In which I begin to talk a little about what I posted over the weekend.
In doing some digging through musty, forgotten boxes in the back room of the shop, I turned up a heapload of promo materials dating mostly from the mid ’80s though about the mid ’90s. One of the things I found was an original Batman: The Dark Knight Returns press release/promo pack, which was the source for the content of this post from Saturday. Also included in the package were some photocopies of interior pages, such as that one shot of Superman hefting the tank over his head.
The letter notes a “three-dimensional point-of-purchase poster,” and while I know we have one in the shop…er, somewhere, I couldn’t recall where it was, and even if I could find it, as I recall it’s not in the best of shape.
But thankfully reader Dave O. was good enough to send a photo of his nearly pristine copy of the same 3D Bat-thingie to me, just in case I hadn’t seen one before. Well, as I said here, I had, but Dave’s photo certainly came at just the right time, and he was good enough to let me use it here:
It’s fairly fragile, made with a very thin plastic, if I’m remembering correctly, and it really doesn’t take much to bust this thing. I think ours may have actually had a hole punched in it. WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.
A couple of other notes about that press release:
- I know it pretty much says what his age is in the comic, but being reminded by this press release that Bruce Wayne is only about 50 in Dark Knight is a little disconcerting. It probably has to do with the fact that when I first read this, I was twenty-two years younger, and it seemed like a 50-year-old Batman was PLENTY old. Now that 50 is only 11 years away for me…well, you know.
- The description of the new format being used for Dark Knight reminded me of the fact that this format became know for a while as the “Dark Knight” format…and as I recall, I think even Marvel referred to their similar books as being in the “Dark Knight” format, once or twice. ‘Course, now, it’s referred to as the “prestige format,” which, I’m guessing with absolutely no research whatsoever, was coined by Marvel to describe this format without having to use the name of their crosstown rival’s best-selling comic. I have no idea if that’s what happened, but it really should be…though if you want to correct me with your “knowledge” and “facts,” I suppose you probably should in my comments.
- I like how one of the selling points is that the series features “Batman paraphrenalia [sic] updated and computerized,” which seems like an odd thing to try to sell this series on, considering that’s hardly the focus of the series. But then I remembered that Batmobile/tank Batman uses to go after the mutant gang with, and, okay, I suppose I’ll give you that.
- Oh, for the days of $2.95 prestige format comics. I’d actually forgotten they were $2.95 at one point…they held the $4.99 price point for so long I’d forgotten there was a cheaper price level on these things.
- More on this, and the Heroes for Hope comic, in the next post.
