The Batman Animated Series had amazing art deco style

[Lady Day]

So, if you never watched the Justice League series, does that mean that you've never seen "Epilogue"?!? Given your level of appeciation for Batman Beyond, you must see this episode of JLU!

It essentially provides closure on BB, taking place a dozen years later than the series, when Terry has really grown into his role as Batman, and it features some very interesting revelations... and even has a cameo appearance by Phantasm. (It was intended to be the final episode of JLU - though they ended up doing one additional season - and it harkened back to both B:TAS and BB, seeking to be the capstone on the continuity that extended back to the first episode of B:TAS.) It was yet another instance of what I mentioned above about JL/JLU - it was clear that the creators felt that Batman was the central charcter, even more so than Superman, and they always came back to him for the show's especially important moments.

Anyway, if you think the BB storyline ended with ROTJ, not so. You gotta see JLU's "Epilogue"!

I thought the BB storyline ended rather flatly at the end of seaon 2 of BB. Im glad to know Im wrong!

No I havent seen Epilogue. Yes, I HAVE to see it. Im netflixing that disk now.

LD

 

[Doctor Strange]

Then my work here is done...

Actually, to go slightly off-topic, I just read a really interesting essay about superhero costumes by Michael Chabon. Anybody who's read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay knows that he really understands superhero comics, and this perceptive essay is further proof:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/10/080310fa_fact_chabon

 

[A.R. McVintage]

Just not a big Superman fan (the animated one anyway).

LD

The best Superman can still be found here (you can also see where Timm and Co. got their B:TAS style from):

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Supe..._bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1205184236&sr=8-1

 

[jake_fink]

A classic.

I'm not a Batman fan at all, the movies bore me silly, but I love the series. My kid loves it too, though the Joker scares him a little. The new series that just ended had a great-looking Batman, with his claw like fingers, but the other characters were not as well-handled and the writing was just, well, not as interesting as the Bruce Timm series.

I'd have liked to see Bruce Timm apply his aesthetic to other, less over-used characters like say, The Rocketeer, Doc Savage or Flash Gordon. The Superman and Justice League stuff never captured my imagination or, even, my attention.

The Fleischer Superman cartoons all look fantastic, but they are mind-numbingly dumb. The Batman series was beautifully designed, nicely rendered and well-written. A real rarity.

BTW: Does anyone have the Batman classic collector box thingee with the books and the figure? My son got it for Chrsitmas, though it's not really for kids, and the book has a "lost" cel from the Fleischer studios Batman cartoon of the forties. Really a pastiche by Chris Ware. So hilarious.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Jake, cut the Fleischer brothers some slack. The Superman character had only been published for two years when they started the cartoon series, and most of the mythos didn't exist yet. And more to the point, the Fleischers were experts in producing clever-yet-intensely-formulaic cartoons with very limited characterization and plotting, like the Popeye series. (It's worth noting that every Superman cartoon contains an Apparent Disaster where it momentarily looks like Supes will fail - exactly like the point 5 minutes into in virtually every Popeye cartoon right before the can of spinich appears.)

The Superman cartoons are "mind-numbingly dull" because depth simply didn't exist in short cartoons at that time. And it's also worth recalling that the way audiences saw them back then - one cartoon once, then maybe a different one two months later - was nothing like having all 17 of them in a DVD set! These films were never meant to be seen in rapid succession, much less analyzed and freeze-framed.

Anyway, given the level of storytelling that was standard in short cartoons (and, for that matter, anything less than the classiest top-flight feature films) at the time, the Superman films are masterpieces. And of course, their designs and animation are still jaw-dropping. Don't be hard on them because brilliant third-generation comics writers like Paul Dini didn't exist yet.

Vaguely related fascinating factoid: Comics genius Jack Kirby's first professional drawing gig as a teenager was working as an inbetweener (an assistant animator who creates the drawings that fall in between the key poses drawn by a senior animator) on Popeye cartoons at the Fleischer studio in Manhattan. It's no wonder that his later superhero comics work features cinematic poses that suggest realistic movement and action!

 

[A.R. McVintage]

The Fleischer Superman cartoons all look fantastic, but they are mind-numbingly dumb. The Batman series was beautifully designed, nicely rendered and well-written. A real rarity.

Besides what has already been said by Doctor Strange regarding the fact that the cartoons are from 1938 and are short seventy years of character mythology, Timm owes his "aestethics" to Fleischer's actual Art Deco work.

 

[jake_fink]

Didn't mean to dis the Fleischers

I was only comparing them to the Batman cartoons, which obviously found their inspiration in the Fleischers... I still love the Fleischer Superman shorts and will cut them as much slack as they need. I also like the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons they produced and find them generally much more entertaining than the Superman shorts which are - all other historical considerations aside - just plain old eye-candy to me.

Sky Captain and the yadda yadda stole yards of Fleischer style but put it to no good use in the sorry, silly, overlong, badly cast, barely written film by Kerry Conran. The Batman series got the writing right then built in the look. One of television's high points.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I think the freewheeling Boop and Popeye cartoons, with their surreal oddness and decidedly unreal "cartooniness", reflected the Fleischers' creative strengths better than the Superman shorts. Having said that, I have always thought it remarkable that they managed to do the "cinematic realism" and steamlined storytelling of the Supermans so well considering that it was so antithetical to their usual MO. It was their last (and shortest) triumph.

