Pocket-Money Comics: Batman Monthly

You’d think that for a relatively recent comic (say, from the late 1980s) it would be easy enough to track down all the info. But not so! The publication life of London Editions’ Batman Monthly is annoyingly vague.

The majority of the evidence suggests that it ran for fifty-six monthly issues, then it was relaunched (with the same title) and ran for a further eleven issues. At this point the comic was merged with the concurrent Superman title and relaunched again as Batman & Superman, which then also ran for eleven issues.

But… some sources insist that Batman Monthly only ran for thirty-seven issues, and there’s even a hint that at some point it was renamed Batman Magazine.

So, no guarantees that I’ve got this right (if I haven’t, please let me know!), but this is how it looks to me:

Superman (1988)
From: 16 June, 1988
To: 1 March, 1993
Duration: 4 years, 8 months
Issues: 56
Relaunched as: The Adventures of Superman

Fortnightly until #20, monthly until #46, bimonthly thereafter.

Batman Monthly (1988)
From: 21 July, 1988
To: 1 February, 1993
Duration: 4 years, 6 months
Issues: 56
Relaunched as: Batman Monthly (1993)

Possibly retitled Batman Magazine at some stage.

Batman Monthly (1993)
From: 1 March, 1993
To: 1 January, 1994
Duration: 10 months
Issues: 11
Relaunch of: Batman Monthly (1988)
Relaunched as: Batman & Superman

The Adventures of Superman
From: 1 April, 1993
To: 1 January, 1994
Duration: 9 months
Issues: 15
Relaunch of: Superman (1988)
Relaunched as: Batman & Superman

Fortnightly at first, then monthly.

Batman & Superman
From: 1 March, 1994
To: 1 January, 1995
Duration: 10 months
Issues: 11
Relaunch of: Batman Monthly (1993)
Relaunch of: The Adventures of Superman

London Editions also published a quarterly sibling title, Batman Presents, that ran for nine issues from Nov 1990 to Nov 1992, and a few one-off specials, (as well as other DC reprint titles like Shockwave and Zones, but they’re outside the scope of this article).

One day I’ll confirm all of this, though that’ll most likely only be possible when I complete my time-machine, and to be honest there are more important uses to which I’ll be putting that device (buying old comics I can’t now afford, and going to concerts by now-deceased musicians).

In the meantime, let’s take a look at issue #7 of the first run of Batman Monthly…

There’s no cover-date, but we know that it was monthly (there’s a clue hidden in the title) and that the first issue was published in July 1988, so we can conclude that this issue was published in… hold on while I find my good countin’ fingers… January 1989.

Of course, we know that magazines and comics generally appear on the shelves before the official cover-date (even if they don’t have one), which explains why one of the ads within includes a reference to January 26th. (More on that later, date-fans!)

Batman Monthly is a forty-eight-page publication, the pages approximately 211mm by 298mm (in imperial, that’s 0.69 by 0.98 feet), good quality paper throughout — no glossy cover, but that’s okay: the print quality is more than good enough to make up for that, plus it’s in full colour.

But that cover-price of 80p… Well, it seems like good value now, but if we look at the first issue of 2000AD published in 1988 — prog 555 — it only cost 30p for thirty-two pages, four of which were in colour. Are Batman Monthly‘s extra sixteen pages worth the extra 50p even if they are all in colour?

Here’s what you get…

1. Front Cover
Dick Giordano illustrates this excellent cover, originally the cover of Batman #316 (Oct 1979)

2. Editorial: “The Legend Continues”
Roy Sharp (credited as the comic’s UK Editor) fills us in on changes to the comic starting with this issue, chats about Batman’s upcoming fiftieth anniversary, and teases a few treats coming soon to the comic. Also credited are Brian M. Clarke (Consulting Editor), Ed Hyde (Design) and Mark Dodd (Colourist).

3-10, 12-20. Batman: “Color Me Deadly”
Original publication: Batman #316 (DC Comics, Oct 1979)
Script: Len Wein
Penciller: Irv Novick
Inker: Frank McLaughlin
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Paul Levitz

The story begins with Robin and Batman catching an arsonist who has attempted to burn down Gotham Community Hospital, then we cut to S.T.A.R. Labs — which long-term DC Comics fans will recall has won the award for “Most Broken-Into Laboratory” for the past thirty years running — moments before the notorious villain Crazy Quilt breaks in, which is only moments before Batman and Robin show up to stop him. They exchange quips and threats and punches, but Crazy Quilt uses the lights of his Color-Helmet to dazzle our heroes, allowing him enough time to escape. And that’s just the first few pages.

In case you’ve not heard of him: Crazy Quilt is a gangster who was blinded during a robbery. An operation to restore his sight failed: he can now only see a never-ending cascade of colours. So being a villain he’s developed a habit of kidnapping whoever happens to be the World’s Best Eye Surgeon at any given time and forcing them to use their untested experimental new sight-restoration techniques on him, which don’t work.

11. Ads
Two half-page ads for you here, folks! First up is for the publisher’s Superman comic: issue #17 on sale 26th Jan, and issue #18 on sale 9th Feb. We can deduce from this evidence that this is most likely a fortnightly comic. And only 42p per issue, too.

The second ad is for the movie Short Circuit 2, which is threatening to come to a cinema near us on Friday Feb 10th. That’s confirms that this comic was scheduled to see print in 1989, because the previous Feb 10th to fall on a Friday was in 1984, and the next was in 1995.

