Golden Age Goofiness in the Batman Newspaper Strip - a Review

Batman: The Dailies 1944-1945
Chapter IX - "Their Toughest Assignment" (July 9, 1945-September 1, 1945)
Al Schwartz-Bob Kane/Charles Paris

I am happy to have these fine Kitchen Sink editions of the Golden Age Batman newspaper strips; I'd like to complete the set with the Sundays volume. Like the Bronze Age Spider-Man strips, these are little time capsules that seem all the more important given the decline of the American newspaper. As books, newspapers, and comics move slowly toward all-digital, it makes one wonder if the newspaper strips will do likewise.

I chose today's review material on the strength of one image - a beautiful young lady shown in the August 17-18 strips. A quick leafing through showed there was no known bad guy; however - if you want to see my review of a Joker strip from this era, please click here. The story we're going to examine ran for almost 50 weekdays - 50 strips! If you figure each day was 3-4 panels of story and art, this would approximate the length of a Golden Age feature (24 pages give or take). But as I remarked in the Spidey review a few months ago, the newspaper format does require a fair amount of recapping on a daily basis. Often the first panel at least contains dialogue hearkening to the previous day's doings. The coordination to tell a serialized story is impressive.

How about if we inspect a brief synopsis of this yarn, with a 100-Word Review?

Answering a Bat Signal from Commissioner Gordon, the Dynamic Duo bound into police headquarters. But Gordon says there is no crime, no bad guy on the loose… yet he has a case no one in Gotham can solve. In the midst of a housing shortage, a major benefactor of the Police Emergency Fund has called in a favor: find his niece an apartment. Our heroes hit the streets as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, with Alfred assisting, too. Failing, the boys shift gears and see what their alter egos can drum up. The entire strip is farcical, and often played for laughs - never moreso than in the concluding panel!

I read this once to see if it was review-worthy (it is). The second reading, ahead of this writing, was just as good. Speaking of...

The Good: Bob Kane takes a lot of heat - justifiably so - for hogging a whole bunch of attention and accolades for his Batman career. Kane was often ghost-written and ghost-penciled, and his name remained on the strip for literally decades with no other writers or artists receiving credit. Thank goodness for comic book historians who have shined the light on Bob Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, among many others. So while that's obviously a negative sentiment, I do want to heap some praise on Kane's work in this story. Man, it's solid. Charles Paris offers some wonderful inking throughout, but Kane's figure work, pacing, etc. are top shelf. I really had a ton of fun just looking at the pictures during both of my readings. I especially liked how chunky the Batmobile was drawn. So fun. Weird, though, to see our heroes drive it out of a garage door instead of the more familiar Batcave.

I said near the top that there was no bad buy in the story. Actually, there were quite a few, but no headliner any of us would recognize. All the baddies were foils for the plot; Kane did a wonderful job of imbuing them with caricatured appearances that would do Chester Gould proud. The action was plentiful - even for a story about apartment hunting! The damsel in distress actually caused a bit of the distress, so that was a nifty turn of events.

Overall, scribe Al Schwartz was solid in the dialogue department, seemingly having everyone's voice as we'd expect. I'm not familiar with Schwartz; perhaps I should be. Schwartz splits the writing with Jack Schiff in this particular volume.

The Bad: Child endangerment. Seriously - Robin lets himself get pistol-whipped so Batman can pull off the key event in the ending plot of the tale. Cracked right across the noggin. And Batman's like "Attaboy!" C'mon...

Alfred had some odd speech patterns. I tried to hear his voice a few different ways in my head, but remain unclear what accent Schwartz was attempting to play. I did enjoy, however, that Alfred was involved in the plot. He showed his ingenuity and contributed some key ideas.

As with any story from the Golden Age, there can be some story elements or images that give one pause. Our heroes attempt to obtain an apartment from a couple rumored to be divorcing. In the pages immediately succeeding page 136 (above), the Dynamic Duo come upon a scene where the wife has a gun to her head while her husband watches. It's played for light-heartedness, but let's face it - these days suicide and domestic squabbling are no laughing matter.  

The Gotham City PD qualifies as the worst department in the country. Those guys solve cases like Imperial Stormtroopers hit rebels - just about never!

The Ugly: Nothing to see here!

If you've not tried these strips, or any of the plethora of newspaper strips in reprinted collections, I'd urge you to take the leap. They are wonderful little pieces of history that commemorate both newspapers and the comic subjects of bygone eras. Lots of fun!

