Sprang Tributes?

My buddy Snard pointed out one in the chatroom the other day, from Detective #441:

This comes after the credit in Batman #238, so it's pretty obviously a recognition of Dick Sprang, the longtime (1943-1963) artist on Batman.

But then what do we make of this panel from Marvel, circa 1969:

Either of these would be early easter eggs, certainly. One is completely explicable; the other is completely out of the clear blue sky.

So I'm going to assume that the name Dick Sprang was well-known to comics aficionados before his first original credit, and that this actually, and surprisingly to me, is his first official Easter Egg Credit. I was blown away by the Detective #441 Easter Egg, and then I happened to be reading the Iron Man story for yesterday's post and blinked when I saw the sound effect there.

Update: I just realized the common element that seals the deal. Guess who wrote both stories? Archie Goodwin. So there you go; the first Dick Sprang tribute comes in Iron Man #14, written by Archie Goodwin, and the second in Detective #441, written by Archie Goodwin.

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End of the Fiction

For almost 30 years Bob Kane's little namebox had appeared in every issue as the principal artist on Batman, although it was an open secret at DC that a succession of then-unknown but talented artists like Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang and Sheldon Moldoff were actually doing most of the work.

But in the late 1960s, things changed. As the Batman TV series collapsed like all fads, the circulation for Batman dropped alarmingly. In Batman #200, DC reported average issue sales of 806,000 for that mag for the prior year. In Batman #210, DC reported average issue sales of 533,000, and by Batman #220, it was all the way down to 356,000.

Apparently sometime around 1968, DC finally bought out Bob Kane for good. At any rate, in Batman #203, a giant issue, Julius Schwartz announced that a new artist would be getting credit for the next issue of Batman:



Moldoff's last original Batman story appears to have been in Batman #199; of course he would appear many times in reprint issues. Chic Stone (another contractor for Kane) did the last few stories, including issue #200.

It took a long time before proper credit started showing up in Batman reprints. In this I don't entirely blame Julius Schwartz, the editor for Batman. It's one thing to know that Kane hadn't drawn all those stories; it's another to affirmatively state that someone else did. I have looked through quite a few reprint books from around then, including Batman #203, #208, #213, #218, #223, #228 and #233-238 (#234-237 featured one Batman reprint per issue in the 25 cent, 52-page format).

The first time an artist other than Kane is given credit in one of the reprint stories is in Batman #233. The opening story, The Death Cheaters of Gotham City, is (correctly) identified as the work of Jim Mooney. But the rest of the stories in that issue are all Moldoff, and none of them are tagged as such; it's just the usual Bob Kane box.

In Batman #234-235, Schwartz reprinted a pair of New Look tales which were obviously Infantino and were properly credited. In #236, he reprinted a 1940s Batman tale called While the City Sleeps, a Dick Sprang tale that is not credited.

Finally, in Batman #238, Dick Sprang's name was mentioned:



Note that the Kane namebox there is pretty blandly filled in (reportedly not by Sprang, who refused the chore); the stuff that Kane submitted as his own but was really done by Moldoff has a much more stylized look as you can see at the top of the post, with the "O" overlapping the two "B"s (not usually that dramatically) and the underlined KANE).

So Sprang gets his first mention in Batman, about 219 issues after he first appeared. However, at this point the crediting was still rudimentary. Batman #239 included a reprint of an early Christmas story that is clearly Jerry Robinson, but there are no credits other than the Kane box. Batman #240 has a New Look Batman story from #164 that is obviously penciled by Moldoff; it is credited to Kane/Giella.

So when did Moldoff get his first credit? I'm still looking for the answer to that one. After Batman #242, the magazine reverted to the normal 36-page format for a year with no reprints. Then from 254-262 the issues were 100-pagers with loads of reprints, but as far as I can see, no stories are credited to Moldoff. After that, reprints moved over to Batman Family; unfortunately my collection peters out around then as well.

Update: See also this post of Bill Jourdain's for the first writing credit to Bill Finger, the scripter of most Batman stories prior to 1964.

Update II: This article on Batmania (the Batman fanzine of the 1960s) contains some tantalizing details:

Jerry [Bails] detailed how Bob Kane had hired the unassuming Finger to write his (Kane's) feature "Rusty and His Pals" and then "Batman." With Batman's success, Bill soon began working directly for DC, co-creating such famous strips as "Green Lantern" and "Wildcat." He was noted for his ability to "adapt the freewheeling style of the pulps to the four-color panels, and break down the action of a Douglas Fairbanks-type adventurer into a panel-by-panel description for the artist."

