Batman's Costume Colors

[Keith Mayo]

Any intel on why they chose colors that were so different than the then current comic book appearance?

[AndyFish]

I don't think they were-- Batman was blue and grey in the comics and he was blue and grey in the show. The lighting often made the cape and cowl look purple but when you look at the pictures of the suit in natural light you see the real colors of it.



Comics in 1966 had options for 64 colors because of the printing process-- an extremely limited color palette. In real life the colors choices are endless for blue hues alone.

[clavierankh]

At the time I had trading cards from the movie. Wish I still had,them. I remember his costume looked at blue. I assume it was the lighting.

[Keith Mayo]

Adam's blue was almost purple whereas the comic rendering was a much lighter blue.
As I was big time into the BatMan comics, I noticed the color change right away and
the shrinking of the chest insignia when the TV show first hit the air. Personally I prefer the colors and style of the TV version to the almost Baby Blue of the comics in the 60's (prior to the show coming on TV).

Another change was the buckle on the Bat Utility Belt. In the comics it had a normal type buckle but
on the show it was more like that of Marine Corps Dress Blues - flat with insignia.

[AndyFish]

Looks pretty close to me.

[SprangFan]

I think Adam's blues were a bit darker than the comics, but that only made practical sense. In the comics, Batman's cape and cowl were a bright, vibrant blue, yet with folds and recesses that were somehow jet black, with no gradation in between. Adam's cape recreated this "feel" (blue highlights, very dark folds and valleys) in a way that a neon blue, I feel, could not have.

I confess I never thought there was a purple cast to his tights until I got on this board years ago and folks compared recipes for Rit dyes. Then I realized there was some purple in there, after all. Before that, to me, the tights always looked straight-up gray, full stop. I remember as a kid being perplexed by an episode where a police radio broadcast calls Batman a guy "in purple tights." Say WHAT?!?! I assumed it was just a writing error that slipped through the cracks.

[Keith Mayo]

I remember as a kid being perplexed by an episode where a police radio broadcast calls Batman a guy "in purple tights." Say WHAT?!?! I assumed it was just a writing error that slipped through the cracks.

I rest my case.

[AndyFish]

When you consider what hot toys tried with their variant matching the early silver age colors many fans didn't think it looked right.

[Keith Mayo]

Biggest difference besides the shade of blue was that on the tv version the black face piece blends in with the rest of the cowl almost to the point of making the cowl look like it's all one color.

[Keith Mayo]

Apparently Batman's suit was changed by adding the yellow oval behind the Bat in Batman #164. Here are the covers of #163 (May '64) and #164 (June '64).

[SprangFan]

Actually the oval had its debut one month earlier in World's Finest Comics #141, published in March 1964 (albeit with a May cover date). But it only appeared in the interior art, not on the cover.

[Batfanman]

The funny thing about the "blue" for the cape, cowl, etc. in comics, is that it is really meant to represent the color black. This effect also made the image "pop" off the page. Ever really pay attention to Bruce Wayne's hair color?

The 2 tones of blue & black were employed to allow for more detail in the item colored such that would have otherwise made the item fairly non-distinct had just the color black been used. Again, as Andy pointed out, this is related to comics' then-limited color palette and it remains a holdover/homage/ingrained tradition to that earlier time in the industry.

[SprangFan]

That more or less works at the beginning, when Kane was swiping drawing the art and there were more blacks, but by the 50s and 60s, everything had brightened to the point where Batman's cape had no more black areas than Superman's. Somewhere along the way, I think he threw out the black costume pieces in favor of blue ones. Amusingly, the face of the cowl somehow stays black long after everything else lightens up, meaning Batman's forehead is always "in shadow" regardless of lighting conditions. In the show the only way to achieve this was to cheat and paint it black.

I learned early on it pays not to think about it too much. If Batman is standing next to Superman and his cape is the same color as Supes' tights, then is Batman in blue or is Supes in black? The only real rule is that in comics, blue is "black" until it isnt. Ditko drew Spider-Man's blue costume parts with black areas. Does that mean the costume was supposed to be red and black? It's a valid conclusion, though his successors didn't follow up.

What's really weird is a character like Daredevil, who has a red costume with huge zones of black that move around depending on lighting. Meaning...what? That it's a black costume with red highlights? That he found a red so dark it sometimes looks black? It kind of works with blue -- if you play along -- but other colors not so much.

[Progress Pigment]

Sprangfan, have you ever read whether or not Dick Sprang liked the show?

[Batman65]

I don't think they were-- Batman was blue and grey in the comics and he was blue and grey in the show. The lighting often made the cape and cowl look purple but when you look at the pictures of the suit in natural light you see the real colors of it.



Comics in 1966 had options for 64 colors because of the printing process-- an extremely limited color palette. In real life the colors choices are endless for blue hues alone.

Actually Andy, even though the lighting did change things, the cape always looked blue and at times, even outdoors, the cowl and gloves looked purple, and at times they looked blue. I think, and I know this has been discussed here before, the original color was indeed blue but the fabric sometimes didn’t take a dye quite right and it was indeed purple. My cowl is a Will Reeb cowl and it is a slight bit purple, and I love it.