‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

1966 TV show type Bat-Items found on eBay, Collectibles, etc.

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batfatty
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‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by batfatty »

An auction for a vintage poster promoting the 1966 series just ended on eBay.

It’s a modified version of the commercially available one from G & F Posters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one except in the premiere party photos. Sort of cool, very pricey. One of the earliest pieces of memorabilia related to the show. Probably printed in ‘65....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Large-Original ... 2905286924
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Keith Mayo
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Keith Mayo »

Kane always looked like an oily creep to me.
"It's the very essence of our democracy". - Batman, S1 Ep 11
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SprangFan
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by SprangFan »

You have to wonder who would promote a show using an image of the star getting conked in the head. And with the only " ad copy" being written in small text on the sole of a shoe. Not exactly the most inspiring piece of Batman or advertising art ever.

On the other hand, it certainly seems to be in great condition.

And I agree there's a certain irony in using Bob Kane's presence to certify something is "genuine." :lol:
"You were right again, Batman. We might have been killed."
"Or worse. Let's go..."
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Keith Mayo
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Keith Mayo »

SprangFan wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 7:03 am And I agree there's a certain irony in using Bob Kane's presence to certify something is "genuine." :lol:
You owe me a soda to replace the one I just spit all over the desk!
"It's the very essence of our democracy". - Batman, S1 Ep 11
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Ben Bentley
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Ben Bentley »

This is a really interesting find. Funny timing too as I was only looking at the images from that party a few weeks ago again.
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Frenchy1939
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Frenchy1939 »

Keith Mayo wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 6:37 pm Kane always looked like an oily creep to me.
Lol! An “oily creep”!?!?

I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of love for Bob Cane in the Batman world nowadays. Is that because there’s a feeling that he ripped off Bill Finger?
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Frenchy1939
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Frenchy1939 »

Who is the guy in the costume? Is that a prototype Batman costume from before the series was made?
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Jim Akin
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Jim Akin »

Frenchy1939 wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:48 pm Who is the guy in the costume? Is that a prototype Batman costume from before the series was made?
Photos are from a promotional event -- what we'd call a "watch party" these days--held the night the series debuted at Harlow's, a NYC dicotheque. Burgess Meredith and Bob Kane were on hand, and so was "Batman," sporting a batsuit that was probably rented from a costume shop. (The explosion of series-related merchandise, including costumes, hadn't hit yet but it was right around the corner.)

There's more about the event, including a link to a Mashable article with additional photos, in this old thread.
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SprangFan
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by SprangFan »

I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of love for Bob Cane in the Batman world nowadays. Is that because there’s a feeling that he ripped off Bill Finger?
Like the song says, it's "more than a feeling," but yes, that's a big part of the general anti-Kane sentiment. Probably not the ideal forum to get into it here, but a quick Google search will tell you all you need (but probably don't want) to know.

Wherever that costume came from, aside from the dodgy cowl it's a good look.
"You were right again, Batman. We might have been killed."
"Or worse. Let's go..."
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Mr. Comic Book
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Mr. Comic Book »

Frenchy1939 wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:45 pm
Keith Mayo wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 6:37 pm Kane always looked like an oily creep to me.
Lol! An “oily creep”!?!?

I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of love for Bob Cane in the Batman world nowadays. Is that because there’s a feeling that he ripped off Bill Finger?
Not really. A lot of Batman fans who came in with the Dark Knight Returns/Year One duology consider Frank Miller to be Batman's true creator, and they hold anything before him in utter contempt. (It was not uncommon for me to see on comic book message boards -- back when I still had the stomach for them -- dismissive attitudes toward Bill Finger, if not outright hatred.) Finger's just as underappreciated now as he's ever been. It's just that a different -- and far worse -- creator's being held up as the big kahuna instead of Kane.
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SprangFan
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by SprangFan »

That's an interesting take, but indifference and/or ignorance isn't the same as active dislike or even hate.

Among the older crowd (the only one, alas, I can speak from), anti-Kane sentiment stems from the revelation that Kane engaged in a lifelong campaign of disinformation, promoting his own (not nonexistent, but certainly limited) contributions to Batman while denying credit to anyone else. The many artists and writers who created years of bat-tales at least got a general shout-out as (nameless) "ghosts," but Finger's contributions included co-CREATION of Batman, and there's no way Kane would've gambled his bread and butter on that admission.

In fairness, Kane came from an era where newspaper strips routinely featured the work of ghosts while one name appeared at the top of the strip. Its debatable whether any young readers in 1942 would've cared whether Robert Kahn *really* wrote and drew Batman any more than they cared whether Milt Caniff drew every panel of "Terry and the Pirates." Kane would've known that, so it would've been "no big deal"to admit others did the writing and drawing every month, but disastrous if it got out there was an (at least) equal partner in the character's very creation. But with the Marvel Age in the 60s came an awareness of, and fascination with, the real people who actually created comics, and in that atmosphere, a new generation of fans would have seen anyone who tried to take credit for the work of others as a rat. (Kind of like how in the Beatles generation, where artists wrote music, played instruments and sang, someone like Elvis would be been seen as "just a singer." Expectations change over generations). Also, unlike Seigel and Shuster, who brought Superman to DC, Kane was *assigned* the job of creating Batman, making him the only creator to draw a lifelong income from "ownership" of a work-for-hire effort while hundreds of other creators in the same situation were forgotten and ignored.