The K-a article was probably the first anywhere to publicly state that "Bill is the man who first put words in the mouth of the Guardian of Gotham." By Finger's account, Jerry went on, "The cowl and cape, the utility belt and gauntlet, were all Bill's contribution to the dialogue that gave rise to the final form of Batman's famous costume"-along with the Joker and "all the other principals and supporting characters of the early strip: Robin, of course, but also Commissioner Gordon (who appeared in the first Batman story), Alfred, the Penguin, and the Catwoman, as well as the many unusual and sympathetic characters that made the early Batman so popular."

Update III: Jerry Robinson gets a credit in Batman #255:



Update IV: Commenter Lee notes that he read all the Batman books in the 1970s and that Moldoff's name never came up. He suggests that the book, The Greatest Batman Stories ever told (published in 1988) is probably where Shelly got his first credit for the Caped Crusader:



Note the credit at the bottom of the page, just underneath the artwork. I don't know if this is really the first mention of Moldoff, but at least it's a place we can try to walk backwards from.

Update IV: Check out this post of mine to learn where the first Easter Egg with Sprang was located.

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Single Issue Review: World's Finest #135

Cover Art by Dillin/Moldoff.

World's Finest #135 features the last appearance during the Silver Age of a new Dick Sprang story. There is some indication that this story may have been inventoried for awhile; if you look at the number of stories Sprang had published by year in the late 1950s/early 1960s, it sure looks like it:

1956: 16
1957: 15
1958: 13
1959: 14
1960: 11
1961: 1
1962: 2
1963: 2

The irony is amusing. Early in his career, Sprang's work had reportedly been inventoried by DC as a hedge against the potential that DC's regular Batman artists, including Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, might be drafted into the military for World War II. Now late in his (comics) career it was released in dribbles, apparently to keep the hope alive that he was still working for DC.

The story opens with Batman and Robin investigating a report of a strange-looking man digging in a farmer's field. They arrive as he excavates a small chunk of Green Kryptonite. When they confront him, he shoots them with a repulsing weapon and escapes on a flying platform.

Batman chases after him in his Whirly-Bat, instructing Robin to contact Superman.



Interesting; I had always known that Batman and Superman knew each other's identities, but not that Robin knew about Clark Kent.

Batman follows the Future Man's trail back to a cave where he discovers a time machine with a then-current date (June 8, 1963) and a notebook which mentions New Gotham City in 2084 and ancient Norseland in 522. Robin relays the message that Superman and he have found the Future Man at the local "Boy Ranger Museum". He has created Kryptonite bullets with which to stop the Man of Steel. Seeing Batman approaching on his Whirly-Bat, he forces the Caped Crusader to execute a daring maneuver:



Is this the finest moment ever in Whirly-Bat history? I'll leave that one to the experts, but it's surely high on the list.

The Future Man escapes and when Superman, Batman and Robin chase him to the cave, they discover the time machine vanishing. Has he gone into the future, or into the past? Superman will cover the former, while Batman and Robin go back to Norseland.

This of course means another appearance for Dr. Carter Nichols, a longtime Batman family member who was about to disappear as well. I don't think this was his final appearance but the clock was definitely ticking. He sends Batman and Robin back through time. Unfortunately, the Future Man has gotten there first and convinces the villagers that Batman and Robin are here to assassinate the local chieftain.

They are knocked unconscious and transported to learn their fate from the chieftain who turns out to be a surprise:



This is one of several "Thor" appearances in DC comics, and I would guess one of the last. It turns out that the Future Man's objective was to steal Thor's hammer, which he does and vanishes back to the present, with Batman and Robin in pursuit.

Meanwhile, Superman has gone into the future, where he initially faces charges for imitating the great hero of the past, but he quickly proves he's indeed the Man of Steel:



He recognizes the Science Minister as the Future Man, but later discovers it's actually his twin brother. The Future Man's minions capture Superman with the Kryptonite and tie it to him with ropes. We learn that the Hammer of Thor interacts with Kryptonite to cause amazing effects, hence the cover image, which scene appears next in the story.

We shift to the future, where the Future Man's henchmen greet his arrival from the present. Rak disintegrates the Kryptonite holding Superman down, apparently in preparation for destroying the Man of Steel himself. But it's a ruse, as Batman and Robin have defeated Rak already (using robots for the cover sequence), and with Superman free they quickly make short work of Rak's henchmen.

