MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
Younger Batman fans may not realize this, but there was a time before Archive Editions, Chronicles, Compendiums, Absolute Editions, Deluxe Editions, Showcase Presents, and a seemingly endless stream of Omnibus volumes, when you could count the number of reprint books featuring the Caped Crusader’s classic comics adventures on one hand, with two fingers to spare.
Those books were Signet’s Batman, Batman vs. The Joker, and Batman vs. The Penguin — all released in 1966, to take advantage of the TV show-driven Batmania. Aside from the Batman Annual comic books and the occasional 80-Page Giants, these paperbacks were the only access a young Bat-fan had to the Dynamic Duo’s classic exploits until the 1970s (except for the original comic books, of course). Sure, they were in black and white, and OK, the fact that the panels were cut and pasted to make them fit the paperback format was a little janky, but even so, they were great! They were all we had!
Today, things are a bit different. Thanks to decades as a working cartoonist, I now have a personal library that takes up an entire room in my studio and is filled mostly with reference books and volumes about comics history, with a generous amount of square footage devoted to books that just collect classic comics. And those three well-thumbed paperbacks, along with the two Batman novels that also came out in ’66 — Batman vs. 3 Villains of Doom and Batman vs. the Fearsome Foursome (covered nicely in Jim Beard’s recent article) — are at the core of my collection.
Next to these books on the shelf, I have a half-dozen similar paperbacks, published in 1988-90 by the UK’s Titan Books under the series name “Caped Crusader Classics,” that are sort of reissues of the Signet books, mixed with some new volumes that are in the spirit of the originals.
The first one, Batman and Robin, is a reprint of Signet’s Batman but minus two of the stories.
Similarly, the next two books in Titan’s series, Batman vs. the Joker, and Batman vs. The Penguin are reprints of the original Signet editions, but each have one story missing. However, the original version of Batman vs. The Penguin ended with a Catwoman story (completely devoid of the Fine Feathered Fink, for some reason) and that’s the missing story in Titan’s version. It’s titled “The Sleeping Beauties of Gotham City,” originally published in 1954’s Batman #84.
That story does appear, however, in the fourth Titan book, Batman vs. Catwoman, alongside two other classic stories featuring the Princess of Plunder.
The fifth book is titled Batman: Return of the Joker, and features four more Clown Prince of Crime classics, including his first appearance from Batman #1.
The final volume in the series is Batman and Superman, a collection of three World’s Finest stories, two from 1960 and one from 1966. (For a complete table of contents of all nine paperbacks, click here.)
These paperbacks, though they might seem quaint and quirky compared to the slick collections that are available today, hold an honored place among all the modern, deluxe, hardcover tomes in my library. They serve as a constant reminder of that austere time when vintage Batman tales were so very tough to find.
—
Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
—
MORE
— YOUR GUIDE to All the Contents of the 1966 SIGNET BATMAN Reprint Paperbacks. Click here.
— SPIDER-MAN: THE NIGHT GWEN STACY DIED — The Movie Poster That Never Was. Click here.
—
Eisner winner BILL MORRISON has been working in comics and publishing since 1993 when he co-founded Bongo Entertainment with Matt Groening, Cindy Vance and Steve Vance. At Bongo, and later as Executive Editor of Mad Magazine, he parodied the comics images he loved as a kid every chance he got. Not much has changed.
Bill is on Instagram (@atomicbattery) and Facebook (Bill Morrison/Atomic Battery Studios), and regularly takes commissions and sells published art through 4C Comics.
