Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 27, 2024 | 8 comments

SCOTT TIPTON’s COMICS 101: A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the late artist, who was born 84 years ago…

Well, not every Wednesday. Now, it’s a recurring feature.

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 somehow translated it to mean that Robin had died somehow. Even when I started reading a lot more comics and saw that Robin was still out there and running around, still, every time I would read that comic, I’d think, “So I wonder how Robin died, anyway”? Weird.

Speaking of weird, here’s my nomination for the two worst sound effects in a comic ever — when Batman kicks two of the drug thieves, it makes this noise:

“Tuck”? “Pluck”? Really? I’m gonna just chalk that up to whatever drugs Batman is on…

Batman returns the stolen drugs to the doctor’s office, than promptly passes out. Not long after, he comes to in the grips of another hallucination:

This was another one that creeped me out as a kid, for some reason. It’s not even that scary, but just the sight of Batman seeing his dead parents always gave me the chills. Of course, Batman recovers quickly, thanks to the good doctor’s excellent bedside manner:

After slapping the Batman around, the doctor gives him the four-one-one: He’s been poisoned with an industrial material called “amory,” a sweet-smelling cream used to lubricate machinery, and eliminate one’s enemies. How versatile. The creation of an antidote would require more time than Batman has left, so his only hope is to track down the killer and hope they have the antidote — within an hour.

After interrogating a single informant with a pool cue and extrapolating from that that no one must be out to kill Batman (which seems like a bit of a deductive stretch to me), Batman reflects on the sweet-smelling poison he’s been dosed with and has a bit of an epiphany:

Heading out to Angie’s place, the Batman once more leads with his feet, kicking two criminal goons there apparently just shooting the breeze with Bruce Wayne’s new squeeze.

Those don’t exactly look like the most powerful kicks, but again, I’ll chalk it up to the drugs…

Batman learns that Bruce Wayne was the target, a scheme by one of his business rivals, who forced Angie to dose Wayne with the poison lipstick. After Batman kayos the last of the thugs, Angie hands over the antidote, which he gulps down, and there’s your story.

It’s an odd little Batman tale. It’s hard to really get anything going in only 12 pages, and any sort of suspense is rendered pretty much moot by the fact that the critical twist of the whodunit, that it was Angie who poisoned Batman, is given away both on the cover and on the splash page.

Story quibbles aside, the real star here is Ernie Chan’s moody and compelling art: his innovative layouts, strong storytelling and elegant linework. This much for sure: I’ll be shopping for some more Chan Batman this week at Comic-Con.

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MORE

— 13 COVERS: An ERNIE CHAN Birthday Celebration — 2023 EDITION: BATMAN. Click here.

— 13 COVERS: An ERNIE CHAN Birthday Celebration — 2022 EDITION: DC COMICS. Click here.