Shadow of the Bat

BEFORE I DISCOVERED MARVEL COMICS IN THE MID-1960S, I was something of a Batman fan, specifically the stories of the 1950s (which I enjoyed in the Batman Annuals of the period and last years of the Jack Schiff era in the early 1960s. Back then, the go-to artist for Batman was Shelley Moldoff, who had jettisoned his Golden Age, Alex Raymond influenced style and aped the rather limited and cartoony abilities of Bob Kane.

As a direct literary descendant of the pulp hero The Shadow, Batman did quite a bit of shadow-casting himself, being that he was a "creature of the night, dark, terrible" and all.

Moldoff didn't start as Bob Kane's ghost-artist until the late 1950s, but while I was researching Batman covers for an earlier post, I noticed another strange trope that would crop up again and again in Moldoff's cover art - a weird, Bat-Signal style shadow, cast by Batman.

Forged in simpler times, The Shadow spent quite a bit of his time casting weird shadows, something often referred to in the text as well as being depicted frequently on the covers.

Now, because Batman was largely inspired by the long-running pulp and radio star The Shadow, Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger appropriated quite a lot of the tricks and gimmicks from The Shadow stories. Blending with the darkness, impenetrable disguises and of course, casting weird shadows.

Some examples of Batman shadows on covers of the 1940s. Curiously the cover for Batman 16 is essentially the same as that of Batman 9, just flopped.
Click the image to enlarge.

So it seemed only natural that Batman should do a lot of the same. And indeed, he cast many a shadow on the Batman and Detective Comics covers of his 1940s heyday.

Pencilled by Jim Mooney, this cover to Detective Comics 132 (Feb 1948), does kind of foreshadow the odd, Bat-signal inspired shadows Shelly Moldoff would start drawing on Batman covers almost a decade later.

Then, around the middle of 1956, Curt Swan, who'd been pencilling the Detective Comics covers, and Win Mortimer, who'd been providing pencils for the Batman covers, were both replaced by Sheldon Moldoff. I couldn't find any reason for this in any interviews given by Moldoff, but he does mention that Kane had told him the gig didn't pay much, but would be steady work. My suspicion is that Kane was trying to save himself some money.

Batman 102 was the first to use the stylised shadow trope. It's not immediately obvious, because the colourist used a pastel shade, but it's there. Batman 108 (Jun 1957) and Batman 129 (Feb 1960) would follow.

It wasn't afterwards that Moldoff started slipping these stylised shadows of Batman into the covers he was knocking out for the Bob Kane studio. The earliest one I found was for Batman 102 (Feb 1956). Then there was a short break and another couple cropped up on Batman covers.

As these covers were a little later, the Bat-Shadow is a little more pronounced, solid black instead of an outline filled with colour. Along with Detective 242, there was Detective 246 (Aug 1957) and Detective 286 (Dec 1958).

Over on Detective Comics, the same gimmick was showing up. Detective 242 (Apr 1957) was the first to use the stylise shadow on the cover art, then in the months that followed, the trope would show up several more times.

These early 1960s covers are Batman137 (Feb 1961), Batman 139 (April 1961) and Batman 154 (Mar 1963) - all still rocking the Bat-Signal shadow motif.

As we moved into the early 1960s, Moldoff was using the trick even more frequently, especially on the Detective Comics covers. Though it might just have seemed that way because Detective was a monthly and Batman came out eight times a year.

Detective Comics 298 (Dec 19161), 302 (Apr 1962), 304 (Jun 1962), 306 (Aug 1962), 315 (May 1963) and 320 (Oct 1963).

Then a curious thing happened. Faced with declining sales, DC were considering cancelling the Batman title. It has been reported elsewhere that DC had been thinking about cancelling Batman, but it seems unlikely that anyone would think discontinuing the flagship title - the very comic that gave DC its name, Detective Comics - could ever be a good idea. Whether the story is true or not, it does seem like DC used it to get Bob Kane to loosen his grip on the character, allowing incoming editor Julius Schwartz (replacing Jack Kirby's old nemesis Jack Schiff) to give the character a sleek makeover, getting rid of the aliens and mutations and placing Batman in a more realistic environment. Carmine Infantino was drafted in to redesign the look, and although Sheldon Moldoff would survive the cull, he'd start drawing more like Infantino and less like Bob Kane.

But that's not all. The strange Bat-Signal shadow would continue to show up ... even on covers pencilled by Infantino. The idea was like chewing gum - impossible to shake off. The earliest instances were on the Detective Comics covers ...

Detective Comics 328 (Infantino art, Jun 1964), 344 (Infantino art, Oct 1965), 349 (Kubert art, Mar 1966), 351 (Infantino art, May 1966), 354 (Infantino art, Aug 1966), 358 (Infantino art, Dec 1966).

But later, it started showing up on the Batman covers, too, albeit a little bit later and on covers pencilled by a variety of artists.

Batman 195 (Infantino art, Sep 1967), 203 (Infantino/Adams art, Jul 19168), 204 (Novick art, Aug 1968), 214 (Novick art, Aug 1969), 216 (Novick/Giordano art, Nov 1969), 217 (Adams art, Dec 1969).

And finally, even Batgirl started getting in on the Bat-Signal shadow action, though curiously Robin never rated a special shadow of his own.

Detective Comics 358 (Infantino art, Jan 1967), 369 (Gil Kane art, Nov 1967).

The weird Shadow of the Batman device continued up until about 1970 or so, then pretty much died out as new artists came in and regard for the character's history naturally waned away.

Even so, there are a few examples of this phenomenon during the 1970s as well, but as this blog has the phrase "Silver Age" in its title, I don't like to wander too far into the Bronze Age.

If you want to see more, you can always go to the Grand Comicbook Database and have a browse through the covers stored there ... I'm not going to do all the work for you.

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