Man-Bat No. 1 Cover by Jim Aparo
Man-Bat debuted in Detective Comics in a tale written by Frank Robbins and drawn by Neal Adams. It was a great idea and Man-Bat proved popular. After a few appearances, he was given his own magazine.
Alas, it didn’t light the world on fire and lasted only two issues. Later stories in Batman Family were better, with art by hot young talents like Marshall Rogers and Michael Golden. Man-Bat always does better when you pump up the creepy factor.
With that in mind, here’s a recolouring and repackaging of the first issue cover of his mid 70s book with a nod to horror comics.
New colour by me.
As published.
Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.
I always noticed the Batman head re-draw on this cover. Now that I’ve seen the original art, sure, Aparo had drawn a teeny-tiny head on Batman. DC decided a bigger one was in order, but instead of taking a stat and enlarging the head Aparo drew, a production artist re-drew it. Badly. I’ve restored Aparo’s drawing here and embiggened his Bathead.
Art made production ready.
New colour version.
Re-created and new trade dress added.
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Oh, man! What a glorious, absolutely sterling, digital restoration! Sitting here at 3 a.m., wondering WHY I didn’t buy some cold flu medicine to knock myself out (and not feel the razor blades in the throat that comes with creeping crud flu or cold). And I was looking at the wall in the main “library” of our home, where I’ve framed and hung several prints and/or printings (taken off the web when I can find a flawless source). One of those framings is this exact cover (which I’ve been thinking about sharing with you for over a year or more). Serendipitous to find you were thinking along the same lines (by the way: take a look at the cover of The Brave and the Bold 119, drawn about the time: they make excellent “bookend” drawings). Cheers from Oz!
P.S. STILL can’t believe an editor — likely Carmine Infantino (a lesser light, artist-wise) — had the chutzpah to completely mess up Aparo’s artwork and then publish the result.
I showed this to Aparo at a convention and he was surprised, having apparently never noticed the printed cover: “What did they do to my head?” he exclaimed. Inker Joe Rubenstein was nearby, and his guess was that Romeo Tanghal (whose work then was very derivative of Aparo’s) had done the paste-over. I was glad to get confirmation from the man himself that the work had been tampered with.
Michael –
I can’t remember who it was I was talking with online – a former DC employee – but he confirmed it as well. My recollection is that it was Infantino who gave the order.