtime to make sense of it all.
Me? I think it’s just absurd. And sometimes you have to celebrate the absurd.
Sheldon Moldoff was born April 20, 1920. He died Feb. 29, 2012.
We’ll always have “Batman Becomes Bat-Baby!”
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Cover images and credits from the outlandish Grand Comics Database.
April 14, 2016
Dan,
Thanks for this post, which is ABSURD indeed. How did I live so long without ever seeing Zebra Batman and the uncanny menace that IS the Polka Dot Man!?
April 14, 2016
I know!
April 14, 2016
The more that DC / WB pushes the humorless psychotic Batman upon us, the more I want to embrace these gloriously silly stories!
April 15, 2016
Does anyone have the dates of these covers?
April 16, 2016
I’ve only read two of these stories. But “The Rainbow Batman” (#7) is one of my favorite 1950s Batman stories. It was contrived, but not quite as silly as it sounds.