Aug 16, 2018
BATMANIA was a well-made fanzine that was started by Columbia, MO, fireman Biljo White in 1964, concurrent with the introduction of New Look Batman by DC. Reading it revealed so many interesting things about the Batman fandom of the sixties that we can't cram it all into one episode!
So this time, in part one of our examination of BATMANIA, we (gasp!) set the TV show aside and focus on explaining just what was in this publication, who the now-famous (among comics fans) names were that appeared among its membership, how these deadly earnest fans reacted to the New Look, and how the zine chronicles the gradual realization that Bob Kane had had considerably less to do with the creation of Batman in 1939, and with the subsequent writing and drawing of the strip, than everyone had thought.
PLUS: Music from two versions of an '80s Batman video game, the Little Old Lady from Pasedena in an unexpected place, some iTunes reviews that are going straight to our heads, and your mail!
Bill Schelly's article from Comic Book Artist #3, detailing the Bob Kane kerfuffle