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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 9, 2014 0:17:21 GMT -5
The New Look Joker stories are pretty dismal, but there were quite a few great Joker stories in the 1950s and even a few good ones up to 1963. The Joker's Journal The Crazy Crime Clown The Joker's Millions The Great Clayface/Joker Feud The Joker's Utility Belt That's for starters. And yes, the Joker-Fish story is awesome. Not just the best Joker story, it's also the second best Batman story (after The Origin of Batman from Batman #47). Hoosier-you pulled a boner by leaving out The Joker's Comedy of Errors aka Batman's Greatest Boner from Batman # 66 1951 |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 0:24:28 GMT -5
The New Look Joker stories are pretty dismal, but there were quite a few great Joker stories in the 1950s and even a few good ones up to 1963. The Joker's Journal The Crazy Crime Clown The Joker's Millions The Great Clayface/Joker Feud The Joker's Utility Belt That's for starters. And yes, the Joker-Fish story is awesome. Not just the best Joker story, it's also the second best Batman story (after The Origin of Batman from Batman #47). Hoosier-you pulled a boner by leaving out The Joker's Comedy of Errors aka Batman's Greatest Boner from Batman # 66 1951 That is such a great story. Yes, I did pull a boner by omitting that one. Lots of boners get pulled in that story, and it gets commented on in just about every panel.
I saw the title "The Joker's Comedy of Errors" when I was scanning the Comic Book Database but I forgot that was the story with all the boners getting pulled. I'll have to be careful and not pull any more boners.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 0:34:35 GMT -5
And I hope future critical comments on the 1960s are a little more cogent than: Gaggy was dumb. Gaggy was from the 1960s. Therefore, 1960s comics are dumb. Is that your conclusion of what I said? Jesus. I simply alluded to Batman comics of the 60s, which I'm not as fond of as other Batman material from the other decades (especially the one right after the 60s). I did say I like what Neal Adams bought to that table, far more than something like this from 1964.  If the above is better than the New 52 Batman in your opinion, that is your choice, I'm free to have my own as well. I'd rather read Batman series from the 90s, like Shadow of the Bat, or 90s stories like Knightfall, than most 60s Batman fare, even though in overall weighting, the 90s ranks fairly low in terms of overall product. (Like my intense dislike for anything Rob Liefeld was involved in...and not to mention I despise McFarlane's Spidey). I have several hundred 60s books, they have their charm, but in terms of representing characters, I tend to prefer later material, punto finale. (The one exception to this is Archie, which I enjoy equally in every decade). I'm currently working on my 60s Daredevil run...as I want a complete run of the first 200 issues...or (maybe) you're dubious about that too? And I rank the Miller books as the best of that lot.... Never mind...next thread.... |
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Post by fanboystranger on Jun 9, 2014 0:56:17 GMT -5
Fanboy, sharper ... Will I get continued development with either Astoria or Jaka and Cerebus' relationship in all this. They are three most interesting characters to me. Yes, you will. Some of it will be tough to get through, but the Cerebus/Jaka relationship is what the book runs on... until it doesn't. But that's very near the end.
I don't want to put you off Cerebus. I do think it's the greatest achievement in comics. However, it gets dicey as it goes along. Sim is an absolute master of comics, and it's worth reading just to see how he applies his craft. It's just that the entertainment value of the second half is pretty much limited to watching Sim apply his craft as he gets more and more self-indulgent. Absolutely worth reading until the very end, but you're probably not going to want to revisit much of the "Second Half".
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Post by fanboystranger on Jun 9, 2014 0:58:35 GMT -5
Fanboy, sharper ... Will I get continued development with either Astoria or Jaka and Cerebus' relationship in all this. They are three most interesting characters to me. Yes. (Side note: I thought Melmoth was great.) Yeah. Me, too.
