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"The Unauthorized BATMAN Collectors Guide"
BEFORE THEY WERE BEATLES: The Early Years 1956-1960
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BATMAN created by Bill Finger and Bob
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“WHY COLLECT BATMAN?”
I guess I should have been prepared for the
question. We were just wrapping up filming for our upcoming slot on HGTV’s Ultimate
Collectors show and doing the final interviews. I’d prepared myself for all the other
obvious questions I thought would be asked during the day’s shooting;
“What’s the most expensive item? The rarest ? The one that means the most to
you.” Etc. But the question asking why I collected Batman threw me for a second.
I’ve been collecting now for over 15 years and it’s just part of who I am.
It’s a long time since I gave any thought as to why.
Like many people my first conscious
recollection of The Batman was the TV series of the mid-sixties with its attendant POW and
ZAPS. But somehow I already knew that unlike my other Saturday night hero, Dr Who, the
Batman wasn’t a character created for TV, somehow I just knew that he came from the
comics. In retrospect I guess this shows that he was already established as a pop-culture
icon even before the launch of Batmania.
I soon began to search out those comic books
that featured this hero. Being on the opposite side of the Atlantic from where both the TV
show and comics were produced meant that my search resulted in finding only a few black
and white stories reprinted in the occasional British boys’ adventure comic or
hardback comics annual. But the few stories I did find showed a different Batman to the
one I saw on screen. I was intrigued.
Like most kids I drifted away from comics
and superheroes until a late night conversation at college lead to me picking up a
Spider-Man comic (US comics by this time were widely distributed in the UK). Eventually I
rediscovered Batman comics (as recounted last time) and have been collecting them ever
since. But as I’ve gone forward with The Batman, I’ve also gone back as well to
delve into the history of this fascinating character. And what a history it is. To study
The Batman is to study the social history of, not only America, but the western
world’s popular culture of the last sixty plus years.
Each incarnation of this most enduring of
heroes has been a reflection of the concerns, morals and aspirations of the period in
which it existed. Throughout these many changes and different interpretations, the
underlying message has remained the same: one man can make a difference.
The Batman appeals to some basic level of
human need. The idea of the masked hero is almost as old as literature itself, as are the
central themes of redemption and the unending crusade, yet in some ways the Batman mythos
takes these cultural norms and reverses them. Here we have the central hero, born of
tragedy, who adopts a fearsome, almost demonic, persona while his chief antagonist wears
the happy face of a clown. The image of The Batman is a strong one that stirs many
reactions in the human mind. The myths and lore about the creature from which he takes his
motif, the bat, are legendary in their own right and exist across many cultures. For any
character to gain mythical status – and it could be argued that The Batman is one of
the most enduring creations of late twentieth century mythology – the legend has to
be repeated, the story has to be told many times, reinterpreted for the contemporary
audience without losing its underlying themes and resonance.
It is here that The Batman has captured the
quintessential mechanisms of the modern age; mass media and mass production. We have
witnessed two distinct periods of “Batmania” in the last forty years as his
image as become imprinted not only on toothbrushes and t-shirts, but also on the minds of
generations. The bat-symbol is one of the world’s most instantly recognized motifs,
even by those who have no interest in or connection with The Batman character.
There are many types of Batman collector,
from those who just collect the comic books, to those who specialize in other fields such
as toys, figures or vehicles. There are a few who try to collect everything! Whatever
aspect of the Batman it is that intrigues you, we are all sharing in the history and
legend of one of the greatest cultural icons, and we are all, in some small way, the
custodians of his legacy.
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