A Sense of Doubt blog post #3183 - BAT LASH - Best Covers in Comic Book History - Comic Book Sunday for 2311.05
Just this today.
So a quickie share and some cool comic stuff.
A Comic Book On Sale 55 Years Ago Today, October 29, 1968
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There was a recent conversation online between Dan Jurgens and Karl Kesel in which they spoke about how the cover to this issue of BAT LASH by Nick Cardy may be one of the absolute best covers in comic book history, and I have to agree with them. Cardy is one of the finest cover artists ever to work in the medium, and after he became DC’s regular go-to cover artist (often working over sketches by Publisher Carmine Infantino) he produced one knock-out image after another in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But this one is exceptionally good, in part because all of the elements work together flawlessly—the coloring, the design, the use to white space, the overall composition, and the tenseness of the situation. It is superlative. As is the series it ran on. DC was very committed to releasing a variety of material across all genres, and they’d had a lot of success with western titles over the years. But by the late 1960s, tastes in westerns were changing, with the more violent “spaghetti westerns” of Sergio Leone and his compatriots getting a lot of attention. The days of simplistic white hats and black hats was a thing of the past—contemporary audiences demanded more ambiguity in their western stories. In response to this movement, DC put out BAT LASH, the joint creation of Joe Orlando, Carmine Infantino, Shelly Mayer and Sergio Aragones and whose stories were typically plotted by Aragones, scripted by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by cover artist Nick Cardy. It took a village sometimes. Bartholomew “Bat” Lash was cast in the mold of television’s Bret Maverick. He was a western character who appreciated the finer things in life: wine, women and song, and he didn’t like violence, although he was a fearsome shot. He was a reprobate who would travel from place to place, getting into and out of trouble and generally being a bit of a roguish ne’er-do-well. It was a great strip, and it’s well-remembered, but the series only lasted for seven issues following its debut in SHOWCASE. Infantino had a reputation for being fast on the trigger when it came to cancelling titles that he didn’t think were working—the late 1960s are littered with interesting and well-executed series from DC that only lasted a half-dozen issues. Possibly, the corruption of the affidavit returns process in the distribution system made it just about impossible for any new series to gain traction. Or it could just be that Carmine was jittery about letting any book go on long enough to lose money. Either way, BAT LASH went to boot hill—though the character became a recurring mainstay who drifted into and out of DC’s other western series over the years. As far as I can tell, there’s never been a collection of the original run of BAT LASH, but there really ought to be. I’d certainly pick up a copy.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2311.05 - 10:10
- Days ago = 3047 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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