It's after the "Mothers and Daughters" stories that the book completely shifts gears. As questionable as some of what Sim was arguing during "Mothers and Daughters" was, they were still entertaining stories. After that, however, as the major questions of the universe had been answered, the overarching story essentially went into a holding pattern. It was often a fascinating holding pattern filled with brilliant moments and Sim's overall mastery of the form-- has there ever been a better letterer?-- but the forward thrust of the narrative was gone, although, in many ways, that was progressive storytelling for a book of its type. Then you get the literary biography phase, which is interesting, but very dry and riddled with some very questionable conclusions about Ftizgerald and Hemingway. Sim tries to bring back the humor and parody towards the end, but ultimately, what I remember is the bizarre exegesis of the Bible and Koran. As a fiction, it's almost tolerable, but when you get into Sim's personal beliefs, you see the mental illness staring back at you. Again, very much worth reading and a genius application of craft, but very tough to get through, especially when you consider how powerful the first half had been.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 9, 2014 1:55:23 GMT -5
And I hope future critical comments on the 1960s are a little more cogent than: Gaggy was dumb. Gaggy was from the 1960s. Therefore, 1960s comics are dumb. Is that your conclusion of what I said? Jesus. I simply alluded to Batman comics of the 60s, which I'm not as fond of as other Batman material from the other decades (especially the one right after the 60s). I did say I like what Neal Adams bought to that table, far more than something like this from 1964. If the above is better than the New 52 Batman in your opinion, that is your choice, I'm free to have my own as well. I'd rather read Batman series from the 90s, like Shadow of the Bat, or 90s stories like Knightfall, than most 60s Batman fare, even though in overall weighting, the 90s ranks fairly low in terms of overall product. (Like my intense dislike for anything Rob Liefeld was involved in...and not to mention I despise McFarlane's Spidey). I have several hundred 60s books, they have their charm, but in terms of representing characters, I tend to prefer later material, punto finale. (The one exception to this is Archie, which I enjoy equally in every decade). I'm currently working on my 60s Daredevil run...as I want a complete run of the first 200 issues...or (maybe) you're dubious about that too? And I rank the Miller books as the best of that lot.... Never mind...next thread.... There were 4 shades of Batman in the 60s. Your example above was the Jack Schiff Batman that ran till 1964 which I was brought up on and despise.Then Julie Schwartz became the editor,threw out everything that was then related to Batman and turned it into a much more sophisticated detective oriented comic with Carmine Infantino joining up on the art.A world of difference that ran for 2 years until the Batman TV show became a hit.Now the comic began to adopt the campiness,the Holy Moroni stuff.This is when Gaggy appeared.But the TV show was making fun of the comics so now you have a comic making fun of a TV show making fun of a comic.Yikes.Nevertheless,you did get some good books now and then and Barbara Gordon Batgirl came out of it.Finally by late 1968 the TV show was gone and slowly Batman became sophisticated again with Neal Adams contributing,Robin going to college and Batman finding his roots.There's not many people in love with all 4 phases of 1960s Batman |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 9, 2014 2:47:57 GMT -5
Anyone else feel that Jack Schiff owned the comics community, and Batman fans in particular, a public apology?
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 9, 2014 3:08:38 GMT -5
Anyone else feel that Jack Schiff owned the comics community, and Batman fans in particular, a public apology? I promised Hoosier I'd behave regarding Jack Schiff, but I truly believe he stunted the intellectual growth of American children in the early 60s. And we're still paying the consequences.(But I'm sure he was a nice man.A nice man that Jack Schiff) |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 9, 2014 7:23:25 GMT -5
After I typed that I got the amusing image in my head of Jack Schiff being forced to give a press conference to apologize for his crimes against The Batman in an alternate reality where that would be big news.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 9, 2014 7:56:52 GMT -5
I'm actually going to defend Jack Schiff, even though his Batman material is the low point of the character's first fifty years. For starters, Schiff had been the editor on the Bat-titles since the late '40s, whch means he was responsible for some of the best Batman stories as well as most of the worst. Once the Comics Code was imposed, he and his writing staff were hamstrung. Suddenly murder mysteries and psychotic villains, the strip's bread and butter, were out. (It didn't help that sales on Batman and Detective were slipping year and year.) Something had to take their place and Schiff turned to his fellow editors to see what was working for them. From Weisinger he took the idea of building a family of characters around his lead - a dog, a female counterpart, an extradimensional trickster. From Schwartz he took the science fiction tropes that kept Mystery in Space and Space Adventures selling, even though neither he nor his writers were very good at them (his own "mystery" titles - House of Mystery, House of Secrets, My Greatest Adventure, Tales of the Unexpected - are vastly inferior to Julie's). The thing is, it worked! The appearance of Batwoman or Bat-Mite on a cover meant a sales spike. Finally, much of what we're blaming on Schiff is really the work of his assistant editors, George Kashdan and Murray Boltinoff. K&B served as the series' story editors, leaving Schiff to focus on what really mattered to him: the one-page public service ads that ran throughout the line and which reflected his own left-wing leanings.
