1944 Batman Joker Original Newspaper Comic Production Art Proof Rare Large Page
And check out OUR NEWLY LISTED ITEMS. This is a truly historic piece, not only for Batman and comic collectors, but certainly in terms of significant Americana as well. This is an original printed proof page for strips #169-#174 of the Batman daily newspaper strip, released the week of May 15-20 in 1944.
This is likely to be one of the earlier Batman production pieces that is still in existence many were of course lost, destroyed, thrown away, etc. While you do occasionally see either art or proofs from the 1950's, 1960's, etc. Anything from the Golden Age of the early 1940's is incredibly scarce.
And what's even more amazing is that this is from the classic Joker storyline, so included on the page is Batman's greatest enemy, the Clown Prince of Crime himself! The Joker was actually the first and only major villain to appear in the daily strips, so this is highly significant. Finally, please note that the Batman daily strip started in late October 1943, so the May 1944 strips contained here are very early as they come from basically around the first half-year of the Batman strip!
The sheet is fairly large, and measures approximately 12 1/4" by 21 1/4". The piece is in very good overall condition, especially considering it's age and scarcity.
It is still white and clean, and has just some minor general wear. It was folded down the middle and across the center, as was customarily done for large syndicate proofs such as this one. There is a small 1/2 edgewear tear at the top, and there is some small separation tearing (slightly less than half an inch) in the middle. Please note that the page looks a little bit uneven only because of our scan.
Because of the large size of the piece, we had to make two scans and then edit them together. This is only for the digital image, and the actual piece in person does not look uneven. The piece looks nice and displays very well. The page contains 6 complete strips (a full week), with strip #169 ("Airplane - Old Style"), 170 ("Extra Passenger"), 171 ("Crash Dive"), 172 Hit The Deck! ", 173 ("Close Shave"), and 174 "Exit - Villain! And what's really outstanding is that every single strip has at least one panel featuring the Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder! This is an exceptional and unbelievably rare piece of comic production art, that would look great framed, and would be a true key piece in any collection. Please note that this is an authentic piece from the 1940's, not something made for a later reprint or collection book. We have been told there are reprint production art pieces being listed by other sellers that make them seem to be old and from original printings, even though they are not for example, older production art did not have the words on a separate sheet from the images. Those kinds of things were only done much more recently, using computer technology. We advise buyers to be careful, as there are disreputable sellers tricking many people into believing they are purchasing items that are older and more valuable than what they actually are. Some sellers simply do not state their items are from reprints, while others make very long listings and put a tiny mention about reprints buried deep in the listing, and/or use a hard-to-read font color (like yellow) to prevent buyers from seeing this information.
Unfortunately, everything else in the listing the title, pictures of the cover of the comic from the 1st printing, etc. This item is a genuine proof from the'40's, not something made for a reprint. Check out our other auctions for more great items. Check it out, you'll be glad you did! The item "1944 BATMAN JOKER ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER COMIC PRODUCTION ART PROOF RARE LARGE PAGE" is in sale since Wednesday, October 27, 2010. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Comics\Original Comic Art\Other Original Comic Art". The seller is "satchj3" and is located in Brooklyn, New York.
This item can be shipped worldwide.
