Batman: The Brave and the Bold

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Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Post by GRUNT » August 2nd, 2008, 10:46 am

Here's the trailer from the SDCC for those who may have missed it: http://www.superherohype.com/news/featu ... hp?id=7527

I'm personally looking very forward to this. :)

To me, Batman The Animated Series (BTAS) is THE definitive Batman cartoon. I consider 'The Batman' to be very lame by comparison. 'The Batman' feels like it's trying to find its own voice - how to do a fresh interpretation of Batman while getting out from the shadow of BTAS.

Ultimately however, I feel that 'The Batman' doesn't succeed in that goal, and it just ends up being this very unsatisfying pseudo-stuff.

When I first heard of The Brave and the Bold, I was worried. Batman working with other superheroes all the time? This doesn't sound like the Batman I know. Even in Justice League he's the most distant member.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when I watched the trailer for Batman: The Brave and the Bold and discovered what they wanted to do with him :D.

It's not trying to be something like BTAS at all - it's lighthearted, it's fun, and it's so deliciously campy. The animation is fun and a lot more 'springy'.

And da-amn if that exploding plane at 00:16 doesn't look gorgeous. Heck, even the smoke from the missiles look great!

Oh, and I also love the way that the Blue Beetle's jetpack thingies deploy at 00:42 :D.

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Re: Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Post by Once Upon A Dream » August 2nd, 2008, 11:25 am

The series looks nice but Batman looks weird,he reminds me of Mr Incredible,the characters desgin reminds me of Marvel Superhero Squad.
[img]http://i43.tinypic.com/bfqbtk.jpg[/img]

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Re: Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Post by Randall » August 2nd, 2008, 12:12 pm

GRUNT wrote: Batman working with other superheroes all the time? This doesn't sound like the Batman I know.


On the other hand, some of us have read Batman comics that are more than 20 years old. For us, this is a return to the Batman we know! :) After all, this new TV series is named after a Batman team-up comic that ran for many years.

GRUNT wrote:The animation is fun and a lot more 'springy'.
Actually, it's "Sprang-y"! The designs are based closely on the drawing style of Dick Sprang, for many of us the top Batman artist of the 1950s and early 1960s. When I saw this preview at Comic-Con, I totally fell in love with the look of it. Credit goes to James Tucker, who is guiding the show and is a big fan of Sprang's vesion of Batman.

Sprang's Batman, BTW, can also be seen in the opening credits of the 1960s Batman live action TV show, as well as the Legends of the Dark Knight episode from Batman: TAS.

Having attended the SDCC panel for this show, I can tell you that it will definitely rock.
Once Upon A Dream wrote: The series looks nice but Batman looks weird,he reminds me of Mr Incredible,the characters desgin reminds me of Marvel Superhero Squad.
Oh, dear. You really need to read some Sprang comics!!!

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Re: Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Post by Once Upon A Dream » August 2nd, 2008, 12:29 pm

Once Upon A Dream wrote: The series looks nice but Batman looks weird,he reminds me of Mr Incredible,the characters desgin reminds me of Marvel Superhero Squad.
Oh, dear. You really need to read some Sprang comics!!![/quote]
What's Sprang comics?.
Anyway the character desgin just reminds me of that Marvel Superhero Squad (Thought they don't look younger,unlike Marvel Superhero Squad).
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Post by eddievalient » August 2nd, 2008, 12:53 pm

I'll clarify this one: When Batman was first created, the original team was Bill Finger and Bob Kane (both cocreated the character, but officially, only Kane got credit for it). When Bill Finger left, his replacement was an artist named Dick Sprang. Sprang drew the comics for years, decades even, and his Batman was the definitive one for an entire generation. I have not had the pleasure of reading any Sprang comics myself, but if DC continues to release the "Batman Chronicles" paperbacks of golden age material (which are both very affordable and fun to read), they should get to Sprang eventually.

As to "The Brave and the Bold", the trailer is very impressive indeed. I enjoyed "The Batman" for what it was, a mostly well-written show (nachos aside) that just happened to skew younger than what I grew up with, but this new series looks to be much better. I'll be looking forward to it and adding it to my list of new shows to follow.
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Post by Daniel » August 2nd, 2008, 2:56 pm

This is the first time I've seen the trailer, and WOW it looks great! I loved the background music, and the character designs are nice, much better than those early pics suggested.

I'll definitely remember to watch this.

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Re: Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Post by GRUNT » August 2nd, 2008, 7:48 pm

Randall wrote:On the other hand, some of us have read Batman comics that are more than 20 years old. For us, this is a return to the Batman we know! :) After all, this new TV series is named after a Batman team-up comic that ran for many years.

Actually, it's "Sprang-y"! The designs are based closely on the drawing style of Dick Sprang, for many of us the top Batman artist of the 1950s and early 1960s. When I saw this preview at Comic-Con, I totally fell in love with the look of it. Credit goes to James Tucker, who is guiding the show and is a big fan of Sprang's vesion of Batman.

Sprang's Batman, BTW, can also be seen in the opening credits of the 1960s Batman live action TV show, as well as the Legends of the Dark Knight episode from Batman: TAS.

Having attended the SDCC panel for this show, I can tell you that it will definitely rock.
Ah what can I say - I'm a child of the nineties :P. Ok, So I was born in the late 80's, but 90s cartoons are, for the most part, what I grew up on ;).

I actually haven't read any proper Batman comics, but I've read The Dark Knight Returns, as well as some Batman Black and White :].

