DETECTIVE COMICS #456: DEATH KISS! Celebrating ERNIE CHAN’S BATMAN
SCOTT TIPTON’s COMICS 101: A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the late artist, who was born 84 years ago… By SCOTT TIPTON When conversation turns to the great Batman artists, often overlooked, and unjustly so, is the work of artist Ernie Chan (often credited as Ernie Chua), who had a marvelous run on Batman and Detective Comics in the mid-1970s. As we celebrate the late artist’s birthday — he was born 84 years ago on June 27, 1940 — let’s look back at my first exposure to his take on the Caped Crusader: One of my favorite things about the San Diego Comic-Con is the “accidental discovery.” Sure, there are always plenty of things I’m looking for at the show, but oftentimes even better than that is the stuff I stumble across by accident, through sheer blind, stinking luck. Such was the case a few years back when I found Detective Comics #456 (Feb. 1976), Death Kiss! by writer Elliott S! Maggin and artist Ernie Chan (looking for all the world like he’s doing his best Jim Aparo impression). Here, take a look: Another one of those comic books that fall vaguely into the category of “First comic book I ever read,” this may have been the first Batman comic I ever read, as I remember this being around the house virtually my entire life, and in progressively worse shape over the years from the countless re-readings. In fact, for most of my childhood it looked more like this, with the cover torn away and lost at some point: Now that’s a splash page. Batman cowering in fear from hundreds of pairs of giant floating lips. Comic-book gold. The story here opens with millionaire Bruce Wayne in full smoothie mode, macking on his new lady friend Angie, before rushing off to his night job. Soon Batman is out on patrol, and before long suffering from flashbacks and hallucinations, as rendered in this snappy bat-shaped interlude: The Dark Knight shakes it off, though, and gets back to work, apprehending a band of building-climbing drug thieves: In the midst of the fight, Batman suffers another hallucination, this time mistaking one of the thugs for Robin: Curious thing about this panel — I don’t know if it was the hallucination aspect, or the weird all-blue coloring, but when I read this as a kid, I...
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