Batman: The Sunday Classics 1943-1946

by Bill Finger (Creator)

When Bob Kane’s seminal Batman first reached newspapers during World War II, only a small group of papers published it. So the early Batman and Robin comic strips have remained among the most elusive works in comics’ history. Not anymore: these rare Sunday color pages are now reprinted in a generously sized format worthy of their importance. The many fans of the Caped Crusader will thrill to see Batman and the Boy Wonder do battle once again with both common thugs and outrageous villains in order to save Gotham City from plot after evil plot. Making their nefarious way across these illustrated panels are some of the Caped Crusader’s most indelible adversaries, including the Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, and Two-Face. In addition to behind-the-scenes information and rare promotional materials, this deluxe edition collects the first four years of the classic Batman and Robin newspaper comics exactly as written and illustrated by the strip’s most famous writers and artists. Among the classic stories are: “The Penguin’s Crime-Thunderstorms,” “Catwoman’s Grasshopper Chase,” and “Half Man—Half Monster.”Batman and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics (C) 2006. All rights reserved.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Batman, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

William "Bill" Finger was an American comic strip and comic book writer best known as the uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, as well as the co-architect of the series' development. In later years, Kane acknowledged Finger as "a contributing force" in the character's creation. Comics historian Ron Goulart, in Comic Book Encyclopedia, refers to Batman as the "creation of artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger", and a DC Comics press release in 2007 about colleague Jerry Robinson states that in 1939, "Kane, along with writer Bill Finger, had just created Batman for [DC predecessor] National Comics".

Film and television credits include scripting The Green Slime (1969), Track of the Moon Beast (1976), and three episodes of 77 Sunset Strip.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Skjam! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Batman was a big success in the comic books, so it wasn’t long at all before it was decided that he’d probably be a hit in the newspaper comic strips as well. Once that was decided, the problem of Sundays had to be considered. Many smaller newspapers didn’t have a Sunday edition, and often budget-conscious families would only buy the Sunday paper for its coupons and thick supplements and not see the daily strips. So some comic strips would simply skip Sundays, others would only run on Sundays, a third group used the Sunday to recap the week, and then there was a fourth method.

That method was having an entirely separate continuity for the Sunday pages of the comic strip, so that the stories didn’t have to intersect at all. This is the method the Batman strip took. The Sundays were usually penciled by Jack Burnley and inked by Charles Paris, with several writers, including Bill Finger. (The dailies were mostly Bob Kane on art.)

Ancillary material in this coffee table edition includes production notes for each of the stories, mini-bios of the various people who helped produce the strip (letterer Ira Schnapp has one paragraph that’s basically “we have nothing.”, marketing materials, essays on Batman as a liminal figure between heroes of the past and present and the influence Dick Tracy had on Batman, and looks at other attempts to bring Batman to the newspaper comics.

The stories themselves begin with the Penguin coming up with a clever scheme to rob the richest and most penny-pinching man in Gotham, Amos Q. Pinchbeck. This involves a bargain price on an umbrella that has a radio speaker inside, allowing Penguin to stick the miser up by remote control.

There’s also a story where we learn the Penguin’s real name and Batman and Robin have to protect him from the rest of the underworld. That name, Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, made it back into the comic book.

Other standout stories include ones where gangsters engage in an elaborate plot to make a police officer lose weight, Catwoman leads Batman and Robin on a wild chase across America, and a suspenseful race against time to discover the real murderer before a man on Death Row is executed.

There are a handful of stories featuring Alfred Beagle, Bruce Wayne’s butler. These are lighter-toned, as when Alfred decides to play Santa to an impoverished child, only to stumble into the wrong apartment just in time to save Batman’s life.

And then a couple of stories are lifted almost directly from the comic books, like “The Four Fates” in which four murderers are cursed to die, each with a prophecy twist. “Metal will still your beating heart.” “Ha, I wear a bullet-proof vest at all times.” (Dies of metal anyway.) And a version of Two-Face, but instead of being district attorney Harvey Kent, he’s vain actor Apollo Kent.

