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Post by rberman on Feb 16, 2020 21:33:18 GMT -5
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 16, 2020 21:42:49 GMT -5
I very much doubt that Batman and Detective were on the verge of cancellation in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It's not hard to find some of the sales numbers for Batman and Detective in that era, and both comics are in the Top Ten or close to it most of the time for the years that are available. Up at the top for those years are Action and Superman and Superboy with titles like Adventure and Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Yes, you can find comic book professionals talking about how bad Batman was doing, but I find it much easier to believe that they were exaggerating for whatever reason and that comic book fandom has exaggerated those exaggerations A LOT for a "flailing Batman" narrative that doesn't really make any sense or fit the facts that are available. I first heard the "Batman was on the verge of cancellation" bit from either a Bob Kane interview or his autobiography. Either way, because it came from Kane and because I would have been too young to know any better, I bought into this myth. Still, despite the fact that one should take anything Kane said about Batman with a grain of salt, you nevertheless have to wonder what he got out of claiming that "his" creation was nearing cancellation - I mean, it certainly doesn't sound like something he would brag about. A really good theory (not mine, but it makes the best possible sense to me) is that around 1964 or so, Kane's contract was up for/nearing renewal with DC. For this reason, DC told him that sales were down on Batman so as to secure a better deal. Kane bought the story and simply repeated what he had been told without realizing that he had been lied to. One only has to ask why William Dozier would be interested in doing a TV series and film on a character who simply wasn't selling to spot one of the larger holes in this claim. Your sales figures showing that Batman was second only to the Superman titles in sales and ahead of both Justice League and The Flash (which I guess, were also on the verge of cancellation) and Detective (the 16th best selling title of 1962 and ahead of most Archie comics, Green Lantern, and everything Marvel was putting out) is also enough to convince me. Given the sale figures on Batman these days however, maybe DC should bring Bat-Mite back... Part of me kind of wants to believe that the reappearance he made in Detective 482 (cited by Beccabear) when DC was genuinely thinking about cancelling the title was an attempt to do just that. 1964's "We need to boost sales! Get rid of Bat-Mite!" becomes 1977/78's "We need to boost sales! Bring him back!"
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 16, 2020 22:32:21 GMT -5
I very much doubt that Batman and Detective were on the verge of cancellation in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It's not hard to find some of the sales numbers for Batman and Detective in that era, and both comics are in the Top Ten or close to it most of the time for the years that are available. Up at the top for those years are Action and Superman and Superboy with titles like Adventure and Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Yes, you can find comic book professionals talking about how bad Batman was doing, but I find it much easier to believe that they were exaggerating for whatever reason and that comic book fandom has exaggerated those exaggerations A LOT for a "flailing Batman" narrative that doesn't really make any sense or fit the facts that are available. I first heard the "Batman was on the verge of cancellation" bit from either a Bob Kane interview or his autobiography. Either way, because it came from Kane and because I would have been too young to know any better, I bought into this myth. Still, despite the fact that one should take anything Kane said about Batman with a grain of salt, you nevertheless have to wonder what he got out of claiming that "his" creation was nearing cancellation - I mean, it certainly doesn't sound like something he would brag about. A really good theory (not mine, but it makes the best possible sense to me) is that around 1964 or so, Kane's contract was up for/nearing renewal with DC. For this reason, DC told him that sales were down on Batman so as to secure a better deal. Kane bought the story and simply repeated what he had been told without realizing that he had been lied to. One only has to ask why William Dozier would be interested in doing a TV series and film on a character who simply wasn't selling to spot one of the larger holes in this claim. Your sales figures showing that Batman was second only to the Superman titles in sales and ahead of both Justice League and The Flash (which I guess, were also on the verge of cancellation) and Detective (the 16th best selling title of 1962 and ahead of most Archie comics, Green Lantern, and everything Marvel was putting out) is also enough to convince me. Given the sale figures on Batman these days however, maybe DC should bring Bat-Mite back... Part of me kind of wants to believe that the reappearance he made in Detective 482 (cited by Beccabear) when DC was genuinely thinking about cancelling the title was an attempt to do just that. 1964's "We need to boost sales! Get rid of Bat-Mite!" becomes 1977/78's "We need to boost sales! Bring him back!" --from The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino: "Saved" and "coming back" meant the title was in trouble. Infantino was never like some comic creators who made more out of their work/contribution than it deserved, and had no reason to spin a tale--one shared by others. I cannot imagine Batman surviving to 1970 if by that time, it was still in the state it was in 1960.
