The Official Batman Batbook Revised Bat-Edition is the only official guide to the 1966 television series.(The original edition sold over 100,000 copies worldwide) Containing a detailed guide to every episode and the feature film. Obsecure batfacts, trivia, a complete list of Holy Words, Batfight words, BatEquipment. Interviews with cast and crew members. This newly updated edition contains hundreds of new photos, additional facts (like cast salaries), trivia and interviews with guest stars, henchmen, crew members and the producers.

Batman: A Celebration of the Classic TV Series is the definitive book for all fans of the popular Sixties show. Presented in a lavish hardcover edition, the book features classic images, rare stills, photography and production art and serves as the ultimate tribute for fans of the series. Now at long last, collectors and Bat-fans alike can indulge in a detailed and in-depth look at the show that inspired generations. BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and (c) DC Comics. (s15)

Offers a fresh understanding of the persistent popularity and ongoing value of the original Batmanseries. ABC's action-comedy series Batman(1966–68) famously offered a dual address in its wildly popular portayal of a comic book hero in a live action format. Children uncritically accepted the show's plots and characters, who were guided by lofty ideals and social values, while adults reacted to the clear parody of the values on display. In Batman,author Matt Yockey argues that the series served as a safe space for viewers to engage with changing attitudes about consumerism, politics, the Vietnam war, celebrity, race, and gender during a period when social meaning was increasingly contested in America. Yockey examines Batman's boundary pushing in four chapters. In "Bat-Civics," he analyzes the superhero as a conflicted symbol of American identity and considers the ways in which the Batman character parodied that status. Yockey then looks at the show's experimentation with the superhero genre's conservative gender and racial politics in "Bat-Difference" and investigates the significance of the show's choices of stars and guest stars in "Bat-Casting." Finally, he considers how the series' dual identity as straightforward crime serial and subversive mass culture text set it up for extratextual production in "Bat-Being." The superhero is a conflicted symbol of American identity—representing both excessive individualism and the status quo—making it an especially useful figure for the kind of cultural work that Batman undertook. Batman fans, from popular culture enthusiasts to television history scholars, will enjoy this volume.

First published in 1991, The Many Lives of the Batman is a serious academic exploration of the cultural phenomenon called Batman. Marketing savvy alone did not build the Batman’s extraordinary success; it encompasses a variety of audiences who have embraced the hero through a collage of different media manifestations during his long history. Batman’s overlapping lives are illuminated in this critical anthology, which analyses the contexts of the character’s production and reception across a wide spectrum of time and media forms. This volume includes interviews with the character’s original creators. The other essays consider such questions as the political economy of comic book and film production processes; the cult status of the sixty’s television series in various fan communities; and the postmodernism of past and present Batman films. Using the tools of cultural studies, the book unmasks the Caped Crusader’s mysterious attraction.

Explores the history of Batgirl from her groundbreaking comics debut to her disappointing live-action appearances and beyond. For over sixty years, every woman who took on the mantle of Batgirl has been a powerful, independent heroine, each belying the sidekick status the name implies and connecting with a unique subset of marginalized fans. Betty Kane, the original Bat-Girl, was a hero for young girls at a time when the genre was leaving them behind. Barbara Gordon embodied the values of the women’s liberation movement and became a powerful figure in disability representation. Cassandra Cain was a woman of color in the traditionally monochromatic DC Comics universe. Stephanie Brown was a perpetual outsider, a voice for those who never belonged but kept trying regardless. Batgirl and Beyond: The Dynamic History of the Heroines of Gotham Cityexplores the evolving role of the Batgirls across the turbulent history of the superhero industry, as well as the importance of their fans, who pushed the genre forward to become more diverse and inclusive. Tim Hanley traces how each Batgirl dealt with a litany of mistreatment from a publisher who didn’t understand their distinct appeal and didn’t care to learn. From erasure to benchings to grievous injury and even death, the Batgirls have been subject to the genre’s worst excesses—and they havnot fared much better on television or in movies. However, Batgirl always comes back stronger and more resilient, and has remained a staple in the DC universe for decades. A must-read for fans new and old, Batgirl and Beyond is a tribute to an iconic character and a call to action for media to better embrace and represent female heroes.

Over the sixty years of his existence, Batman has encountered an impressive array of cultural icons and has gradually become one himself. This acclaimed book examines what Batman means and has meant to the various audiences, groups and communities who have tried to control and interpret him over the decades. Brooker reveals the struggles over Batman's meaning by shining a light on the cultural issues of the day that impacted on the development of the character. They include: patriotic propaganda of the Second World War; the accusation that Batman was corrupting the youth of America by appearing to promote a homosexual lifestyle to the fans of his comics; Batman becoming a camp, pop culture icon through the ABC TV series of the sixties; fans' interpretation of Batman in response to the comics and the Warner Bros. franchise of films.

"Since his debut in Detective Comics #27, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop Art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim ninja of the urban night, cycling through eras of dark melodrama and light comedy and back again. He is constantly changing, jumping from page to screen and beyond, and yet he remains one of our most revered cultural icons. In this witty, wise, and fascinating history, NPR critic and self-proclaimed nerd Glen Weldon expalins why we've continued to look to this masked man in the night--and what that devotion tells us about ourselves. Spanning from the Bat's humble beginnings as Bob Kane and Bill Finger's hyphenated hero, trading blithely homoerotic double entendres with Robin the Boy Wonder, to Christopher Nolan's post-9/11 Dark Knight, delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl, The Caped Crusade is a journey into the depths of Gotham that will delight new and old Bat-fans alike."--

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of comic-books, mobilising them as a means to understand better the political context in which they are produced. Structured around key political events in the US between 1938 and 1975, the author combines analyses of visual and textual discourse, including comic-book letters pages, to come to a more complete picture of the relationship between comic-books as documents and the people who read and created them. Exploring the ways in which ideas about the US and its place in the world were represented in major superhero comic-books during the tumultuous period of US history from the Great Depression to the political trauma of Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War, Superheroes and American Self-Image sheds fresh light on the manner in which comic-books shape and are shaped by contemporary politics. As such it will appeal to scholars of cultural and media studies, history and popular culture.

This is a complete reference work to the history of Batman big screen works, from the 1940s serials through the campy 1960s TV show and film, and up through the series of Warner Bros. summer blockbusters that climaxed with Christopher Nolan's 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises. Chapters on each Batman feature include extensive film and production credits, a production history, and a critical analysis of the movie relative to the storied history of the Batman character. The book also examines the Batman-related works and events that took place in the years between the character's film exploits.