Happy New Year: Batman: "Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot...""

The Batman Adventure Holiday Special (cover by Bruce Timm) was a one shot 64 page special published in December 1994 (cover dated January 1995). It features a delightful collection of 5 holiday themed short stories showcasing the work of some of the most talented artists and writers on the animated series including Bruce Timm, Dan Riba, Paul Dini and Ronnie Del Cameron. The strip below “ Should old Acquaintance be forgot” by Paul Dini and Dan Riba finishes this excellent comic collection and is a nice New Year’s type tale to round of this blog for 2023. hghfgh

As we say in Scotland at this time of year "Lang may yer lum reek!" (ok we only really say that to tourist - it means may you have enough coal to heat your home etc) and all the best for 2023. Have a great Hogmanay (31 December) and Ne'erday (1 Janaury) and I hope 2023 brings you all you wish for.

Bring on the Christmas back -ups: Santa v Darkseid!? - by Ty Templeton.

In my last blog I presented a fun little 2 page Christmas tale by Ty Templeton of a Satanic ritual gone wrong featuring Jack Kirby's Demon character from "DCU Holiday Bash" issue 1. Well, in the second issue of "DCU Holiday Bash" (1998) Ty went one better and produced an even funnier story featuring another of Jack Kirby's great characters, the mighty Darksied!

Above: The cover to "DCU Holiday Bash" issue 2 (1998) by Scott McDaniel and Kevin Nowlan

Bring on the Christmas back-ups: Satan's Little Helper - by Ty Templeton

With Christmas just a few days away I thought this would be a good time to look at some of the festive comic books that featured humorous stories of our comic book heroes. One such fun tale appeared in the first issue of the “DCU Holiday Bash” comic from 1997. This little 2 pager by the wonderful Ty Templeton is a clever and fun story of a Christmas satanic ritual that goes very wrong!

Above: The cover to "DCU Holiday Bash" issue 1 - cover by Rudolf Dimaggio.

Top Tens: : Batman at Christmas

I always enjoyed picking up various editions of my favourite comic characters Christmas specials. DC, Marvel, Charlton and many other comic companies regularly produced some great festive comics giving me just enough of a seasonal hit to help me through the rest of the holiday period. There were of course no shortage of stories set on that most wonderful night of the year, but arguably no character epitomised the comic book holiday special more than Batman. Below are some of my favourite Batman tales from 1970 onwards:

DC Special series issue 21 Wanted: "Santa Claus — Dead or Alive” from 1980. This tale features Frank Miller's first Batman work.In this story by Denny O'Neil a criminal posing as a department store Santa has a change of heart.

Batman issue 219 - "The Silent Night of the Batman” from 1970. This isn't the main story to this issue ( cover and first page of this tale above) but is an 8 page back up tale written by Mike Friedrich and illustrated by the legendary Neal Adams. The story tells of Batman's reluctance to take a break from watching over Gotham on Christmas Eve. Fortunately, the citizens of Gotham, have things under control, giving Batman a chance to enjoy the holiday and even sing a carol with the Gotham City Police Department.

Batman issue 239 - "Silent Night Deadly Night" from 1972. By Denny O'Neil, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano.In this tale Batman confronts a down on his luck man who resorts to crime to feed his young daughter. He decides to kill the miserly owner of the company that downsized his company putting him out of work. Batman and the little girl chase after her father, using a magically appearing sleigh (?) to reach him. Of course the father decides not to kill the man and instead saves him after he takes a heart attack. This tale features the above legendary Neal Adams cover.

Batman and Robin Adventures issue 3 from 1996 written by Paul Dini and illustrated by Ty Templeton. In this story, the Riddler infiltrates the Christmas party of the elite Peregrinator Club and holds them hostage. After forcing a TV crew to cover things, the Riddler reveals he intends to unmask Batman & Robin as he is sure that only someone of great wealth would have the funds to be the Dynamic Duo.

The Brave and the Bold issue 184 " from 1982 by Mike Barr and Jim Aparo . Batman discovers evidence that his late father was implicated in the financing of a criminal empire. When Batman meets with Thomas Wayne's accountant, it seems that this is all true and Bruce Waynes father financed the mob! As a result Bruce quits being Batman, as he feels he can no longer honour the memory of his father, a crook. However, he eventually figures out that it is all a scam perpetrated by the Wayne's old accountant.

Batman issue 309 from 1978 – “Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas” by Len Wien and John Calnan/Frank McLaughlin. in this Christmas tale a depressed and out-of-work woman decides to end her life, and it’s up to Batman to stop her. But first he’ll have to get through the villain Blockbuster. (Cover form the Grand Comics Database)

The Brave and the Bold issue 148. “The Night the Mob Stole X-Mas” from 1979 written by Bob Haney and illustrated by the team of Joe Staton and Jim Aparo. A fun tale where the Dark Knight helps Plastic Man out of his holiday blues by busting a band of cigarette smugglers.

Batman issue 247. "Merry Christmas” — from 1973. In this tale written by Denny O'Neil with art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano Batman runs into a murderous thug who is prepared to murder a family in order to cover his tracks. This story uses the well-worn “Christmas miracle” that saves the day when a flare suddenly distracts the thug just as he is about to press the trigger on his gun. Strangely, this 6 page story was the lead tale with the main/longer 17 pages story (another seasonal tale) taking "second place".

