BATMAN PINUPALOOZA: Walt Grogan gives the pinup rogues gallery the colorful bio treatment…
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Welcome to BATMAN PINUPALOOZA, a 60th anniversary celebration of the seven seminal 1966 Batman pinups by penciller Carmine Infantino and inker Murphy Anderson that in large measure became the definitive versions of the Dynamic Duo and their venal villains for years to come.
This is a 13th Dimension theme week unlike any we’ve done before: Each of our artists — Kerry Callen, Bill Morrison, Des Taylor, Walt Grogan (who did that fab banner), Chris Franklin, Dakota Alexander and Franco — is reimagining at least one of the pinups every day this week, with equal parts reverence, whimsy and humor. For more on BATMAN PINUPALOOZA and the history of these pinups, click here. — Dan
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By WALT GROGAN
When 13th Dimension’s Grand Poobah, Dan Greenfield, pitched Batman Pinupalooza to the 13th D regulars, I started thinking about doing something, but I couldn’t come up with an angle. He then nudged me again and after a bit, I came up with a hook — merging the three 1966 Bat-Villain posters into a double-page Who’s Who entry, as if it appeared in that glorious 1980s mag!
Thanks to that wonderful resource, Heritage Auctions, you can easily find the original art for all three of these — the Joker, the Penguin and the Riddler!
I actually wanted to do a Who’s Who entry with the Fearsome Foursome — the three above and Catwoman! But for the life of me, I couldn’t find an Infantino/Anderson Catwoman pin-up. After checking in with Bat-expert Dan, he told me that the art team never made one! Gadzooks! What an oversight! One of the Batman TV show’s most popular villains among both boys and their dads never got the Carmine/Murphy treatment! Now what?
That’s when Dan reminded me that there was a novel by Winston Lyon (the pen name of author/comic-book scribe William Woolfolk) featuring the Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman titled, Batman vs. 3 Villains of Doom, which accompanied the writer’s adaptation of the 1966 Batman movie. What if I borrowed that name? Problem solved!
So here’s the first iteration, in full Who’s Who style:
When I first proposed this idea to Dan, I suggested that I do the characters in the TV show colors since that’s gotta be the reason these pinups were made, but he preferred the comic book palette. Nowadays, though, it’s a bit easier to switch some colors around, and voila, here’s the TV show version:
One of the fun things about looking at the original art is how much detail Carmine and/or Murphy put into these posters: The Penguin is sporting cuff links — plus, his umbrella ribs are capped! And man, did they go to town on the Riddler’s question marks!
Anyway, I couldn’t leave you without doing vintage versions, as if Who’s Who had come out in the mid-Sixties!
Enjoy!
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MORE
— The Complete BATMAN PINUPALOOZA Index. Click here.
— HOLY BAT-SWAG! Dig These 13 Groovy Collectibles Based on the Classic 1966 BATMAN PINUPS. Click here.
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A 10-year-old Walt Grogan fell in love with the Big Red Cheese thanks to essays written by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson in the paperback edition of All in Color for a Dime, released in 1970 and bought for him by his father off a paperback spinner rack in a liquor store on the South Side of Chicago. Walt runs The Marvel Family Web Facebook page devoted to all incarnations of the Fawcett/DC Captain Marvel and blogs about Captain Marvel at shazamshistorama.com.