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 16, 2020 23:35:22 GMT -5
--from The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino: "Saved" and "coming back" meant the title was in trouble. Infantino was never like some comic creators who made more out of their work/contribution than it deserved, and had no reason to spin a tale--one shared by others. I cannot imagine Batman surviving to 1970 if by that time, it was still in the state it was in 1960. Regardless of Infantino's recollections, the figures from 1962 compared with 1965 simply aren't significantly different - Batman is selling 453,745 in 1965 compared with 410,000 in 1962; Detective is selling 304,000 in 1965 and 265,000 in 1962. An improvement yes, but still keeping in line with the improvement seen by other titles from that period - Superman 1962 = 740,000 vs. 823,000 in 1965 is roughly a ten percent increase which matches Batman's ten percent increase over the same period of time (and Action Comics improved at about the same rate as Detective). The Flash in 1965 also saw a roughly ten percent increase in sales over the same period and like the Superman titles did not get an overhaul the way the Batman titles did. In other words, it looks like comics were just simply selling better overall regardless of whether they were being drastically changed (a la Batman) or not (a la Superman and Flash). Of course, without knowing the sales figures for 1963 and 1964, it's impossible to say for sure how Batman/ Tec was doing during those two years, but "saved the character"? No. And while I'm not arguing that in 1970, the Batman titles should still resemble their 1960 counterpart, as for 1960 sales figures vs. 1970? 502,000 in 1960 vs. 293,000 in 1970.
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 17, 2020 0:52:53 GMT -5
I'm not real clear on why Carmine Infantino is someone we can trust not to exaggerate his role in "saving" Batman. Especially since his statement isn't supported by the numbers we have.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 17, 2020 9:21:45 GMT -5
I'm not real clear on why Carmine Infantino is someone we can trust not to exaggerate his role in "saving" Batman. Especially since his statement isn't supported by the numbers we have. Because he had one of the most solid reptutations of the medium's talents (through its entire history) in other words, he was not the self-promoter like Kane (and some "man" over at Marvel) and his insider experience (which holds more weight than any outside source) has been shared by others who were at DC during the period in question. In fact, the only DC talent who never acknowledged how Batman was on shaky ground / was turned around by greater artists in '64 was Kane, and considering it was his one claim to fame, he would not, and that speaks volumes about why he would not say much.
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Post by Cei-U! on Feb 17, 2020 9:49:23 GMT -5
I'm not real clear on why Carmine Infantino is someone we can trust not to exaggerate his role in "saving" Batman. Especially since his statement isn't supported by the numbers we have. Because he had one of the most solid reptutations of the medium's talents (through its entire history) in other words, he was not the self-promoter like Kane (amd some "man" over at Marvel) and his insider experience (which holds more weight than any outside source) has been shared by others who were at DC during the period in question. In fact, the only DC talent who never acknowledged how Batman was on shaky ground was Kane, and considering it was his one claim to fame, he would not, and that speaks volumes. You're mistaken on two counts. In the last years of his life, Infantino became notorious for claiming in interviews that he created a number of series he otherwise had nothing to do with, including Bat Lash, The Hawk and the Dove, and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head. He also claimed that the Silver Age Flash was based on a proposal he'd put together for a strip called Captain Whiz, which had included the costume, the ring he stored it in, and several of he villains we know as the Rogues' Gallery. Both Julius Schwartz and Robert Kanigher dismissed this claim as pure fantasy, and Infantino could not or would not provide proof. Nor was Kane the only DCer to state that the Bat-titles were hurting sales-wise. Schwartz has always said that he was asked to trade his beloved sci-fi titles, Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space, to Jack Schiff for Detective and Batman with orders to update the Caped Crusader the way he had Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, etc., in an effort to boost sales, especially for Detective.
Also, you should be cautious about quoting sales figures as cited in the Statement of Ownership. Many staffers, at DC and elsewhere, have said that these numbers were frequently inflated to encourage advertisers that a book was worth the price of ad space. There was no independent verification of these numbers and should not be considered reliable.
Cei-U! I summon the counterpoints!
