Jim Beard - ZLONK! ZOK! ZOWIE! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide to Batman 66 - Season One

ZLONK! ZOK! ZOWIE!

The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide

to Batman 66 Season One

Edited by Jim Beard

with Rich Handley

ZLONK! ZOK! ZOWIE!

The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide

to Batman 66 Season One

Copyright 2020 by Jim Beard

All essays 2020 their respective authors.

All illustrations 2020 their respective artists.

Introduction @ 2020 by Jim Beard

Cover design by Sean E. Ali

Interior layout and formatting by Maggie Ryel

Batman and related characters are trademarks of DC Comics. This book is not endorsed by DC Comics, 20 th Century Fox, or Greenway Productions.

ISBN: 9798621575373

AICN: B085RXXHLR

Crazy Eight Press is an imprint of ComicMix LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief

quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address

Crazy 8 Press at the official Crazy 8 website:

www.crazy8press.com

First edition

For the Little Woman, who had a crush on Burt Wards Robin as a child

and his action figure as an adult.

Jim Beard, Editor

TABLE OF BAT-CONTENTS

5. Holy Sideways Sequel, Batman! An Introduction

By Jim Beard

Art by Matt Orsman

7. Another Cold, January Evening in Gotham City

By Jim Beard

Art by Keith Howell

13. Tropes Abandoned, Tropes as Yet Unseen

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

Art by Robert Long

18. The Caped Crusader Vs. the Man of Bronze

By Will Murray

Art by Matt Orsman

23. Art, Nonsense, and Money

By Pat Evans

Art by Robert Long

33. The Legend of Zelda

By Steven Thompson

Art by Keith Howell

40. Riddlers Return

By Chuck Dixon

Art by Robert Long

46. 13 Thoughts on 13 Hats

By Dan Greenfield

Art by Sean Dulaney

53. Wealth, Wayward Teens, and Wards

By Kevin Dilmore and Dayton Ward

Art by Ed Catto

59. True of False Take?

By John S. Drew

Art by Keith Howell

65. Propinquity Killed the Cat

By Mark Racop

Art by Ed Catto

72. The Finest Feathered Forty-Six Minutes

By Joe Crowe

Art by Robert Long

77. Spongepouch Batbelts

By Chris Franklin

Art by Sean Dulaney

84. When is a Joke Not a Joke? When Its a Riddle of a Story

By Alan J. Porter

Art by Matt Orsman

90. Tut, Tut, the Pharaoh is a Nut

By Robert Greenberger

Art by Keith Howell

98. Who Else Can Save us Now?

By Paul Kupperberg

Art by Matt Orsman

105. Riddles in Silence

By Peter Sanderson

Art by Ed Catto

113. The Last (?) Batman Adventure

By Ed Catto

Art by Ed Catto

121. Yo Ho! Batman Goes Theatrical and (Kind of) Political

By Rich Handley

Art by Matt Orsman

Holy Sideways Sequel, Batman!

An Introduction by Jim Beard

For One Desperate Decade the Bat-Signal Blazed in the Sky! For Ten Yawning Years the Hot-Line Remained Unanswered! Where Is the Sequel to Gotham City 14 Miles ? Not Even Jim Knows!

Hmm, that makes for a fairly fun parody of the deathless prose on the cover of Batman #184 (though out of date if youre reading this later than 2020), but perhaps a better self-lambasting could be had in paraphrasing Batman #183s cover text:

Holy Prolific Procrastination! Whats the Real Reason Jims Been Goofing Off? The Telltale Clue Is in This Introduction!

Now, settle down; Im not going to make you solve riddles or dissect the punchlines to jokes or anything like thatbut I will try to play it straight with you and explain what this book is youre holding in your Bat-gloved mitts, and how it happened.

So, youre here because youre a fan of the 1966-68 Batman TV series, or maybe the Silver Age Batman comic character, or possibly even because you enjoyed my 2010 tome titled Gotham City 14 Miles: 14 Essays on Why the 1960s Batman TV Series Matters , or a combination thereof. Okay, thats covered. Now, Im here because of similar reasons: I dig the show and the character, and Im the creator-editor of Gotham City 14 Miles . In addition, I am also the possessor of the unswerving belief that there are just not enough books about the show, which hasnt really changed at all for me (unswerving) since 2009.

Once published, Gotham City 14 Miles garnered near-universal acclaim for its passion for its subject matter and for being the first true examination of the show from multiple angles, much to my utter delight and eternal gratitude. See, I felt I was finally justified in my love for Batman 66 and my faith in its true worth in cultural history when I heard about the reviews and the interest the book had produced. Believe me when I say it was a good feeling.

Then I received calls for more. What could I do? Gotham City 15 Miles ? Even More Miles to Gotham ? Are We in Gotham Yet ? You Should Have Gone When We Were Still at the Batcave ?

Suffice to say, a sequel was a daunting proposition, because I really felt like wed mined for gold, struck it, and probably tapped out that vein. A few years after publicationtrue storyI did go down the road of examining the possibility of a sequel calledwait for it Gotham City Plans and Views , but after some disappointing rounds of essay topic pitching, I closed it down for good. To me, Gotham City 14 Miles was a done-in-one, and anything wed do to sequelize it would just come up short of the high-water mark wed set with the original. Or so I thought.

Flash forward to 2018. During a long drive from Northwest Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia, I conceived of an idea while listening to the 1966 Batman feature film soundtrackhow about a sideways sequel?

Sure, there have been quite a few reviews throughout the past fifty years of Batman s episodes, most of them online in blogs and what-have-you, and many of them have been great and fun, but my thought was to not only bring in an even higher caliber of writers for reviews, but to inspire each one of them to find a hook to skewer each episode, reel it in, and hang it up for everyone to see and be illuminated. It hadnt been done before, in my estimation, just like Gotham City 14 Miles had forged a new path back in 2010, and boy! if I could get a lot of the same writers back, plus some new scribes, what a gas itd bea sideways sequel to please everyone. Not only that, but groovy and gear, too.

And thats the book youre looking at right now, the one Alfred just handed to you off a silver tray with a glass of milk and some cookies.

What? Oh, the prolific procrastination? Yeah, that. Ysee, this book took about two years to come to fruition, much longer than Id expected, and for that I apologize to you and to my writers and artists. John Lennon said Lifes what happens to you while youre busy making other plans, and man, did he ever nail that one down tight. In the meantime between this projects conception and birth, I experienced a life-changing event of seismic magnitude, one thatcoupled with my infamous procrastinationbogged down this little beauty for far too longbut with a little help from my friends, its here now and hopefully once you reach the last page youll feel its all been worth the wait.

As always, let me know what you think. Volume Two will be out in 2030, and Volume Three in 2040.

Jim Beard

The Batcave

February 2020