Batman: Noel: This stand-alone Batman tale from 2011 is written and stunningly illustrated Leo Bermejo. Inspired by Charles Dickens' immortal classic “A Christmas Carol”, this version offers a different interpretation of Batman, along with his enemies and friends, in different eras. In the story Batman must come to terms with his past, present and future as he battles villains from the “camp” 1960s era to the dark and brooding tales of today. The fun side of this book is seeing many of the Batman family of characters paying the roles of characters made famous in Dickens’ Christmas Carol novel, for example the Joker plays the role of the Ghost of Christmas Future. However, one of my favourite little touches was the inclusion of the neon company sign “SPRANGS” (page below) as a nod to the legendary Batman artist Dick Sprang. Even better, I managed to pick this graphic novel up in a Glasgow outlet store for a mere £3.99!

Batman Adventures - Holiday Special issue 1 . Without doubt this is my favourite Batman seasonal offering. This anthology book contains five tales most written by Paul Dini (with some assistance from Bruce Timm & Ronnie Del Carmen). All the stories ( "Jolly Ol' St. Nicholas" "The Harley And The Ivy" "White Christmas" "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?!" and "Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot" ) are excellent fun shorts illustrated in the Batman animated cartoon style by some of the best cartoonsits around.

Favourite toys: Christmas stocking fillers - Action transfers, trolls and Airfix figures

As Christmas races towards us (yet again) at breakneck speed I thought it would be a good time to wallow in the nostalgic glow of some of the presents we received as kids back in the day. A big part of most kids Christmases in the 1960’s – 1970’s were the stocking fillers. In general these were low priced toys that were fun additions to the main present. Some of my favourites "fillers" from a time long gone are noted below:

Letraset Action Transfers were an extremely popular activity toy from the 1960s to the mid 1980s. They consisted of a printed gatefold cardboard background image and a transparent sheet of coloured dry transfers that featured figures of people, animals, vehicles, sound effects (explosions), weapons etc that you could apply to the background image in order to make your own action scenes. I still remember seeing my first set (Space Adventure) on a visit to the Lewis’s department store in Glasgow in 1966 (photo below). The above picture is the 1969 advert for Action Transfers (by Frank Bellamy) that appeared in comics like TV21 (issue 242) and SMASH etc.

Above: the Space Adventures transfer sheet.

Above: the Space Adventures cardboard background where you would add your transfer to create your own adventure.

Above: The "legendary" Lewis's department store in Glasgow from circa 1966.

Airfix M00/00 scale figures were a staple toy for kids in the 1960’s- 1970’s and they were one of my all time favourite toys as a child. Airfix produced hundreds of these sets (and still do) including Astronauts, cowboys, (Native American) Indians, Knights, WW1 and WW2 soldiers, Napoleonic figures, farmstock, civilians etc. Each box contained a set of carefully detailed and moulded characters in various poses that were attached to a thin plastic rod which you would simply twist to detach the figure. I had many of these sets but my favourites were the Foreign Legion (below) which my brother bought for me for Christmas 1967 and the Roman soldier and Scots Highlanders (sadly, I can't find a picture of these) which I also recieved as a Christmas present at this time.

Above images all taken from Ebay

Good Luck Trolls, sometimes called Gonk trolls in the UK were a worldwide phenomenon in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Originally produced by the "DAM Things" company (named after their creator Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam) these little characters were made in sizes ranging from just two-and-a-half inches tall up to 10 inches, with squat bodies and inset, brightly coloured hair that stood on end. Trolls were a big hit with both young boys and girls (of all ages) in the 1960’s and were another regular stocking filler. These fun characters had a revival a few years ago following the success of the DreamWorks “Trolls” animated movies, just proving that you can’t keep a good toy of the imagination down. Early 1960’s Trolls (with glass eyes and Icelandic sheep wool for hair) can cost upwards of £50. One of the most popualr "Trolls" was the pencil topper which seemed to be everywhare in the late 1960's to early 1970's.

Small puzzles were another of those toys that seemed to appear in my Christmas stocking. The most popular of these small puzzle toys was probably sliding number/ letter puzzle set.

As I swapped, gave away or threw out all my Action transfers, puzzles , Trolls and Airfix figures loooong ago all the above images are taken from the internet.

Top Tens: Darwyn Cooke (the shock of the "new-ish")

During his all too short life (1962- 2016) Darwyn Cooke made a considerable contribution to the world of comics and animation as a writer, artist and animator. His artistic endeavours can be found in some of the very best animated series ever created (working with the equally talented Bruce Timm) on shows including the New Batman Adventures , Superman: the Animated Series, and many other classic animation show’s featuring DC characters. In comics, he worked on various one shot and back up comics but will be best remembered for his work on "Catwoman", "The Spirit" and in the truly wonderful series “DC: The New Frontier” which for a brief moment took me back to the sense of wonder I experienced when I read my first US comics as a 10 year old. Below are some of my favourite of Darwyn’s many comic book covers to accompany the wonderfully fun Catwoman (issue 46) cover above.

In 2014 DC announced that Darwyn Cooke would produce a set of variant covers for 23 of their titles. Each cover was presented as a landscape image running horizontally on the front cover. Everyone was a classic (I only have the comics shown here but plan to pick the rest up when I can) -In hidsight it may have been easier on th eye to present these in landscape format.

Aquaman 37 is my favourite of the 23 image run (I'm just a romantic at heart).

Detective Comics 37 - comes a close second a very different look at Batman/Bruce and Alfred .

Cooke also drew many covers for Dynamite (and other companies) featuring characters like The Phantom, The Shadow and Flash Gordon.

As a final image the above page is from Cookes best work (imho) "DC: The New Frontier" - This image was also used for the paperback edition of "The Art of Darwyn Cooke" book which I cannot recommend highly enough. As noted above Darwyn passed away in May 2016 at the all to young age of just 53. In that short time he became one of comics true innovators and an artist and writer that brought a sense of wonder and fun back to comics that had been missing since the days of Stan lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.