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How much more today, Andy?

Take it

Take it

I'll take it!

Now if I can just figure out in the new boards how to get my take it outside of the quote, things will look better.

Very fun time. Big crowd.

HarvDoss for sure, probably Silverweb, Primetime, some others.

Okay, I happened to see a copy of Tec 397 today and found what I was talking about. Pages four and five. Basically Batman's internal dialogue about what had just happened in the fight that led to him being shot with a spear gun and falling into the water. Covers how he escaped what looked like deadly blows, how his nerve cluster was hit and that's why he couldn't pursue them with his dead arm, shows him treating himself, including with yoga. I feel like Denny brought all this to Batman, and it's big, as big as some of the villains he invented or brought back a few years later.

It's always a great, great show. I will be set up there.

That's a great goal. They are stylistically very different if you start going older than that. But as you work on those you'll find that it's not so hard to go back to 1965 or 1960 or maybe even 1955. Beyond that is pretty hard these days. It's a great run (I especially like Batman 200-400) and good luck!

Rubbed by cotton candy, that's a great line. In Batman 200 I believe they did an interview with Biljo White, because he'd been so important to Batman fandom in the sixties. I happened to see the letter column to 231 yesterday and boy, were the letter writers (including Dave Sim!) just crazy over the iconic cover to 227. You can see quite a difference in art with Novick/Giella in say 211 vs 217 Novick/Giordano a few months later. Then take a look at 235 Novick/Giordano and there are some great panels, great Batman cape, etc.

Exactly. There are some sweet panels and dynamic stuff in 239, Novick and Giordano. I don't think the story in 253 is too bad--again, just try to put it in context of the times and the audience. Certainly no worse than some of the other stories in the title mid to late 70s.

I'd have to review some of the Brave and the Bolds but I think it's this more serious, internal approach to Batman that sets apart O'Neil scripts from Bob Haney and another reason why 395 is important.

This is a great discussion. I'm always struck by the effort Adams put into the floor on 243. Thinking about Batman's internal monologue in 243, such as when they are running towards the mountain and he's thinking about the team he's assembled and the danger he's put them in, that's sort of what I was talking about in Tec 397. I feel like we were put more in Batman's mind than in previous iterations of the character. As a younger person, reading this, you are thinking, wow, here's a hyper-competent, awesome man and this is how he thinks and approaches things... Perhaps in earlier comics his thoughts were either "gosh, how can I convince Batwoman that I only promised to marry her under duress" or something ilke that. And his thought process wasn't internal but external, in the way he explained things to Robin.

Batman 243 is another I'll reread every time, even more than 244.

It's almost like 255 was too late to be reprinted. In the sense that the treasuries were about over and 80s/90s reprints would be more likely to be something like All Man-Bat stories or 251 inserted in Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, but a solo "werewolf" story just doesn't have a place to be reprinted. I'm a big fan of 255. Every time I add one to the stock I reread it. I don't think you can read any of these stories for the first time as a 40 or 50 year old and have them impact you the way they would if you were a kid or even maybe an 18 year old. I think the idea of Tec 395 reading like a Hammer -script is a good one. If I had a copy handy I'd look through it to try to point out why I think it is a really classic story, if only for certain pages that are great, not necessarily the story as a whole. I imagine you'd get a lot more letter column impact for Batman 217 over Detective 395. They probably ran one of those double letter columns for the reaction to 217. Btw, I feel like 397 is a bit under-rated. No one ever talks about it but IIRC there are a few sort of interior monologue moments for Batman that are more bad and kind of a departure from what came before.

Back when I was just an idealistic young pup with stars in his eyes. Now you're just like the rest of us, a bitter, twisted loner...

Thanks, we may experiment with the ebay idea. I'll have a few more advanced questions for you in terms of time of year, print advertising, and such. I'll call you at some point in Feb.

Terry, congrats on 11 years. I can't believe it's been that many. It's very cool of you to offer this help. As you know, we put on a couple back issue comics-only shows in Berkeley last year. We've got it running smoothly and now that we have the kinks worked out and proof of concept, I had planned to contact you to see how we might amp it up. So your offer is perfectly timed. I'll be in touch.

Considering I remember you being interested in them at what, age 24, I think you are grandfathered in!

Comics are great. How often in real life do you get to say fun stuff like "you blew it WooWoo" or "I had lunch with Wormboy today."

Great show report Robot Man!