Batman comic book cover gallery

[BATWINGED HORNET]

This may be my favorite comicbook artwork of all time. This perfectly captures how I see Batman & Robin. They're a little rough around the edges, as is the artwork. It's a wonderful take on the Batman & Robin caught in a spotlight style that's been around for decades.

Norm Breyfogle, Batman #465

Breyfogle was an interesting artist--stylish, but leaning toward a near underground style of "messiness" -- the opposite of the titans of Batman art such as Infantino, Adams and Aparo.

Here's two "thought balloon" (or story balloon) covers. The first is Batman #19, from October/November 1943--



Next, is the Curt Swan / Murphy Anderson cover of Batman #223 from July / August 1970. This was not the first time a Golden Age cover inspired one from the Silver Age, where the new cover took the idea in its own exciting direction--

[gothosmansion]

Batwingedhornet,

I love the Batman 223 cover. I didn't live near a comics shop, but I was able to get a handful of older Batman comics at a second hand book store growing up. One issue I got had an ad for 223 and I fell in love with that cover and always wanted one. Of course, my parents wouldn't buy me any high dollar back issues from ads back then, but it was one of the first issues I went after once I got on eBay.

Here is another of my favorite Neal Adams covers that I've never seen on one of those "best of" cover lists. I think the background really makes it pop. Seriously, if you didn't know who Batman was, couldn't that cover pass as a poster for a Hammer Studios movie?

Detective Comics 403 September 1970.

[TP-6597]

I agree, that 223 cover is awesome. That Detective 403 is one of the more strange I've ever seen. Cool looking though.

[gothosmansion]

For Summer Time...Batman and Robin hit the waves and run into a robotic Moby Dick, who was built as a movie prop. Detective Comics 314 from April 1963. Cover art by Sheldon Moldoff.

[gothosmansion]

Happy Independence Day to everyone in the U.S. I have a reprint of this issue in an archive, but do not have an original.

[TP-6597]

Love this cover by Neal Adams. Great visual dynamic with the cops trying to get Batman on a rainy night. Great story too as most of it takes place on that same rainy night.

[gothosmansion]

TP,

That is another great Neal Adams cover that never shows up on any of those "best" lists and it should. While the Batman and/or Bruce Wayne framed for murder plot has been used many times, that story is my favorite example of it. Also, the Batman showcase volumes omitted the "Shutdown on York Street" story for some reason.

Here is another great Garcia-Lopez cover image from the Len Wein/Irv Novick run. If you're wondering about the Whitman logo, that company would "rebrand" certain DC comics and sell them in three-packs in stores that didn't normally carry comics. Batman 313 from July 1979.

[TP-6597]

Man, that plastic bag is awesome! Personal collection?

For the record; About 15 years ago I lost everything I owned in a flood. Hundreds of original LPs, comic books, artwork, baseball cards, etc. I made peace with that much loss and never really attempted to replace much of it. It would be a combination of impossible (LPs and 45s) and impractical (baseball cards and comic books).

My point? When you see some of my posts where the cover is super crisp and bright, like #225, it's a screen-grab from my DC app. Its how I read comic books these days. I really like it. They've scanned in nearly every Batman from 1940 to now. https://www.readdcentertainment.com/

[gothosmansion]

No, I don't have any of my Whitmans still in the bags unfortunately. The comic is mine, but the bag picture was a web find.

The bags contained a mix of heroes, although Batman and Superman had their own character specific packs as well. That Batman image looks like it was taken from the cover of one of Whitman's Batman coloring books. The Superman bags had a promotional image drawn by Neal Adams. I remember when I was in elementary school having a Superman T-shirt with the same image that was on the bag. Strange the things from childhood we remember.

Oh, there were Marvel bags, too. I remember my first Spider-Man, Hulk and Fantastic Four were all bought in a pack together and those were my first Marvel comics, period.

Here is the (appropriately enough) second part of that Two-Face tale, also by Garcia-Lopez. Since this one doesn't have a Whitman logo, I must have bought it off the spinner rack. That makes me wonder if I got the second part first.

[Batman65]

This has to be one of my favorite threads here. It's just great to see all of these fantastic covers here. AWESOME stuff!

[SprangFan]

Here's a couple from the "Don't Have Them, But Would Love to Find Them" department. Both are hardcover Batman "annuals" printed in the UK. First, from 1982, when he was still drawing Judge Dredd for the 2000AD mag, and well before The Killing Joke, comes this Batman/Joker image by Brian Bolland:



Next up is this one from 1984, uncredited but obviously by Dave Gibbons, another Brit who would go on to great things in American comics, though rarely involving Batman:

[TP-6597]

I need to see if I can get the Annuals and Omnibuses on my DC app. Cool covers for sure and another cool logo I'd like to have on a T-shirt. I'm a big fan of just the logo on a shirt. That will be the next one I try to find.