If we look at this story for keys as to when it could have been created, it immediately becomes obvious that it is after Detective #257 (July 1958) as this story features extensive use of the Whirly-Bats, which first appeared in that issue. There are plenty of other clues, however.

Superman is show as using his heat vision, not the heat of his x-ray vision. I am not sure of the exact date and issue that switchover was made, but I'm pretty sure it was around 1960.

The Thor appearance is a surprise. Marvel's Thor made his first appearance in August 1962 and he appeared on every cover of Journey into Mystery thereafter. That strikes me as a strong indication that this story must have been written before that. DC did have another Batman/Thor story before that in Batman #127 (1959), but with the heat vision aspect we're already after that.

I don't buy the date shown in the time machine of June 8, 1963. That's about when the comic went on sale (actually June 13, according to the DC Indexes).

There is one more aspect of the story that I have to comment on, and that is the tributes. This does certainly seem to be a swan song for Sprang, and Alfred/Rex and Commissioner Gordon are shoehorned into the story via a silly subplot about Batman's secret identity:



Alfred gets a line, the commissioner just gets to hold his head:



I tend to think that's intentional; if the Future Man really had Bruce's secret identity (and he did), then why would he contact Batman at police headquarters? Why not send him a message at Wayne Manor? The only answer is to give Sprang a chance to draw Gordon one last time. Bill Finger is credited with the script; did he know this was Sprang's last issue?

Comments: Nice story, excellent art as usual (but never again in the Silver Age) by Sprang.

There is a text story; World's Finest was one of the last superhero titles at DC to get a letters column. This one starts talking about frogmen of history, then switches to a discussion of the aquatic spider, then segues into modern skin (scuba) diving.

The second story is The Creatures that Conquered Aquaman. This one requires a small amount of intro. Jack Schiff had inherited the Aquaman strip from Adventure Comics. Initially he put Aquaman into Detective comics, but that only lasted for seven issues before he shipped it over to World's Finest. Initially both Aquaman and Green Arrow shared duties as backup features but effective with #134 they began alternating issues with slightly longer stories. This only lasted until #140; with the next issue Weisinger took over editorship of the mag and put a reprint story in the backup role. I have previously expressed bafflement at these decisions, especially since Aquaman had already gotten his own magazine by then. But in retrospect it seems obvious that although Aquaman had landed a new home, there was no room for the old Aquaman creative team of Jack Miller and Ramona Fradon over there.

This story is a rather pedestrian "Aliens from another dimension come to loot ours." They have these headbands that give them super-powers (mostly beams from their hands and eyes). Aquaman's finny friends help him out:



Comments: A mediocre story that feels padded even though it's only ten pages long. I've always like Fradon's art.

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Single Issue Review: Batman #93

While working on the Dick Sprang tribute post yesterday, I noticed this August 1955 issue and thought it would be fun to review as it has three very different tales that have one marvelous thing in common. They were all drawn by Mr Sprang, making this one of only three all-Sprang issues published by DC in the Silver Age.

Early on, Sprang's style was so different from the other Batman artists (primarily Jerry Robinson) that it was quite common to see an all-Sprang issue followed by an all-Robinson. In fact, Sprang did every story in Batman #s 19, 21, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30, 32, 40 and 46. After that there were only one or two Sprang stories per issue, so this one was a real treat.

What were the other two all-Sprang comics that DC published in the Silver Age? I'll let you folks ponder that for awhile and append my answer in a day or two. Update: The other two "wall-to-wall" Sprang issues published by DC were Superman #123 (a Supergirl tryout issue), and World's Finest #161 (a reprint 80-pager which has the distinction of having the most pages of any comic ever drawn by Sprang).

The issue starts with Journey to the Top of the World. A plane has crashed in the Himalayas. It jettisoned a cylinder carrying microfilm with the names of several major international criminals. Can Batman and Robin retrieve the cylinder before the crooks do?

This story is obviously inspired by the ascent of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay two years earlier, and is heavily focused on mountaineering.

After being summoned to FBI headquarters by J. Edgar himself, Batman and Robin become part of a team already intending to ascend K-4, which is described by Robin nervously as "The world's most unclimbable peak! T-the place where the mystery snow creature of legend is supposed to live!"

That this will be a "Whodunnit" is pretty clear when we get this panel:



Plot problem, here. If Batman and Robin were given the assignment, isn't the FBI going to notice that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson did the job and make the obvious connection?

