The BATMAN book by Bob Garcia and Joe Desris offers a few clues about where and how Dozier obtained his first comic books. Dozier's first meeting with ABC executive Douglas Cramer occurred in April or May of '65 in L.A. At the end of this meeting, Cramer left Dozier “a small stack of comics”.gothosmansion wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 6:32 pmWe'll never know what issues Semple or the other writers may have read and pulled ideas from, other than the stories that were adapted into episodes. I wish there was some way we could find out.
Dozier flew to N.Y. a few days later (in May ’65) to meet with Cramer again. Cramer had since met with Bob Kane, who gave him some comic books “with important stories in Batman’s history.” [emphasis added] Cramer recalled giving these comic books to Dozier as well. (Kane seems a plausible, even likely source for the older, rarer issues that wound up in Dozier's possession.)
From New York, Dozier then flew to Spain, where Simple was living. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss another project the two had been collaborating on (a science fiction pilot entitled “Mr. Zero”.) During this same meeting, Dozier mentioned to Semple that ABC was interested in a Batman series, and gave Semple one of the Batman comics in his possession.
Additionally, the book reproduces a Greenway memo dated June 16 ’65 which identifies four additional comic books that Dozier sent to Semple. Per the memo, these were Batman #s 159, 169, 171 and Detective Comics #290. In the memo, Dozier's asks Semple to pay particular attention to the Riddler story in #171.