[SprangFan]

I doubt the British annuals will show up in DC's digital offerings, as they were usually just reprints of stories that had already appeared stateside. Plus I think they were in black and white. What little original content they offered would have been produced by the UK publisher (in this case, Egmont, but there were several) and I'm not sure what their status would be in terms of legal ownership (the work having been commissioned by Egmont, et al, but for characters owned by DC).

That said, it's encouraging to hear the digital library has grown to be so comprehensive. The last time I checked there were some big holes in the timeline. So far I haven't brought myself to make the move to virtual, but its bound to happen sooner or later.

When that logo (another by Neal Adams) first came out, I didn't like it as it replaced one I preferred, but all told I think it hung around longer than any in Batman's history.

Here it is again on another great JLGL cover, this one for a story with all-too-rare Simonson interior art as well.

[BATWINGED HORNET]

Batwingedhornet,

I love the Batman 223 cover. I didn't live near a comics shop, but I was able to get a handful of older Batman comics at a second hand book store growing up. One issue I got had an ad for 223 and I fell in love with that cover and always wanted one. Of course, my parents wouldn't buy me any high dollar back issues from ads back then, but it was one of the first issues I went after once I got on eBay.

That's the great thing about DC in the late 60s and early 70s: at the same time Novick, Adams and Aparo completely redefined Batman's world, it was not out of place to see Swan's Murphy-inked version of an Infantino style cover that was all the rage several years earlier.

Here is another of my favorite Neal Adams covers that I've never seen on one of those "best of" cover lists. I think the background really makes it pop. Seriously, if you didn't know who Batman was, couldn't that cover pass as a poster for a Hammer Studios movie?

Detective Comics 403 September 1970.

Brilliant Adams cover. Since his run at DC, I cannot think of any artist that so mastered realism and the fantastic needs of the Batman family, with the exception of Aparo.

Here is the penultimate cover of the 1960s Batman run--Batman #216 (November, 1969) by Irv Novick--



I find this cover very interesting: Novick had been illustrating Batman as a serious character for some time, but the dark cover--with Batman crashing through the window mirrors a similar scene from the TV pilot--



--it is a similar action, but its easy to see just how far the transformation of the character had gone since that night in January of 1966. The days of the colorful Dynamic Duo were over, and to hammer that point home, DC aged Dick Grayson, and sent him to college in the final Batman issue of the 1960s, Batman #217 (December, 1969) illustrated by Neal Adams--

[gothosmansion]

Batman65,

Glad you're enjoying the thread. Don't hesitate to post some of your favorite covers.

Sprangfan,

I've never actually seen one of the Batman Annuals "in person" but I recall seeing that Bolland image. I have never seen the Gibbons one, though. Always exciting to see a "new to me" Batman cover. I recall that Gibbons did the image for the "Who's Who" entry of the Earth 2 Batman in the first "Who's Who" series. I guess that was due to the fact that Gibbons drew him in B&B 200.

I love that JLGL Joker's Birthday cover. It is one of my two favorite Joker stories ever, along with Laughing Fish/Sign of the Joker by Englehart, Rogers and Austin. It is probably my favorite issue of the Len Wein run as well, although I recall I am a lot more fond of it than some of our other posters. Actually, that logo on the cover is my favorite Batman logo ever, probably due to the fact that it was on the first Batman comic I ever bought.

Batwingedhornet,

Those are a couple of great covers. I think 216 was the issue that introduced "Pennyworth" as Alfred's last name into DC continuity. I know for sure it introduced Alfred's brother Wilfred and his niece Daphne, who is more famous for her appearance on the cover of 227. Always glad to see the underrated Novick on her...and always glad to see the awesome Neal Adams.

Ok, this is probably going to be the worst cover featured so far, but since I mentioned my fondness for a particular logo and the first Batman comic I ever bought. I discovered Batman via reruns of the 1966 show and when I found out about the comics, I had to get them. Batman has been my favorite fictional character ever since. My mom was excited about my interest in Batman because I was so eager to learn to read so I could read the comics. My first Batman was cover dated January 1977, so I would have probably gotten in in October/November of 1976. Oh, another early comic, maybe my second, was Super Heroes vs Super Gorillas, and it had a 1976 (no month) cover date. I had already discovered Superman via Super Friends, but this was my first exposure to the Flash.

These are not the copies I bought at a younger age, because those were both since loved to death, but are the ones now in my collection. I realize these are both pretty awful covers, but I have a lot of nostalgia for them.