Irv Novick

Batman #244 (September, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Neal Adams’ cover for Batman #244 is probably one of the most famous and iconic comic book covers of its era.  There are a number of good reasons for that, starting with the sheer drama of the moment it depicts, as our hero lies vanquished, perhaps even dead, at the feet of his greatest enemy, Ra’s al Ghul.  Then there’s the strength of Adams’ composition, which frames that dramatic moment so perfectly, as well as the sophisticated coloring by Adams and Jack Adler, which wonderfully enhances the mood as well as the visual appeal of the illustration.

And then there’s the chest hair.  Oh, and the nipples, of course.  Mustn’t forget the nipples.  Read More

Batman #242 (June, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In addition to being a fine piece of artwork by Michael W. Kaluta, the cover of Batman #242 represents a minor milestone of sorts; outside of those for a small handful of giant-sized all-reprint issues, it was the first cover since October, 1969 for either Batman or its companion title, Detective Comics, not to have been drawn by Neal Adams.  (That particular month, not so coincidentally, was the same one in which those titles’ editor at DC Comics, Julius Schwartz, introduced the Caped Crusader’s “Big Change” — a return to a moodier, more grounded approach to the hero that was largely inspired by what Adams had been doing over in Brave and the Bold for the last year or so.) Read More

Justice League of America #94 (November, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

A half century ago, when your humble blogger picked the object of today’s post up out of the spinner rack and eyeballed the cover for the first time, I was awfully curious as to who — or what — that wraithlike, red-tinged figure descending into Aquaman’s body might turn out to be.  At the same time, I wasn’t the least bit curious about the identity of the cover’s artist — since, with the exception of the usual left-hand column’s worth of floating JLA heads rendered by Murphy Anderson, the cover was the obvious work of Neal Adams.  And as Adams had either pencilled, inked or provided complete art for more Justice League of America covers than any other artist in the three years since his very first (for issue #66 [Nov., 1968] ), that was no surprise at all.

But interior art by Adams in an issue of JLA?  That was unexpected; nevertheless, on turning past the cover to the book’s opening splash, that’s exactly what my fourteen-year-old self beheld:  Read More

Batman #234 (August, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Over the course of writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams’s classic early-’70s collaboration on Batman, the team was responsible not only for introducing one major new adversary (Ra’s al Ghul) to the ranks of the Darknight Detective”s greatest foes, but also for reclaiming and refurbishing of two vintage baddies who’d fallen out of favor in recent years.  The second of these restorations to appear, “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge!” (Batman #251 [Sept., 1973]), is doubtless the best-remembered of the two, due to its ultimately having had such a dramatic impact not only on the Bat-mythos, but on the DC Universe as a whole — rehabbing what had become a joke of a character (no pun intended) during the camp “Batmania” era of the mid-Sixties into the comics medium’s quintessential avatar of psychopathic evil — a character arguably more popular than all but a small handful of DC’s best-known superheroes, and one with enough cultural gravitas for screen portrayals of him to have earned Academy Awards for two different actors.

I didn’t buy that one.  Read More

Flash #203 (February, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When I originally started buying comic books back in 1965, The Flash was one of the first titles I picked up;  over the next couple of years, it was one of my most regular purchases.  But my interest in the title fell off sharply following the end of Carmine Infantino’s tenure as penciller, and as of December, 1970, I hadn’t bought an issue of the Scarlet Speedster’s own title in over two years.  I still liked the character, and enjoyed reading about him in Justice League of America and elsewhere (I’d especially relished seeing him win his third race with Superman in World’s Finest #199, published just a couple of months previously), but his solo series had lost its appeal for me.

Until Flash #203 hit the spinner rack — and its stunning Neal Adams-Jack Adler cover grabbed me by the eyeballs, not letting me go until after I’d plunked my fifteen cents down on the Tote-Sum counter and taken that bad boy home.  Read More

Batman #227 (December, 1970)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

According to the Grand Comics Database’s entry for this issue, the cover of Batman #227 has been reprinted seven times by DC Comics.  The story it illustrates?  Just twice.

The perennial popularity of the cover isn’t all that surprising, of course.  It’s a wonderfully atmospheric and technically accomplished effort by the artist widely considered to be the definitive visual interpreter of Batman during this era, Neal Adams — a great cover even if (like my thirteen-year-old self, back in October, 1970), you have no idea that’s it’s an homage to a classic Batman cover from the first year of the Darknight Detective’s existence…  Read More

It was April, 1970…

Posted on by Alan Stewart

On July 21, 2015, this blog made its debut with a post entitled “It was the summer of ’65…”.  In that first installment, I described my earliest experiences with comic books, leading up to to my very first comics purchase in the, well, summer of ’65.  Since then, I’ve been writing about some of the most interesting individual issues I bought in my first few years as an avid comics reader (and nascent collector), while also attempting to chronicle, more generally, the evolution of my own comics tastes and interests, and setting that personal narrative in the broader context of what was going on in the funnybook industry (and, more broadly, in American culture), during those years.

But now, almost half a decade after starting this project, I’ve reached the point in the narrative of my comic book buying and reading where that story almost came to an end, fifty years ago.  I’ve arrived at the time in my life when, at least for a while, I stopped buying comics.  Read More

Batman #219 (February, 1970)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might have noticed that it’s been a while since I’ve written here about either Detective Comics or Batman.  The last issue of the former title to receive the “Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books” spotlight was issue #369 (Nov., 1967), while the most recent issue of the latter to rate a post was #197 (Dec., 1967).  Not counting the hero’s appearances in issues of Justice League of America, World’s Finest Comics, and (most significantly) The Brave and the Bold that I have posted about, this blog has been a Batman-free zone for more than two years.  That’s quite a contrast to the first two years of this enterprise, during which time the blog covered comics published from mid-1965 to mid-1967, and Batman and Detective accounted for nine posts between them.  Read More

Captain Action #4 (Apr.-May, 1969)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I never owned a “Captain Action” doll action figure as a kid, and to the best of my recollection, I never wanted one all that much.

Not that I had anything against dolls action figures as a class, you understand.  Indeed, I was a proud owner of a “G.I. Joe” (the real one, mind you), and I also had a “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” that the box claimed was Napoleon Solo (though if that were actually true, it was the worst likeness of actor Robert Vaughn ever).  But the concept behind Captain Action didn’t have all that much appeal for me, apparently — even though I think I could still appreciate how clever it was, even as a child.  Read More