So I get where fans of the Silver and Bronze Ages would make a villain out of what they saw as a charlatan. I don't get where post-Miller fans would make a villain out of two guys whose only crime -- as far as fans with no sense of history know -- was that they weren't Frank Miller. I mean, do they hate Adams, Sprang, Robinson, Infantino, O'Neill, Robbins and Englehart, too?

Of course for all I know, they might. There's a lot of stuff going on in fandom that makes no sense. I kind of agree that the Batman who's being published now was indeed created by Miller, and is a separate beast altogether from the original model.
"You were right again, Batman. We might have been killed."
"Or worse. Let's go..."
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Mr. Comic Book
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Mr. Comic Book »

So I get where fans of the Silver and Bronze Ages would make a villain out of what they saw as a charlatan. I don't get where post-Miller fans would make a villain out of two guys whose only crime -- as far as fans with no sense of history know -- was that they weren't Frank Miller. I mean, do they hate Adams, Sprang, Robinson, Infantino, O'Neill, Robbins and Englehart, too?

Of course for all I know, they might.
They do. Anything that came before Dark Knight Returns and anything that deviates from the Miller concept is regarded as "camp" and "Adam West," and is therefore unacceptable in their eyes.

I've lost count of how many times over the 20-odd years I've been on the Internet where fans weaned on the Miller Batman have voiced this attitude, and their disdain for anyone who doesn't agree. It really got bad circa Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin and the Nolan trilogy (itself very Miller-heavy), when even the Fox-era episodes of Batman: The Animated Series got condemned as "campy" and "kiddie stuff," when the mere announcement of Englehart and Rogers' Dark Detective mini-series had those same fans in hysterics over the return of "camp," when classic Golden Age covers were the subject of mockery because the creators "didn't understand the essence of the Dark Knight," when the mere existence of the Brave and the Bold cartoon had fans screaming bloody murder over how they were being "abandoned" and how they were owed a dark and violent cartoon instead...basically, they wouldn't tolerate anything that wasn't beholden to Miller.

This can't be explained away as ignorance or a lack of historical perspective. Finger's plight, by 1999, was well-known. Everyone knew he co-created Batman and got stiffed of credit and royalties. For those who consider Miller Batman's true creator (or co-creator, if those fans are being generous), Finger's either just a Kane employee for hire or a Golden Age hack who doesn't deserve any regard. As far as Kane goes, he's just a necessary name in the credit box to them. They think even less of him than us old-school Batman fans do. It also doesn't help that Miller's outsized hatred of Batman '66, including blaming the show for stuff Kane and Finger were doing in the Golden Age, led to the attitude that Batman was nothing until Miller came along. Thus to them, the 47 years before Miller are all camp and garbage to be ignored.

(Superman fans are just as bad vis-a-vis the 1986-1999 era of John Byrne and later Dan Jurgens, but that's another topic entirely.)
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vintagematt
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by vintagematt »

I don’t want this to turn into miller-discussion. But that being said, I think that millers interpretation worked for its time, and revitalized the character for a new era. That being said, I think that people claiming that Miller’s Batman is the “only Batman” have taken it too far. It is one of the many interpretations of the character, and should be treated equally with the others, like West’s Batman or the Batman of the golden age.
"Batman told him a super funny joke. When the creature didn't laugh, that was proof!"
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Mr. Comic Book
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by Mr. Comic Book »

Agreed. I don't want to derail this topic any more than I may already have.

As far as the poster goes...I'm not impressed by it. From the choice of image to the blank background to putting the series announcement on his boot sole, nothing about it works. It's not something that would get anyone excited about the series.

I don't understand why Infantino couldn't have been commissioned to draw a proper promo poster for the show instead of this thing.
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SprangFan
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Re: ‘66 poster promoting the yet to be released show

Post by SprangFan »

That being said, I think that people claiming that Miller’s Batman is the “only Batman” have taken it too far. It is one of the many interpretations of the character, and should be treated equally with the others, like West’s Batman or the Batman of the golden age.
Its worth noting that "Dark Knight Returns" was intended as a "possible" future tale of the character in a reality that wasn't necessarily canon. Sort of a "What If", or what would later be classified as an "Elseworlds" tale. It was just the huge attention and profit it generated that made so much of it gradually become canon and a blueprint for decades of storytelling. That and the fact that for many new readers it was the first Batman tale they ever read, so to keep them buying monthlies, you had to give them what they expected.

I liked it well enough as a "What If," but if I'd known what would follow, I'd have been less appreciative. In the end, It comes down to the usual lack of creativity or courage among creators: just as James Bond ushered in countless superspy imitators in the 60s, and Star Wars gave us way too many lame space movie imitators a decade later, Miller's success -- never intended as more than a 4-issue mini-series -- kicked off decades of "dark" tales not only for Batman but also for many other characters far less suited to the approach. It'd be nice to see a newer fad replace it, but for that you'd have to have another hugely successful comic make a dent in popular culture, and I think those days are behind us.

I don't understand why Infantino couldn't have been commissioned to draw a proper promo poster for the show instead of this thing.
They needn't have even paid him for a new commission. He'd already done lots of great -- even iconic -- images at this point. I can only assume that it reinforced someone's idea that the show was a straight-up comedy and Batman a buffoon. Instead of a heroic pose, running or throwing a punch or standing with arms akimbo, he's shown being hit in the head while running his mouth, denying the existence of the very thing that's hitting him.

Again, for history's sake, it's "valuable." But it's about the least flattering portrayal of a " hero" you'll find. Whoever buys it should display it with those photos as an explanation/excuse.
"You were right again, Batman. We might have been killed."
"Or worse. Let's go..."
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