Can't say I've seen Sprang's stuff, though I have seen the episode from Batman: TAS that you're referring to - it's one of my favourites :].

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Post by Randall » August 3rd, 2008, 12:17 am

Here's a look at some Sprang pages then:

http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/batman/Sprang.htm

Sprang being inked by Charles Paris is the "definitive" look most think of when admiring Sprang's Batman.

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » August 3rd, 2008, 11:17 am

eddievalient wrote:I'll clarify this one: When Batman was first created, the original team was Bill Finger and Bob Kane (both cocreated the character, but officially, only Kane got credit for it). When Bill Finger left, his replacement was an artist named Dick Sprang. Sprang drew the comics for years, decades even, and his Batman was the definitive one for an entire generation. I have not had the pleasure of reading any Sprang comics myself, but if DC continues to release the "Batman Chronicles" paperbacks of golden age material (which are both very affordable and fun to read), they should get to Sprang eventually.

As to "The Brave and the Bold", the trailer is very impressive indeed. I enjoyed "The Batman" for what it was, a mostly well-written show (nachos aside) that just happened to skew younger than what I grew up with, but this new series looks to be much better. I'll be looking forward to it and adding it to my list of new shows to follow.
You're a bit confused, Eddie.

While Bill Finger was the original Batman writer and co-creator, he was not a comic book artist. He stayed on the Batman comics for decades and didn't leave the character until the late 1960s. He also the original writer for the first Green Lantern character (Alan Scott) and wrote many, many other characters.

While Bob Kane did draw the original year of Batman comics, it's commonly accepted within the comic book industry that Jerry Robinson and others took over the art duties after year one of the comics. Bob Kane still received for all the work on Batman since he was the character's original artist. This was standard practice back then.

There were many people working on the books back and it's mistaken to believe one person did all the work. Kane had a shop set up of ghost artists including George Roussos, Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, Sheldon Moldoff, and others. Sprang's work didn't really appear until 1943 at the earliest, and he was the dominant visual look artist for only about a decade (1945-1954). This does not mean, however, that he was the only person drawing the Batman comics at the time.

After the mid-1950s, Moldoff was the primary ghost artist for Batman comics. He stayed on the comic book drawing in the house style ("Sprang look") and adopted a style like Carmine Infantino's after the "new-look Batman" debuted in 1964. The "new-look" Batman is distinguished by a more-realistic drawing style and the first appearance of the yellow oval enclosing the Bat symbol on the Bat costume's chest.

Ironically, the "Sprang" style being adopted by the new animated series is anachronistic. Sprang NEVER, to my knowledge, ever drew a yellow oval on Batman's chest. The "new-look" Batman debuted a decade after he left the Batman comics!

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Post by Randall » August 3rd, 2008, 2:24 pm

GeorgeC wrote:Ironically, the "Sprang" style being adopted by the new animated series is anachronistic. Sprang NEVER, to my knowledge, ever drew a yellow oval on Batman's chest. The "new-look" Batman debuted a decade after he left the Batman comics!
I believe you're right. Also, a Sprang Batman could have a costume that was colored with purple rather than grey. But, of course, no one said this IS the Sprang-era Batman, just that they're using his work as their main influence. And it looks like it works great.

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Post by Ben » August 3rd, 2008, 3:32 pm

I know I was skeptical about <I>another</I> Bats series and skipped this panel for something else I was interested in, but Rand was excited about it when we came out and when it airs in the UK I will be sure to take a look.

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » August 3rd, 2008, 4:59 pm

Eh,

At least it LOOKS interesting.

I've liked the Sprang style for as long as I can remember.

Didn't care for the Jackie Chan Adventures/wanna anime style of The Batman animated series.

They also can't get worse on the writing for The Brave and the Bold than the last Batman series', either!

It's going to be weird watching a Batman voiced by Oswald (of the Drew Carey Show)!

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Post by Randall » August 3rd, 2008, 5:53 pm

"Oswald" will blow you away, George. He did his Bats voice and it sounded very Conroy-esque... "with timing". (That's a paraphrased quote from the Comic-Con panel.) Really, he sounded great.

The tone of this show will be somewhat different than in past shows, but I think it'll be a lot of fun.

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » September 12th, 2008, 5:30 pm

I looked at the trailer again today.

Liked it even more!

Liked it so much, I downloaded it from within my browser and converted it to an mp4 to play on the iPod whenever I want.

"Oswald" sounds good as Batman, too!

The most important thing about this show, though, is that it LOOKS fun without looking stupid!

(Yes, it's weird saying that with Plastic Man and a new Blue Beetle in the show, but I DO like Plastic Man a lot! Plas was definitely one of the funnest characters of the Golden Age... I'd like to see if the original Captain Marvel or maybe even The Spirit could be worked into an episode of the show. Either would be an interesting character to see Batman paired with.)

"Fun" is something to look forward to!

It only took another 10 years for someone else in animation to realize the Sprang Batman was about fun! It's a nice change from the mostly dreary Batman of the past 22 years (excepting a nice 3-year animated run from '92-'95).
Ben wrote:I know I was skeptical about <I>another</I> Bats series and skipped this panel for something else I was interested in, but Rand was excited about it when we came out and when it airs in the UK I will be sure to take a look.

Wanna bet this'll be the first Batman series released straight to Blu-Ray?

I think it could possibly beat even the '90s Batman to Blu-Ray.

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Post by Ben » September 15th, 2008, 10:20 am

Is 90s Batman even available to go Blu? I'd assumed they was mastered to SD video?

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