21. The Batcave – letters page
Letters from Freddie Aldous of Suffolk, Thomas Gibson of Canberra, Neville Peacock of Portslade-By-Sea, S. Bowen of Gwent, Lee Davis of Enfield and Graham Williams of Liverpool. Congratulations, readers! Your names are now on the World Wide Web, which didn’t even exist when you wrote in to Batman Monthly!

22-29. Robin: “Murder on the Midway”
Original publication: Batman #337 (DC Comics, Jul 1981)
Script: Gerry Conway
Penciller: Don Newton
Inker: Larry Mahlstedt
Colourist: Adrienne Roy
Letterer: Costanza
Editor: Dick Giordano

Dick Grayson (AKA Robin, the Boy Howdy, the coldest-legged teenager in all of Gotham City) arrives at Hill’s Circus to meet his friend Waldo, even though Waldo is a clown (clown costumes are nature’s way of warning us to steer clear, like a wasp’s stripes or charity-mugger’s tabard). Also present at the circus are Tiny (a roustabout), Vashnu (an Indian Fakir), an acrobat called Deadman (Cleveland Brand, the twin brother of Boston Brand, the original Deadman who is now dead and a ghost), Jo-Jo Jones (another clown), and assorted others. When Jo-Jo is murdered, Dick catches the apparent shooter… who turns out to be Waldo. The plot thickens…!

This is good stuff indeed but with a meagre eight pages it’s really only getting started by the time it’s over. The art is particularly nice: strong lines, great poses and angles, colourful without being garish. I’ve always liked Robin, and Deadman has always fascinated me, so I’d have absolutely loved this as a kid!

30. Character profile: Catwoman
So, remember when Batman and Catwoman got married a couple of years ago and it was big news in the comics world? At the time I remember thinking, “Hold on, haven’t we been down this road before?” I was, however, too lazy to go checking. But now that laziness has paid off because in this profile we see that Bats and Cats have indeed already been married. It’s not specified in the profile but I imagine that this was on Earth-Two or some other alternate reality/rebooted continuity/they forgot. We get a lot of that sort of thing with DC comics where at the drop of a hat an entire branch of history can be reset or a character can be completely wiped out of existence. I still miss Comet the Super-Horse.

31-47. Batman: “My City Burns at Both Ends — It Will Not Last the Night”
Original publication: Batman #318 (DC Comics, Dec 1979)
Script: Len Wein
Penciller: Irv Novick
Inker: Frank McLaughlin
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Paul Levitz

Batman rescues a little girl from a burning tenement building, and then discovers that the fire was set by a supervillain arsonist — the Firebug. (So… two different people who start fires in one issue, eh? It is so, so difficult to resist making the old Russ Abbot joke but I shall be strong.) Firebug manages to escape from Batman, and pretty soon we see who he really is: Joey Rigger, who has lost both of his parents and his younger sister in accidents caused by the building owners’ neglect.

The strip’s secondary plots (the supposedly retired Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman, is showing some interest in ancient Egyptian Cat-God artefacts; Lucius Fox declines a job offer from the improbably-named Gregorian Falstaff, who is very obviously evil) get in the way a bit, unfortunately, because Firebug is a particularly interesting character, and his costume is awesomely over-the-top, too.

48. Ad. Weetabix
One of those comic-strip-style ads featuring the anthropomorphic Weetabix characters Dunk, Bixie, Brains, Crunch and Brian (I typed that list of names without looking them up because I remember them from the TV ads where they denounce “Titchy Breakfasts”).

Before we go any further, here’s a brief but important digression: Both “Color Me Deadly!” and “My City Burns at Both Ends — It Will Not Last the Night” feature pencils by Irv Novick, of whom I am quite a fan. Irv was one of the comic-book artists who had their artwork crudely copied — completely without credit, payment or permission — by Roy Lichtenstein, of whom I am very much not a fan. You can find more about Lichtenstein and his “art” on Jeremy Briggs’ excellent post on Down the Tubes.

If you’ve ever found yourself admiring a Lichtenstein, please remember that his works based on comic panels have sold for millions of dollars (a total of at least US$425 million, according to Wikipedia) out of which the original artists have received… absolutely nothing. And if you’re ever tempted to buy something that has a Lichtenstein print, you could instead consider making a donation to The Hero Initiative.

Back to Batman Monthly…

One very nice touch is that the issue credits the original sources for the comic strips — I don’t recall ever seeing this before on a British reprint publication:

(As it happens, I didn’t spot this until I’d already tracked down the strips the hard way. But it’s still a great idea and I wish more publishers had done it!)

So, 80p for a mag containing forty-two pages of comics, most of which were around ten years old… Was it worth the money? Well, yes, I think so. It was a little on the expensive side, but it’s pretty high quality stuff. Sure, Crazy Quilt is a bit rubbish as villains go, but what happens to him in the story packs a fair punch, and the other two stories have plenty to offer — not least of which is some great artwork.

By 1989 it was a lot easier to get the original American comics in the UK and Ireland, but really only in specialist comic stores: Batman Monthly would have been available on the shelves of the average newsagent. I daresay that it was the first exposure to the character for a lot of Batman fans, and it certainly should be applauded for that.

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Bonus:

Here’s the original cover of DC Comics’ Batman #316 alongside the recoloured cover for London Editions’ Batman Monthly #7…