BATMANIA

General goings on in the 1966 Batman World

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AndyFish
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BATMANIA

Post by AndyFish »

In another thread I mentioned the great old fanzine BATMANIA-- it started coming out before the show and ran past the show-- there are great articles in it about the show as well as a debate from Bob Kane himself insisting that he was the SOLE creator who worked on BATMAN.

Interesting reading-- very expensive to get.
But I've got your back-- here are PDF scans of most of the issues-- you can download them and use them as you like, I ask only that you not resell them.

Link will be up for the time being, but no guarantees its forever so if you want it grab it;

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
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clavierankh
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by clavierankh »

Thanks Andy
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Jim Akin
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by Jim Akin »

Thanks!
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Keith Mayo
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by Keith Mayo »

Great minds and all that jazz!
I posted this on FB just the other day. 😁
http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=746

TV Guide article about Batmania from March 1966:
Attachments
TV Guide1.jpg
TV Guide2.jpg
TV Guide3.jpg
"It's the very essence of our democracy". - Batman, S1 Ep 11
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BatMite
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by BatMite »

Fantastic resource.
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BATWINGED HORNET
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by BATWINGED HORNET »

Thanks for the link, Andy!
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dreddbatfan
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by dreddbatfan »

Let us know if you find the missing issues,thanks.
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Yellow Oval
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by Yellow Oval »

Thanks, Andy. This is as rare and great as finally trapping the leprechaun and getting the blasted Lucky Charms! :D Should be some good reading with a coffee.
"Hmmm... I don't like the twist this joke is taking. Let us away! Let us away!"
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SprangFan
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by SprangFan »

It's certainly interesting to see the Batman fan community go from euphoria to disillusionment with show, prefiguring a cycle that would repeat for fans of other comic characters over the ensuing decades. It's also interesting to see that familiar tension between (a) wanting the rest of the world to see how great the thing you love is and (b) ending up bummed when it explodes into a trendy mainstream fad and no longer "your little secret." (Its easy to forget that in the early 60s Batman 's readership was small enough that the books risked cancellation). The old "I liked it before it was cool" phenomenon.

Even more than talk of the show, I'm always intrigued by the arguments in this fanzine over whether the 1964 "New Look" was a good thing or whether the only proper way to draw Batman was with the "Bob Kane" look.

And of course it was in this fanzine that fans first began to glean the horrifying truth that "Bob Kane" was just a front.

Important historical artifacts, for sure.
"You were right again, Batman. We might have been killed."
"Or worse. Let's go..."
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Ben Bentley
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by Ben Bentley »

Thank you for sharing this! I’ve had some very low res scans of one of these issues that I believe we’re copied in the late 1990’s when home scanning became more common place.
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AndyFish
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by AndyFish »

Happy to post it-- anyone whose interested in the backstory behind BATMANIA (and these are all the issues published by Biljo White, the guy who founded it) can check Wiki for a pretty accurate article;

First published in July 1964, Batmania was a comics fanzine published by Bill "Biljo" White, produced for "Batmanians" as the unofficial "fanzine for Batman fans."[1] Appearing under the motto "For Batman, we accept nothing as impossible," White's fanzine was released a year after sales on the two Batman titles – Batman and Detective Comics (DC Comics) – had "dipped alarmingly."[1] With editor Julius Schwartz replacing Jack Schiff, and "assign[ing] his favorite writer, John Broome, to raise the level of the stories, and his most popular artist, Carmine Infantino, to upgrade the visuals," White's fanzine helped revive interest in the character.[1] Schwartz returned the character to his roots, removing much of the "gimmickry" and members of the then so-called Bat-family – Batwoman, Batgirl (Betty Kane), Ace the Bathound and Bat-Mite in particular – for a "new look" debut of mid-1964 with Detective Comics #327 (May 1964) and Batman #164 (June 1964), a mere matter of months before White's fanzine debuted.

The title – "no doubt inspired by the Beatlemania that had swept the U.S. earlier in the year" – released by long-term Batman fan and firefighter White from his home in Columbia, Missouri, swiftly became one of comics fandom's most important fanzines.[1][2] White was himself an "aspiring artist showing considerable potential," who had once written to Batman-creator Bob Kane and produced a regular cartoon during World War II called "The New Bunch."[1] Involved in comics fandom from its earliest days, he contributed to issues of Komix Illustrated, Masquerader, Star-Studded Comics and Alter Ego (A/E), among others.[1] (When Roy Thomas took over A/E, White "served as art editor".)[1]

Batmania had the tacit approval of DC, after White sent a copy of his first issue to renowned fan-friendly editor Julius Schwartz, who liked it, and even gave it a plug in the pages of Batman #169, causing the membership of the fledgling "Batmanians" group to grow "nearly 1,000-strong".[1] The first issue, published in 1967,[3] was in such demand that White:

"kept printing up more and more copies, until the ditto masters gave out – and I still couldn't satisfy all the requests. It convinced me more than ever that there was a large body of fans who enjoyed the adventures of Batman and Robin as much as I did."[1]

The pages of the fanzine provided, wrote fan historian Bill Schelly for Roy Thomas' Alter Ego revival from TwoMorrows Publishing:

"features which both entertained and educated readers on aspects of the Dynamic Duo's career in the late 1930s. (The 25 annuals and giants of the 1960s generally reached only a few years into Batman's past for their reprints.) Beginning in issue #2, the first of two landmark articles called "Batman before Robin" appeared, recounting what Batman was like in the year before he adopted Dick Grayson as his ward."[1]

As the 1960s reprints of Golden Age Batman stories did not stretch back to his very beginnings, these articles were crucial in educating new Batman fans about the history of the character - including his (short-lived) early tendencies to both use a gun and kill various of his foes. Batmania also provided a forum for fans to hold forth on topics related to the character in a section called "The Batmanians Speak."[1] Fan Richard Kyle, who coined the phrase "graphic story"/"graphic novel"[4] was one who debated the pros and cons of the "new look" (including the iconic yellow-encircled Bat logo on the costume's chest), alongside key fellow fandom individuals such as Ron Foss - and in the first annual Batmania poll, 90% of respondents said that they preferred the new look.[1]

Batmania also included advertisements and checklists, occasional non-Batman features, and revealed to fandom the existence of Rutland, Vermont's Halloween Parade, which Tom Fagan led in Batman-garb; the parade - and Fagan - would later feature in several in-comics storylines, most notably in those written by long-term fan Roy Thomas.

For the rest of the article why not go to Wiki itself-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batmania
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John Mack
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by John Mack »

Wow! Thanks for this Andy! I wonder where Bill White is today? It would be great to hear from him.
Music. BAT! Music.
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BatMite
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by BatMite »

Sorry, Andy...if these are "all the issues published by Biljo White", were numbers 17 and 18 skipped?
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Keith Mayo
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by Keith Mayo »

John Mack wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 4:03 pm Wow! Thanks for this Andy! I wonder where Bill White is today? It would be great to hear from him.
https://www.newsfromme.com/2003/02/28/b ... ite-r-i-p/
"It's the very essence of our democracy". - Batman, S1 Ep 11
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John Mack
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Re: BATMANIA

Post by John Mack »

Keith Mayo wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 8:02 pm
John Mack wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 4:03 pm Wow! Thanks for this Andy! I wonder where Bill White is today? It would be great to hear from him.
https://www.newsfromme.com/2003/02/28/b ... ite-r-i-p/
Ahh..thanks Keith. Pity he's gone.
Music. BAT! Music.
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