The stories are short, with several only being two Sunday pages long, but since they’re full Sunday pages, that’s still enough room to tell a story.

The final story is a two-parter about a criminal who leaves a deliberate clue to lure Batman and Robin into a trap. They turn the tables.

This is a pretty good run of all-ages Batman stories, though the non-gory deaths might be too intense for the youngest readers. They largely ignore the War going on, outside a rich man’s quick reference to donating to the War effort.

The art is excellent by Golden Age comics standards and this reprint does a good job with the colors. The large size also allows the format to shine. (This is one volume I would not recommend the e-book of.)

Highly recommended to Batman fans and collectors of old comic strips.

[Tim Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been working my way through this one for a while now. Comic strips tend to read better (at least to me) in small chunks rather than in big bites. It's the serial nature of the medium. And it's always a bit of a quandary of how you review them, adventure strips more so than humor strips. Are we looking at the art? The storylines? The gestalt of the two? And when one clearly outstrips the other...well then what do we do? And there's also the issue of the overall historical importance of the work...and of the book.

This book has the Sunday strips of the 1940s experiment to translate Batman to the newspaper from comic books. It was, financially, a failed experiment as the strip only lasted three years and really never had a large footprint in newspapers. Artistically it's a more mixed bag, but the Sunday strip outperformed the daily strip by a significant amount. Whereas the dailies had very few of Batman's classic villains, the Sundays gave us storylines with The Penguin (twice), The Joker, Catwoman and Two-Face. That last was quite interesting as it was not Harvey Dent and Two-Face was never a major villain until his reintroduction in the 1970s.

The storylines are mostly written by either Bill Finger or Al Schwartz. And while none of them are anything close to truly great comics they are usually fairly interesting and are leaps and bounds better than the daily strips (many of which were pretty dire). And while there was a bit more of bumbling Alfred than I'd prefer at least the strip keeps Batman and Robin as the stars, unlike the daily in which Bruce Wayne came to be the star of the vehicle. The art is quite good. Largely penciled by Jack Burnley with inks by Charles Paris this is really as good as Golden Age Batman art ever got.

So where do I come down on this? Well, if you want to read early Batman comic strips, this is far better than the dailies. But the contemporaneous comic books were probably, by and large, better written. But I'm very glad this book exists. If this were a comic strip starring anyone but Batman and had existed for a mere three years with only serviceable stories and good, but not great art it would be completely forgotten. But we have the chance to see a bit of history. And that's always a good thing.

[Mark Bartlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This compilation of the 1940s color serials from the Sunday newspaper comics does a great job in the presentation, coffee table book size, recolored, commentary on each serial, bios of all the writers/artists, and all for $15 at the time it was published, a bargain. Plus some extra examples from later strips thrown in, maybe just to pad it out a little? 1940's Batman and Robin is still very recognizable to the modern version. The stories, some by Batman co-creator Bill Finger, are interesting enough and vary the plots and settings and background details quite well. Over the last few years I read the first 4 volumes of Batman Chronicles, which starts with Detective Comics #27 and doesn't even get you as far as the end of 1941, so this book makes a nice complement to those, and I still have the other hardcover of the daily newspaper strips from this era to get to. Kind of interesting that these serials make almost no reference to World War II, I guess people wanted some escapism in their crime fighters even back then.

[Matthew J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

More Sunday funny paper nonsense from the WWII era. Like Superman, Batman does little for me, especially this version. Both characters are such pale shadows of more interesting Pulp heroes and due to the nature of newspaper comic strips, the stories never get especially interesting. There are a few appearances from some of Batman's famous villains, though with little to do. Two-Face definitely didn't seem like he was destined to return...and yet. If you're a big fan of the character and are interested in his beginnings, this book is going to be enjoyable for you. It's got quite a bit of info before it gets to the actual comic strips. Not for me, however.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this book with a B&N gift card back around Christmas, and after picking through it for a few months, I finally buckled down and finished it.