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 17, 2020 13:14:15 GMT -5
You're mistaken on two counts. In the last years of his life, Infantino became notorious for claiming in interviews that he created a number of series he otherwise had nothing to do with Which has nothing to do with a quote mirroring the same he had repeatedly said in the decades before that book's publication, matching that of other DC creatives who were there when Batman comics were having troubles. I did not say Kane said the sales were hurting. Just the opposite: Kane would not say they hurting, due to his "ownership" of his claim to fame, and fractured ego when the New Look talents completely revitalized Batman for a new era. All Kane did in that era is pimp himself as some master artist, especially when associating himself with the 20th Century Fox TV series two years later/forward. I was not the one quoting that. I believe Hoosier X did that, and I agree; unless one has a few independent, verifiable sources for sales that generally match up, the SoO figures should not be taken as hard evidence.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 17, 2020 13:35:18 GMT -5
I talked briefly with Denny O'Neil circa the mid-'80s about that run of comics. He was sort of defending G.I.Joe comics with the tv interview I watched from the side and as it turned out was on his way out the Marvel door and into the DC door. Anyway, I thought he expressed some thoughts of the combination of superheroes and realistic or torn-from-the-headlines stories ('important' superhero comics?) by explaining that he was young and genuinely concerned, hoped to reach young readers while conceding my positing that maybe it was a bad influence on some comics that came after (this is during the death sales gimmicks of heroines as Dark Knight and Watchmen were the new things). I guess he might've meant that the other writers weren't up to it, and/or that he himself was better 'now' as a writer. He was right: post early 70s O'Neil, many writers tried their hand at sociopolitical stories and deaths, but many were seen as misguided or gimmicky. Obviously, deaths like that seen in The Amazing Spider-Man #121-122 were potent and served the stories that built up to and followed it, but that kind of mature, dramatic story was not common. The difference there is that the Adams/O'Neil GL/GA run was not only a success according to O'Neil himself (see the quote), but as pointed out earlier, no company quickly reprints "unsuccessful" or "failed" comics as novels right as the monthly series was being published; in fact, the second novel was released one month after the original series' temporary end. What other "unsuccessful" series had an ancillary market collection published in the same era? However, to an audience who was increasingly aware that TV sitcom family lives were hardly real, they expected their entertainment to reflect that, which is why "Daddy Batman" of the 50s/early 60s was fine as reprints, but in no way was that stiff, smiling character going to appear relevant as the contemporary Batman to younger generations bridging, then leaving the 1960s.
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Post by beccabear67 on Feb 18, 2020 15:22:10 GMT -5
"Daddy Batman" of the 50s/early 60s was fine as reprints, but in no way was that stiff, smiling character going to appear relevant as the contemporary Batman to younger generations bridging, then leaving the 1960s. The initial Batman was a costumed detective, not entirely against necessary violence let's say, so I liked any kind if return to that character... the old '40s film serial with that cave opening versus the jokey '60s tv series (which as a little kid was really cool however). I did see the '70s tv cartoons in passing with that screeching voiced jokey Bat-mite and did not watch it whereas I would sit through the earlier Batman cartoons (though I liked that Aquaman one best). The Frank Miller future version was kind of an underground Spain Rodriguez' Trashman variation and unfortunately became thee official rasping fetish gear only Batman as of 'Year One', bleh (especially when the muscles got cartoony bizarre size). I'm not sure if going back to the hard-boiled detective costumed adventurer 'The Batman' was meant as 'adult' or not, it was definitely far better than the dead-end it was on before. I wish Steve Englehart had've stayed longer, as nobody really developed the Silver St. Cloud relationship that I ever saw which was shades of McMillan & Wife, The Thin Man, or even The Bob Newhart Show to me, so actually 'adult' in a way Lois Lane and Clark Kent never seemed. Green Arrow was kind of a plot-device in a way, but at least the plots he launched into were different... but his character kind of devolved in other hands to just the argumentative progressive guy with GL being the establishment guy looking impotent despite the powerful ring. I thought Arrow with Black Canary was an interesting modern couple for comics though, that stayed which was good, rarely would you see one without the other. If I had to choose between big foot red nose ha-ha type comics or something hard-boiled pretending to realism I'd go for the latter, but you can have both, just not with the same characters. It's hard seeing some of the overly cartoonish later Marvel/DC comics with Japanese manga exaggerated faces one panel and realistic the next, maybe because they are established characters in an established imaginary world who just never did that and then suddenly do. The contrast is too much for it to carry, just like everyone having Hulk-sized muscles and the Hulk having to be even more grotesquely sized... too much weight. A scowl here, a smirk there, but not grim brooding nihilism to the psychotic degree and wakka-wakka-wakka honk! Can more subtle comics get attention? If all GL-GA led to was "This historic collector's issue: see Captain America get AIDS", or if all Gwen Stacy's death led to is every single female character in comics getting killed on the cover of an invest-in-a-case-of-a-hundred-issues treadmill, it's not the same as the ground-breakers at all.
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Post by tonebone on Sept 18, 2020 14:01:55 GMT -5
Harley Quinn (post-the animated series) should be on the list. Annoying and over exposed.
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Post by benzoe on Sept 23, 2020 12:43:38 GMT -5
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