BYEEEE!!!!!!

Off now for two weeks of adventures - see you soon.

A spin-off project

You may be aware of my "Someone Old, Someone New" project. Actually, i had another idea before that one, which was to do with this Bat-cover. Its my Number 1 image from my childhood Bat-reading, an image that's stayed with me all these years and, even now, looking at it i get a deep down, emotional reaction to it. So, i thought it'd be nice to ask artists to have a go at their own version of it. As long as the three characters were there and were doing what they're doing, how they went about it and what it'd look like is totally up to them. Very pleased to say that i've my first two now. If you care to pop over to my Bat-Blog, you'll see them in all their glory: http://outofthebatcave.blogspot.co.uk/

Battle - 15th May 1976

With an awful lot of comics from the 70's, i've got a vague memory of the covers. Not so with this one that i've just rebought. Great innit? Inside we get the usual "how they heck did they manage to get all that in 3 pages?" way of telling a self-contained story. In the case of Major Eazy, he has a fight over a card game, almost shoots dead soime MP's, gets orders to get an expert to Toragli, finds its one of the cheating card players and goes up against a German tank an d truck before getting there. Great stuff and, again, more examples of just how mature these tales for children were. Look at this MP just about to give a soldier a beating for brawling in the street:

Other things of note here is just how bad Belardinelli's art is when coloured:

Everything's just lost - that top image of the ship would've been fantastic in black and white. When you turn the page and do get the B&W, biggest thrill, and note really in the same league, is Turk going up against a sumo wrestler in a Japanese training camp. Yes really:

Nasty bit of violence if Eagle Flies East. '76 is the time of Action, but its often overlooked that Battle was coming out with equally strong stuff at the same time:

"AIEEEE!" WATCH: A short "AIEEE!" from a tumbling German in D-Day Dawson. And a 100% perfect "AIEEEE!" from his mate a bit later. A "AAIEE!" from the torturor in EAgle Flies East