Anyway, Batman: the Sundays, it's fun stuff. Golden Age simplicity, but the art is good and there are some fun scenarios established. Plus, Two-Face's real identity is ham-actor Harvey Apollo!

[John Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Batman is as ill-fitted for Sunday funnies as he is for film. Highly inferior to Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon and The Phantom and recommended only for the die hard bat fan.

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Batman Sunday strips is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, they avoided the low points that the daily strips suffered where Batman and Robin would not be seen for months in costume. On the other hand, the stories were not nearly as complex and a few stories were disappointing particularly the first storyline and the last two.

However, this book does have some worthwhile features. It features early appearances by the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and an early version of Two Face. In addition, Batman has all kind of adventures away from Gotham City including at oil wells, at New Orleands during Mardi Gras as well as several other rural adventures.

In addition, this collection includes snippets of rare Batman comic strips from 1953, 1966, 1978, and 1989 which are sadly unavailable collected form, so this is a treat for Batman fans that's definitely worth reading.

[Michael P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not of one of the great comic strips, but this fun reprint of Sunday strips is far more satisfying than the comic book stories published at the same time. The story telling pitfalls of the magazine, the crooks escape two or three times until it is time to end the story, fit the natural rhythm of a Sunday comic strip, so the escapes do not seem like a cheap trick to fill eight pages in a comic book, but a natural way to end a Sunday sequence in a semi-cliff hanger. Because the Sunday funnies had the best artists doing comics, DC usually assigned the best of the Batman artists to this strip, which is to say that Bob Kane’s participation is slight, and that helps too. A great example of one of the B comic strips of the forties.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completely enjoyable. The sunday format demanded an interim storytelling format, story arcs probably only lasted 3-4 Sundays max so they had to be compelling and easy to follow but not dull. There are some genuinely bizzare villains in this, not seriously wicked but oddly dangerous, more of the daycare center crazy than the full on maximum security loony bin crazy. Probably because the format didnt merit the deeper storyline and characterization. All feature the Batman-Robin partnership and Robin is quite young here. A lot of research went into collecting these strips from a fairly ephemeral medium; people just didnt keep them as they did the books and newspapers went out of business. Interesting introduction and extra material.

[Kamakana · Rating 2 out of 5]

when my brother and me were able to read written books- our mom would no longer allow us to read comic books. as far as dailies go, I do not recall any crime/superhero series. so reading these are just new for me, in some way hoping to compare with 'watchmen', to get a sense of history, as these would have been when my father was a kid. when the Dick Tracy movie came out, I found two modern collections, which my father had followed. fun, primitive, uncomplicated, I still much prefer those books to this one. but if you grew up with them, this is a good source...

http://www.michaelkamakana.com/favour...

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunday funnies featuring Batman from the Forties. Some actually illustrated by Bob Kane himself and many illustrated by the rakishly named Dick Sprang. Because of the compact space the episodes are pretty short so don't expect much in the way of plot development. The best stories are the ones with the supervillains in them, i.e. The Penguin, The Joker, etc. There's some great supplemental extras in the book displaying promo stuff for The Dynamic Duo. Not bad for Batman completists.

[Lionel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Not my favorite era of Batman to begin with, these stories don't particularly leap off the page. There's a few enjoyable episodes--the second Penguin story, for example, and the Catwoman story. There are also some mediocre stories featuring the Penguin (again) and the Joker. The majority of the stories deal with the duo fighting common criminals and solving mysteries.

The collection is boosted somewhat by some excellent supplemental material.

[Cyndi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very innocent and serialized form for our erstwhile heroes.

Enjoyed it for its historical signifigance, which turned it into a 4 star effort, when the content was really a 3 star.

Overall a fair and historically relevent addition to the Batman lexicon.

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kid-approved!

Of course, this book features many tales that I was unfamiliar with. I am certain that it was cutting edge stuff back in its day. All in all, it was very enjoyable and quite entertaining.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a lot of these when I was a kid. A fun look back at the early incarnation of Batman and Robin. some memorable stories, but do not expect the 'Dark Knight' here....

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!