1966 Batman Painting Card Art

 

Beautiful artwork! 

I bought the packs of the collectible Batman cards at the corner grocery store when they came out in 1966. I liked them then and my appreciation for them has only GROWN over the decades. The cards were based on the Batman TV show and were released because of it, but they are so much better than that show was!

I see that a complete set of the 55 cards can be bought on ebay for about $2000, whoa! One of the cards is shown above and more of them can be seen over here.

The artwork for each card was laid out in pencil by comics veteran Bob Powell who had drawn many adventure-type comics for Harvey Comics and who also pencilled a couple of early issue's of Marvel Daredevil with finishes and inks applied by Wally Wood. Here is Mr. Powell's layout for the above card:

Each layout was then transformed into a masterpiece by the wonderful painter Norman Saunders, himself a veteran of having painted covers for many comics and many pulp magazines.

Here is Mr. Saunders' painting from the above layout:

A lot consisting of the above pencil layout and the above painting sold at auction for $7000 last week, so how about that! If the images of the 55 paintings are ever collected into a hardcover edition I will definitely buy that book.