Tag Archives: World War II

Batman comics and World War II

Posted on June 29, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

          Although nowadays movies set in World War II have become mostly synonymous with tearjerker melodramas or grim military epics, this wasn’t always the case. The gravitas of that conflict and the overwhelming consensus about who the heroes and villains … Continue reading →

Posted in POLITICS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gerry Conway’s marvelized Batman

Posted on May 12, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

After being largely ignored for a long time, Gerry Conway’s Batman run in the early 1980s has been the object of well-deserved rediscovery in recent years (not least because of the haunting pencils by Don Newton and Gene Colan). These … Continue reading →

Posted in WRITERS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Top 20 stories of The Spirit, by Will Eisner

Posted on March 2, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

To celebrate Will Eisner week, today Gotham Calling pays homage to The Spirit, Eisner’s crime series from the 1940/50s whose legacy has been echoing around Batman comics ever since. Cue moody saxophone. The thing about The Spirit is that the … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Batman and fascism

Posted on January 20, 2015 by I.M. Baytor

Some people apply the label ‘fascist’ to a specific early 20th century ideology, and perhaps to some later derivative political projects. Others use the term more loosely, applying it to people who come across as authoritarian, unapologetically violent, and/or intolerant … Continue reading →

Posted in POLITICS OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Great Golden Age splashes

Posted on September 29, 2014 by I.M. Baytor

In my post about Mike W. Barr I mentioned that one of the many nostalgic elements in his acclaimed Detective Comics run was the inclusion of surrealist title pages teasing each issue’s themes and plot. Such opening splash pages can … Continue reading →

Posted in ART OF BATMAN COMICS | Tagged | Leave a comment