SUNDAY FUNNIES WITH KERRY CALLEN meets BATMAN ’66 WEEK! — Welcome to BATMAN ’66 WEEK, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the beloved TV show starring Adam West! All week, we’ll be presenting daily tributes and features, leading up to Jan. 12 — the premiere date itself — when we’ll roll out a brand-new TOP 13 BATMAN ’66 EPISODE COUNTDOWN, voted upon by a panel of the most knowledgeable Bat-experts around. Click here for the COMPLETE INDEX. — Dan — By KERRY CALLEN January 12 is the 60th anniversary of the Batman TV program, airing on ABC. It premiered in 1966. With me being 5 at the time, you might think I loved the show. But, I never saw it. Where I lived in Arkansas, we only received two channels, CBS and NBC. My exposure to Batman was through two comic books. One was from the very first comic I ever bought, 1965’s Teen Titans #1, by Bob Haney, with art by Nick Cardy. Batman was in one panel. My first comic with Batman in a starring role was The Brave and the Bold #68. Also written by Haney, it had art by Mike Sekowsky and Mike Esposito, and a cover by Sekowsky, with inks by Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson. I bought the book because I was a fan of Metamorpho. I saw him in comics while waiting at a barber shop. This was my main introduction to Batman, and it’s a doozy. He becomes BAT-HULK! The book hit the stands in August of ’66. Batmania was in full swing — and Batman is mentioned as being on TV twice in the issue. We also find out that Batman is “super-marv and fab.” The main villains were the Penguin, the Riddler, and the Joker. DC was obviously targeting fans of the TV show. The three villains team up and expose Batman to a strange gas, transforming him into Bat-Hulk! The entire story is actually a bit strange. Aside from super-strength, Bat-Hulk can throw fireballs from his molten-hot hands. Bat-Hulk only appears in this one comic, but I’ve long held a fondness for him. While other kids were discovering Batman through the TV show, I had to reread my own oddball discovery of the character. Using my own twisted logic, I’m celebrating the show’s 60th anniversary by drawing Bat-Hulk! By the way, when Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns...
BATMAN ’66 WEEK: A Big Little Book with a big impact… — Welcome to BATMAN ’66 WEEK, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the beloved TV show starring Adam West! All week, we’ll be presenting daily tributes and features, leading up to Jan. 12 — the premiere date itself — when we’ll roll out a brand-new TOP 13 BATMAN ’66 EPISODE COUNTDOWN, voted upon by a panel of the most knowledgeable Bat-experts around. Click here for the COMPLETE INDEX. — Dan — I don’t know how old I was, I just know I was young. Very young. I do know I was at a Howard Johnson’s and I saw it through the glass of the restaurant’s gift counter, on the bottom shelf: Batman: The Cheetah Caper, a Whitman Big Little Book with an enticing cover showing the Dynamic Duo wrangling a cobra, in front of a stylized, mid-century Gotham City backdrop. I begged for it from my Mom and Dad but I don’t think I had to work too hard because as we pulled out of the parking lot onto the Route 35 circle in Neptune, N.J., heading back to our house in Ocean Township, I had it in my hands, sitting in the dark in the back seat. That I can’t place the timing (1971, when I was 4, maybe?) in all likelihood means The Cheetah Caper was my first Batman book, predating any comic that came into my possession — my gateway into a storytelling world beyond the Batman TV show. I was obsessed with the show, which was already a syndication hit: It ran on Channel 11 (WPIX) in New York and I never missed an episode. I don’t remember the first time I saw it; it was just always there. (If I have a pre-Batman memory, it’s sitting in my crib with a Woody Woodpecker ukelele, watching bits of dust dance in the sunlight shining through my bedroom window, wondering when someone was going to come and rescue me from my boredom.) First published in 1969 as a hardcover, The Cheetah Caper, as it turned out, was the perfect distillation of the show and comics themselves. The story is simple: Batman and Robin are in the hunt for a supervillain called the Cheetah, whose skin is covered in spots and wears a black-tan-and-blue, feline-themed outfit, whiskers and all. He’s the fastest man on Earth thanks...
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