...and instantly wanting, nay, NEEDING to get my hands on those twin tabloids. The Action Comics #1 reprint I found quite easily at my local drugstore (which at the time was my main comicbook haunt). The Batman tabloid, though, I searched high and low for, eventually accidentally finding it at a "strange" (i.e. one I'd never been to before) drugstore near my pediatrician's office (Young Groove had recently broken his arm and was due a check-up). After all the hunting (my dad, bless 'im, even took me out on a long drive to search for it on one of his days off earlier in the month) I lucked out and found it on January 15, 1974. T'was a true red letter day for Young Groove. Not only did I possess a copy of the coolest Bat-comic on the planet, but I finished reading it before the debut of Happy Days on ABC. Broken arm or no, it was one great day!
What made that tabloid (besides its humongous size) so cool? Neal Adams' cover, which re-worked the cool splash from Batman #251...
Classic Golden Age stories drawn by the likes of Bob Kane (with a Joker story I'd never seen), Jerry Robinson, and Dick Sprang...
A Silver Age winner drawn by Carmine Infantino...
Plus a "How to Draw Batman" page (again by Infantino)...
One of my all-time fave Batman stories, "Hot Time in Gotham Town Tonight!" with Irv Novick art (I'll have to share that whole story in the near-future)...
Adams art on "Ghost of the Killer Skies!"...
A mini-lesson on "Batman on the Screen" (I always loved photo-features! Who wrote it? Bob Rozakis? Allan Asherman? ENB?)...
And even the "table-top diorama" was cool--more Adams!
Even at the unthinkable price of a whole buck, that, babies, was a bargain! Wheeeeee-O!