Now I certainly don't expect this to change anyone's mind on the quality of Schiff's post-Code Bat-books (knowing this stuff hasn't changed mine, after all) but you now at least know the context in which they were created.
Cei-U!
I summon the bad rap!
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 10:13:43 GMT -5
Catman came out of the Jack Schiff era. "Prisoners of Three Worlds." "Robin Dies at Dawn."
I love all of it. That "anything can happen" vibe really appeals to me.
Modern comics are also full of silly stuff, but it's different silly stuff, and the creators take themselves so seriously. Some of it works but some of it makes very little sense.
Jack Schiff doesn't have anything to apologize for.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 10:17:11 GMT -5
I forgot to add: THE BATMAN CREATURE RULES!!!
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 10:32:12 GMT -5
I'd rather read Batman series from the 90s, like Shadow of the Bat, or 90s stories like Knightfall, than most 60s Batman fare, even though in overall weighting, the 90s ranks fairly low in terms of overall product. (Like my intense dislike for anything Rob Liefeld was involved in...and not to mention I despise McFarlane's Spidey). I have several hundred 60s books, they have their charm, but in terms of representing characters, I tend to prefer later material, punto finale. (The one exception to this is Archie, which I enjoy equally in every decade). I'm currently working on my 60s Daredevil run...as I want a complete run of the first 200 issues...or (maybe) you're dubious about that too? And I rank the Miller books as the best of that lot... Well, we can totally agree on Liefeld and McFarlane. And I ranked both Knightfall and Miller Daredevil fairly highly on the Top 100 storylines that shaxper put together a few months ago. I used to have the first 200 issues of Daredevil, that was a lot of fun to put together in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You could get a F-VF Daredevil #6 for $3 and most of the early 1970s books were 50 cents or 75 cents, in mint! (And I bought every issue of the Miller Daredevil brand new off a spinner rack.) I really love the first 50 issues (or so) of Daredevil. Especially that Wally Wood and Gene Colan art! And Mike Murdock is the best! I wish that had lasted for more than 15 issues. |
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Post by MDG on Jun 9, 2014 12:00:21 GMT -5
Anyone else feel that Jack Schiff owned the comics community, and Batman fans in particular, a public apology? So, am I the only one who met Jack Schiff? He did an Ithacon in the late 80s or early 90s. Bought a Detective from his collection (complete with COA). As far as my decade list: 1960s: Comfort food, as far as the DC stuff, plus first generation Marvel Kirby and Ditko, interesting humor stuff from Dell (Thirteen, Yak-Yak, Cookie), BK Tales of Mystery and Ripley's from Gold Key, fun Archies (incl. Madhouse and Bats)--just a huge assortment of stuff. I'm also a fan of DCs transition period from Silver to Bronze. 1980s: Probably when I was buying the most comics per month, though not many big 2. But quite the explosion of creativity for a while. 1950s: Not just ECs, but a lot of great art and odd and disturbing stories. 1940s: Again, an explosion of stuff--some crude. Wish I read more. 1970s: Eh... have a hard time going back to a lot of it. Everything seemed to ossify. 1990s on up: Haven't read much (besides following favorite indie creators.) |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 15:03:11 GMT -5
I wouldn't say an entire decade of comics wasn't good because I didn't like one title from one publisher that decade. I wouldn't even miss it. 60's aren't my favorite decade either, but there is so much more going on than just Batman.
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