Every so often, I have one of these nights: Can't sleep, can't not sleep. My brain is thinking about anything and everything, processing it all like a blender being spun in a series of quick pulses. Meanwhile, the rest of me is trying to drag me back into bed…a place from which I have arisen three times since I thought I was turning in for the night. And so here I sit at my computer, trapped at the intersection of Good Night and Good Morning. That's where I'll often find me these days.
I just decided to plunge into my "Ask ME" e-mailbox and pick out a question to answer. This is from Andy Cavaliere…
Your recent series on Frank Robbins raised a question for me. I've always wondered about how differently DC handled its two big properties circa 1971. You and others have gone into great detail about how finicky Sol Harrison was about Jack's Superman faces. But then here, right around the same time, Julie Schwartz seemingly had the latitude to bring in Frank Robbins to draw Batman, with a style very different from the prevailing look for the character.
I know Superman was still the crown jewel at the time, but you'd think Batman would be treated similarly, especially just a few years removed from being a pop culture phenomenon. I suppose we're fortunate that Harrison didn't have Neal Adams redraw Frank's Batman faces. Was it just as simple as the fact that Batman wore a mask, so it wasn't seen as a big deal? Or was DC's production team just being capricious?
Well, first off, it wasn't Sol Harrison…or to be more accurate, it wasn't just Sol Harrison. As the head of production at DC, he had very definite ideas about what a comic book should look like but he didn't have the power you ascribe to him. If Sol had been in charge, Jack Kirby — or anyone who drew like him — would never have gotten in the door. There were folks there who couldn't see anything good about the sixties Marvel line. It was kind of like how today, so many Republicans can't admit when a Democrat does anything good and most Democrats are same when Republicans make things better.
But Sol's antipathy to the way Jack drew dated back to way before Marvel was a threat to DC. Sol didn't like Jack's art on Challengers of the Unknown in 1957. The decision to homogenize Jack's drawings of Superman and Jimmy Olsen was made by many who didn't like the idea of their "crown jewel" looking like he was in one of those crappy Marvel comics. This was not a problem when Frank Robbins drew Batman. Frank Robbins was not (then) a Marvel artist.
And by the way: I suspect the decision to have Frank Robbins draw a few Batman stories was made by Carmine Infantino, who was supervising the editors then. At the very least, it was approved by him. Having argued that I think too many folks blame a miscast artist when he's doing his best on a book he shouldn't be doing — they should be blaming the editor who made the assignment — I shall now point out the following: I think too often they blame editors for decisions that were made by a person with the title of Publisher or Editorial Director. Or they could even be higher-up in the company.
Thanks for your question, Andy. I seem to have put myself in the mood to doze by writing out that reply. I hope I didn't put anybody else to sleep. If you spot any typos, I'll fix 'em in the morning. G'night, I hope.