Ride, Batman, Ride!

My Goddess informs me that today is Saturday. Damn - i'm getting worse on tracking time. I thought today was Thursday.
But, i'm finally awake so time for a quickie!

When digging through old Golden Age comics, one tends to notice little patterns and trends. One thing that stood out on the first few years of Batman covers - Batman likes to Ride!

That cover loops us back around to yesterday's post. And we left out riding things like skis, swinglines, dangling rope ladders, etc.,.

It sure looks like they were having fun, too.

Found In Space

I didn't make it to bed last night until the sun showed up. So running a wee bit behind today. Instead of rooting around for a new topic, let's just follow along with yesterday's space journey. Lots of old Golden Age heroes hopped off the planet now and again.

Even some you might never suspect - like the Black Pirate...

And then there's Batman. No surprise he left the planet. He even left the millennium. 
Batman Is Everywhere!

Too bad he didn't send them to the year 3000 to hook up with the Batman we met there three years prior to this tale.

Now, if you'll excuse me, i'm going to go caffeinate.

page art by Paul Reinman from All-American Comics #83 and Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz, and Charles Paris from Batman #59 (1947, 1950)

What To Do In Case You Get Attacked By A Shark.

I'm pulling some bits for a Batmanimation post this weekend. In the meantime, here's a special lesson for all you beach swimmers out there...

I feel better knowing you're all a little bit safer now.

He Beat Starro, Too

Another quick reminder -

This man who is arguably the 2nd best Batman voice (after Kevin Conroy, of course) looks like this:

Of course, Conroy looks nothing like the voice of Batman, either. But i just love that a man well known for playing whacked out oddballs is so terrific in the role of Batman. It's really quite appropriate when one thinks about it.

With only 3 seasons, Batman: The Brave & The Bold felt like it was cut off too soon (by Bat-Mite). But they sure crammed a ton of Silver Age fun into the show while it lasted. And one of the latest DCU animated series, Justice League Action, draws heavy on those old comics as well. (They won me over when the guest star of the 5th episode was freaking Space Cabbie!)

It's great fun hearing Diedrich Bader guest starring in the role of Booster Gold. I hope we see more of him next season.

FF&G #23 (Puzzle Free)

It would have scanned better on 3 lines, but i can't insert breaks into the subject line.
Ah, well...

You've got all weekend to go watch Friday Night Fights and Vote for the Winner. Here and now, we're hiding out once again for

With all the holiday pressures, i suspect we could all use a light and fun edition this week. (I certainly can. I only realized what day it was half an hour ago, my time. Kind of spaced days all week - not good for my meds.)
So, no puzzles, quizzes or conundrums today. Just some 1960s Batman fun & games - 3 of them, in fact: Bat-Track, Trapped By The Penguin and Batman's Crime Patrol. (For extra fun, in Crime Patrol, one team plays for Batman, the other for Joker.)

Our games come from 1966's Batman Giant Games Book:

Kind of strange showing that sort of thing up front, but there's no solutions to be found there-in - only games and the story of The Doomstown Menace (a Batman text adventure). Let me point out that this wasn't just your typical fun & games comic. Bot the outer cover and the centerfold were printed on cardboard stock to provide actual playable pieces when cut out by the readers. (Oh, the horror!) They even went a step further, making sure you're covered even if you don't have a 6-sided die to roll at home:

(That parenthetical "do this twice" isn't an actual instruction, it's my inner alt-write urge to correct the common error - dice is plural, die is singular)

Also provided, of course, are playing pieces and cards you'll need to play the games:

And here are our rules and game boards:

(I tried to keep the boards fairly big in case anyone actually was going to print & play)

To wrap things up, in addition to the story and two more games, the book also gives us a couple classic portraits of the Dynamic Duo:

the works from the Batman Giant Games Book (1966)