Hey, what can I say, I love all Fleischer cartoons!

And Sky Captain - talk about eye candy! But it failed so badly in every other way... What were they thinking letting someone who had never directed a film before have complete creative control?!?

 

[jake_fink]

I'm with you on that all the way. The redesigns were disastrous, far too stylized, and the female characters in particular were just awful. (Vibrant, sexy ladies like Catwoman and Poison Ivy turned into impossibly wasp-waisted pale cadavers!) While Bruce Timm's evolving theories of how to get the most character and action out of simpler graphics was, um, interesting, it missed the charm that the earlier fuller animation had (all those rumpled suit wrinkles and facial shadows) - not to mention the more Burton-films-derived retro setting, with all the old-school fedoras and Tommy guns.

But it wasn't just the designs that put The New Batman Adventures into a lower category for me - changing the dynamic of the show from the lone Dark Knight Detective to a full-time cast of thousands (Bats, annoying kid Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, etc.) and the general weakness of the bulk of the stories also hurt. While there was excellent continuity in the voices and storylines, there are only a handful of outstanding episodes - Mad Love, Over The Edge, Old Wounds, Knight Time. Alas, most episodes lack the verve and sparkle of the earlier series, which has surprisingly few mediocre episodes and only a couple of outright lame ones.

Newsflash: The Batman (which isn't bad, but doesn't hold a candle to B:TAS) ends its run today. It was just announced that the next animated Bat project - a direct-to-DVD film in "anime style" timed to come out after The Dark Knight hits theaters - will have Kevin Conroy voicing Bats/Bruce again! (Which is nice, but I'm still not interested.)

PS - I said in my first post that I wouldn't blather on and on in this thread, but I can't help myself. Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!

I had an email the other day, but I've deleted it and can't seem to find anything to back this up, but apparently the next animated Batman project is the Brave and the Bold which is a Batman team-up title of yesteryear.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I thought I'd revive this thread to mention that this past weekend I found the two B:TAS feature films - Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero - packaged together as a double-sided DVD at Wal-Mart... for a mere $7.50.

Any AniBat fan who doesn't already own these should pounce: Phantasm is downright great, and while Sub-Zero isn't in the same league, it's still pretty good. Together for $7.50, they're an outstanding value!

 

[CharlesB]

I thought I'd revive this thread to mention that this past weekend I found the two B:TAS feature films - Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero - packaged together as a double-sided DVD at Wal-Mart... for a mere $7.50.

Any AniBat fan who doesn't already own these should pounce: Phantasm is downright great, and while Sub-Zero isn't in the same league, it's still pretty good. Together for $7.50, they're an outstanding value!

I hold Phantasm in higher regard than most of the Bat films

 

[Doctor Strange]

Agreed!

I liked Tim Burton's 1989 Batman when it was new, but I don't think it's aged very well. I didn't ever really like Batman Returns, and the less said about Joel Schumacher's two films, the better. I like Batman Begins a lot - but I still consider the Animated Series (and hence Phantasm) to be the DEFINITIVE filmed interpretation of the character/mythos.

 

[Lady Day]

I saw Phantasm in the theater and I think I was the only kid. I was blown away by that 'morning after scene' in Bruce's house. To put that in a known kids show! It was way too awesome.

I think that is what kept that show so high for so long. It didnt water itself down to appeal to only children. I didnt know many children who watched it, frankly. Teens and adults.

LD

Oh, and Dr. Strange, Im gonna find a still from that ep of BB that I keep telling you about, so you can see what I mean

 

[Doctor Strange]

I saw Phantasm during its blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run too... but I was 38!

My kids were really little during the original B:TAS run, and they were more an excuse for me to watch it than comprehending viewers themselves. (My daughter was just 2 to 5, and she called it "Bat-bat". Actually, within the family, we still often refer to B:TAS as Bat-bat!)

 

[Green Falcon]

I've been a big fan of Bruce Timm's style --

Check out this color sketch of Doc Savage that he did for a convention...

 

[J. M. Stovall]

That seems to be a link to the Disney Site.

If you like Timm go here:

http://popcultureshock.com/timm/

 

[Green Falcon]

That seems to be a link to the Disney Site.

Whoops -- that's what I get for trying to direct-link. I've moved the image to photobucket, and edited the link. Give it a look now.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

That's a great one! Is it yours? I don't think I've seen that particular drawing. I wish I could just "draw money" like Bruce Timm.

Actually I just noticed that a bad reproduction is on the Timm fan site, here's the inked art:

 

[Doh!]

Timm is genius.

All this talk about the cartoons convinced me to order the entire set on DVD. Sure, it was pricey, but they say you can't take it with you...

 

[resortes805]

Somewhat related, but. . .has anyone seen the DVD for JLA: A New Frontier?
I really enjoyed the graphic novels. The premise of the work places the DC heroes in a real-time continuity, with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman emerging in the 1930s and '40s, and Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow and the Hal Jordan Green Laturn emerging in the 1950's-early 1960's.