The story is filled with little bits of information about mountains and mountain climbing. We learn that a couloire is a steep gully on a mountain, and that a bergschrund is the crevasse at the head of a glacier.

Some of the climbers go off in pursuit of the "snow creature", leaving it to Dick and Bruce to pursue the summit, with a killer after them. Robin saves Batman's life on two occasions:


And in the end they retrieve the cylinder while the villain falls from a cliff and dies (leaving nobody to ask questions about how Batman and Robin were on the mountain).

Comments: An exciting story with a dramatic backdrop. As always, Sprang makes you feel like you are there.

The second story is very much off-beat, as you can pretty quickly gather from the splash:



Heheh. For some reason, Bruce was encountering a whole slew of relatives around this time: Aunt Agatha, Cousin Bruce N. Wayne, Great Uncle Silas Wayne, and in this story, Cousin Jane. Her husband is ill in the tropics and obviously she can't bring Junior so can she leave the baby with him, thanks, bye!

Well, no sooner said than Junior launches into a bawling jag. How can they shut him up? They're out of milk so they go in search of a milkman, but unfortunately he's made his final delivery for the day. And the stores are closed, so:



Batman milking a cow? Alfred suddenly the funny Alfred of the mid-1940s? And a secret identity crisis, all on one page? Wonderful, wonderful stuff!

Batman and Robin manage to defeat some crooks in a helicopter, but:



They manage to calm him down with a top, and in order to keep Alfred from resigning Bruce makes a deal:



Batman winds up the case alone and in the end, the secret identity crisis is averted by Dick's quick thinking:



This one is clearly played for grins and it delivers. As a change of pace from the usual Batman story it gets high marks, and Sprang's artwork is note-perfect. Check out the expressions on the faces of all the characters in that last set of panels.

The final story is The Caveman Batman. An archaeologist working for the Gotham Museum (where Bruce is a trustee), uncovers an ancient painting of cavemen running from a Tyrannosaurus Rex. But T-Rex died out well before the cavemen, so the painting is deemed a hoax and the archaeologist's reputation is ruined. Bruce and Dick decide to go back in time to the caveman era to find out the truth.

After changing into their costumes, they encounter a man dressed in a sabre-tooth tiger outfit, who discloses that he's fighting against the evil caveman Borr. Rog is the prehistoric equivalent of Batman! They give him some pointers:



Rog reveals that Borr has a T-Rex with which he terrorizes the villagers. It turns out that the dinosaur is frozen in a block of ice. In a desperate gamble to free Robin from Borr's clutches, Batman melts the ice with a fire, and the creature comes to life:



Thus proving that the discovered painting was legitimate. As added evidence, Bruce and Dick point the archaeologist to a companion drawing of the T-Rex frozen in the ice. And the story closes with a final mention of the significance of Tiger Man:



Note: This is the earliest appearance of Batman in Earth's chronology.

Overall this issue is terrific with superior art and stories. Although the Silver Age of Batman was not in general his finest hour, this was an exceptional comic.

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A Tribute to Dick Sprang

Dick Sprang was a longtime Batman artist, starting in the early 1940s and ending (except for a few special appearances) in the early 1960s. Sprang was the master of perspective, and some of his best work featured overhead oblique views of large areas. Here's a crowd getting a view of the trophies of Batman and Superman from World's Finest #86:


A similar overview of Mechanical City from Batman #114:



In a story from WF #87, Superman has lost his powers, while Batman, Robin and a crook named Eldon Craig have gained them. Look at the camera angles Sprang chooses for the first three panels:

They are carefully selected to show maximum action against an immense backdrop. Note that due to the scale, some of the characters are just blobs of ink. This is a signature of Sprang's work, something that appears in almost every story he drew. The guy could draw the details when required, but he also knew when to step back and show the action.

Check out this amazing little panel from Detective #229:

Is that beautiful or what? And check out this panel from WF #92, as Superman encounters Skyboy:

Another Sprang specialty is to reverse the camera angle from one panel to the next; this gives greater flow to the page as you can see in these two consecutive examples:

Noted for the realism of his historical objects, Sprang drew the lion's share of the Professor Carter Nichols stories in Batman comics.




Update: See also Bill Jourdain's post on the Secrets of the Batcave lithograph. I have the second Sprang litho, entitled Guardians of Gotham, hanging on my wall. They are beautiful pieces, an essential for any Batfan.

Update II: I had to add this sequence, even though it's from the Golden Age:



That last panel is breathtaking.

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