Sunday, September 22, 2019

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: The Origin of some Later Batman Villains?


To Celebrate "Batman Week", or the "80th Anniversary of Batman" - or just because Batman is so great in general, we present the following... 


Everybody HIDE YOUR EYES, because this is one of those "crime comics" or "pulp magazines" that had the nation so misguidedly panicked during the early 1950s!  

Yes, here in all it's "gory"... that is, "glory" is CRIME CLINIC # 11 (Ziff Davis, Cover Date: September-October, 1951)!  


I have little to say about this magazine, knowing little about "crime comics" in general (beyond that they failed to bring down American Society, as was so fervently feared at the time), but I can't help but wonder if this issue of CRIME CLINIC had any sort of a hand in inspiring a pair of later Batman villains THE VENTRILOQUIST AND SCARFACE (the evil murder-dummy)! 



I leave it up to you to decide!


Oh, and DO remember to "voice your opinion" without "moving your lips"!  

4 comments:

Madame Tarsa, Interdimensional Purveyor of Sentient Puppetry said...

As I am sure the Copper-Colored Cupids will have taught you, puppets and automata are as entitled to the right to commit crimes as anyone. And I, for one, am glad for this sorely-needed demon puppet representation, whatever inspired it.

Achille Talon said...

Seems plausible to me, although the notion that ventriloquist dummies are creepy could on its own have inspired two separate writers of "batty comic-book crime stories". (Batman is, of course, as uch a batty-comic-book-crime-story series as any. Batty just happens to be more literal in its case.)

Joe Torcivia said...

Madame Tarsa:

The Copper-Colored Cupids have taught me many things!

…And we’re all about “demon puppet inclusiveness” around here!

Joe Torcivia said...

Achille:

Of course, any two things can occur, or be created, independently-but-coincidentally as I discussed HERE!

But I just like linking things like this together… and, hey, you never know! Pulp magazines helped inspire BATMAN, didn’t they? So why not “Murder-Dummy Scarface”?