So there’s a Batman film out at the moment, I thought it was rather good. Christopher Nolan embarked on his retelling of the Batman story with Batman Begins in 2005 and he’s sure to deliver at least another installment before he’s got it out of his system. I enjoyed the film, and it made me think about the different ways a group of people can tell the same story. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a Bat-Blog but designers tell stories every day and as individuals they can do it quite differently. There’s a parallel in there somewhere…

Batman is a good example because it has received many different treatments and been retold according to some very talented people’s vision. I remember the original Batman movie coming out in 1989, and being swept away in the event as a child, collecting the sticker book, playing the Commodore 64 game etc and just generally reveling in the spectacle of the thing. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson’s portrayals formed the basis of my perception of those characters for a good few years and Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham City and it’s inhabitants was incredibly rich and atmospheric. It was certainly at odds with the 60s TV series.

Apart from the screen, Batman has been most famously recast by Frank Miller in his Dark Knight Returns graphic novel which shows Batman as an aging figure as well as his adversaries. Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke took a fresh look at The Joker too, similarly tackling adult themes and throwing Gotham into sharp contrast with the real world.

So, all of this led me to seek out the original vision. Bob Kane created The ‘Bat-man’ in the 30s and the character first appeared in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics. Obviously this is pretty hard to come by, but you can get The Batman Chronicles Volume 1 which is the first in a series of collections to reprint every Batman story in chronological order. Try eBay and second-hand sellers on Amazon or Play if you don’t fancy the RRP.

The first ‘Bat-man’ story is clunky. There’s no Batmobile, Bruce Wayne appears to drive around in a red family car, and change into his Batman costume in his bedroom. Everything would get refined and polished over the coming years, but it’s easy to forget that the first story was printed in 1939, a mere 4 months before the outbreak of the second world war, and against a background of gumshoe yarns, The ‘Bat-man’ must have been a hugely refreshing and bizarre sight. It’s a shame we can’t read it in that context today, but pick up the first few issues and judge for yourself…