Spider-Man Newspaper Strips: Kraven the Hunter - a Review

Spider-Man Newspaper Strips, volume 1 (2009)
"Kraven the Hunter", October 31, 1977-December 25, 1977
Stan Lee-John Romita

Raise your hand if, back when you were a Bronze Age Baby, you peddled your bike to the local gas station or convenience store to pick up the daily paper that carried the Spidey newspaper strip. Yup - me, too! For me, it was around a 6-block ride to the Convenient Food Mart on Main Street. They sold the Chicago Tribune, and once Stan Lee had told me in the Bullpen Bulletins that the strip was starting, I started saving my pennies! I didn't get there everyday, but man - did I make the effort! I'm sure I clipped-and-saved, but darned if I know whatever happened to those strips. I also recall being somewhat disappointed that some of the arcs did not include the rogues gallery I'd come to know and love from the comics. If you don't have access to the strips, the first storyline featured Dr. Doom. I'm certain I don't recall that at all. I do, however remember an extended run that featured the Kingpin. But all that aside, today we're looking in on Kraven the Hunter! And a BWBC thank you/acknowledgement to Matt from the Not a Hoax/Not a Dream blog for his scanning (stolen and presented today) and to Al Bigley for the color Sunday strips (also stolen and presented today). Just so you think I'm not a total loser, I've also included some of my own photographs from the strips. There...

Let's roll, in the Mighty BWBC Manner!

100-Word Review:

Mary Jane Watson and Flash Thompson are on a working vacation in Florida, where they take in the animal act of Kraven the Hunter. Back in Manhattan, J. Jonah Jameson and city editor Joe Robertson debate sending Peter Parker to cover Kraven. But Jonah has an epiphany - if Kraven is the world’s greatest hunter, then why couldn’t he hunt a Spider? Robbie protests, and walks out the Daily Bugle’s door. Jonah hires Kraven anyway - and brings him to New York, and fisticuffs between he and our wallcrawling friend ensue. But… will Jonah sabotage Kraven’s victory?

The Good: What's better than a Stan Lee/John Romita collaboration on our favorite Web-spinner? Not much, unless you wanted to look for some Lee/Jack Kirby Fantastic Four stories? Let me warn you ahead of time: I'm going to contradict myself in the next section. But for now, I want to say that if the goal of the various Marvel (and DC, too) newspaper strips was to introduce our heroes to a wider audience, then this should be considered a success. All the elements you'd expect from a Spidey story are here - his supporting cast, Peter's "lovable loser" persona, an over-the-top villain with ego-stroking as his sole motivation, and so on. This story was a warm blanket on a cold day (which, as I'm writing this on 1/31/19, the outside temp is 5 degrees below 0).

You can argue with me if you like (you'll lose), but the characters in the Amazing Spider-Man universe are the best across all comics. I'll further posit that J. Jonah Jameson may be the best villain - super-powered or otherwise - in comics. He's a foil, an antagonist, a plotter & schemer, and a perpetual pain-in-the-butt. He doesn't have to wait 12-14 issues to reappear, because he's always there! And his presence is certainly felt on both ends of these shenanigans, from setting it up to bringing down the curtain... it's JJJ, all the way!

How good is John Romita? Really good. What a wonderful illustrator. Some would say that he doesn't take a lot of chances, that his style is very clean. For me, that's what I like about it. I've heard some say that once Kirby left Marvel, John Buscema sort of became the caretaker of the "house style". I can see that. But running through the Silver and Bronze Ages was the watchful eye of Romita. His steadiness in providing promotional art, book covers, calendar pages, etc. put the Marvel pantheon of characters in a nice, neat box. I appreciate him for that.

And Stan Lee? I like his Spider-Man writing perhaps best of all. I'd have to fist fight myself to see if I really enjoyed his Fantastic Four more, but those two books would be out in front with a gap to third place. I guarantee I like this stuff better than Lee's Silver Surfer, which can really wear on a man's patience if too many issues are read in close proximity. Hoo-boy... But here all of the voices just sound "right". And I love it.

The Bad: A little over six years ago, I reviewed this hardcover on the BAB. You can read my thoughts on the structure of the book itself, the layout and design, and also on the first story arc (again, featuring Dr. Doom). Let's just say the book, as a book, doesn't get high marks. I'll also add here that the reproductions of the strips seem uneven throughout the book. At times, it looks like they were able to shoot from the original art; in other places it appears that photocopies were used as the "original" imagery. However they did it, without color, the choppy lines are more noticeable.

I'm going to say something that I feel a little badly about writing. However, when you have some history in the rearview mirror with these characters, there's a sense of been-there, done-that. That's what I got when I read today's featured tale. As a peruser of many a Spidey comic over the past 45+ years, I hate to say I've seen it all, but hey - there just wasn't much new here. We had Peter's angst, Aunt May's ailments, Jonah's bluster, Kraven's megalomania, MJ's restlessness - it was all here. Now on one hand, you can argue that it's like comfort food. I can get on board with that. But if you're looking for anything that sets this story apart, you'll find yourself dissatisfied.

The Ugly: Zilch.

 

Please leave me a comment, whether it be on this story, the Spidey strips in general, or even other newspaper strips of the superhero (or Conan the Barbarian, too) variety. I have three trades that reprint the Batman strips from the Golden Age and hope to get to those at some point. I'd love to hear about your experiences with other strips. Thanks in advance!