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| Batman "Black Bat" Card #14 - Nightly Patrol |
The received wisdom of the artist behind the three sets of painted Batman trading cards issued by Topps in the US (and A&BC in the UK) in 1966 was pulp artist Norman Saunders, working to outlines sketched by famed comic artist Bob Powell.
I’ve touched on this subject a few times previously (here, here, etc) , if you’re inclined to read previous posts. But there are a few cards in the first set of 55 cards (the “Black Bat” set) which are obviously not the oils of Norm Saunders. These cards are:
- Nightly Patrol - Card #14 (see above)
- Monstrous Illusion - Card #48
- Decoy - Card #49
- Beastly Encounter - Card #50
Two of these cards (#48 and #49) fall within the 22 most common cards of the “Black Bat” set, being printed 50% more times than other cards.
Unlike the remainder of the painted set of cards, these four cards are more obviously cartoons which have been inked and colored, rather than gouache or oil paintings.
So who was the mystery artist?
According to Norman Saunders’ son, David Saunders, all cards were painted by Norman Saunders, Maurice Blumenfeld, Bob Powell, and a fourth unknown artist. Saunders would do the majority of the paintings, as well as providing the final rendering on top of work by other artists, with the intent of bringing a consistency of style.
I’m coming to the conclusion that in fact there were two unknown artists in addition to Saunders, Blumenfeld and Powell.
Saunders and Blumenfeld had collaborated previously on the gory Civil War News set of cards. According to an interview with Len Brown, Creative Director at Topps in 1998, Blumenfeld had a reputation for being very slow.
As the Batman TV series was so phenomenally popular, there became an urgency to get the cards into kids’ hands as soon as possible, necessitating a fourth artist, as mentioned by David Saunders.
That fourth artist can now be revealed to be Ed Valigurski (1926-2009) who painted some of the painted World War II Battle! cards produced by Topps in the 1960s (see https://www.pulpartists.com/Valigursky.html ). Like Blumenfeld, Valigurski had no background in the comic business, pursuing a career in commercial art.
Looking through the set of cards, Valigurski’s contributions stand out particularly in cards #4 Midnight Conference and #51 Flaming Welcome see below. The rendition of Batman is less detailed, and Batman’s costume has a sheen to it not present in Saunders’ artwork. Batman’s stomach musculature is rendered differently, as well.
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| ©DC. #4 Painting by Ed Valigurski and Norman Saunders |
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| ©DC. #51 Painting by Ed Valigurski and Norman Saunders |
Blumenfeld and Saunders had a similar style, and I’ve found it difficult to differentiate Saunders’ sole work from Blemeneld paintings finished by Saunders. A look at an unused painting for Civil War News by Blumenfeld shows a strong similarity to Saunders.
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| Example of Maurice Blumenfeld's work on Civil War News |
So who was the second mystery artist, a cartoonist - the fifth contributor - who was responsible for cards #14, #48, #49 and #50?
In addition to Art Spiegelman, Topps’ main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years, creative directors of Product Development, Woody Gelman and Len Brown, gave freelance assignments to leading comic book illustrators, such as Jack Davis, Wally Wood and Bob Powell. Spiegelman, Gelman and Brown also hired freelance artists from the underground comix movement, including Robert Crumb, amongst others.
But in 1966, Topps had another famed cartoonist freelancing with them - Al Plastino. As Plastino told Bryan Stroud in an interview for a TwoMorrows publication Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing “I always had something else on the side. If you don’t have something; and in my business, the comic business, they’ll step all over you.”
Al Plastino had drawn the “Superman In The Jungle” card set for Topps in 1966, where Saunders done the color separations and inks, according to The Kandor Archives (That set was never commercially available in the US, having only been test marketed, but was made available by A&BC in the UK in 1967).
In his discussion with Bryan Stroud, Plastino believed that this small painted Superman work at Topps had damaged his eyesight. “I was doing Topps bubble gum cards……[the paintings] were 3” x 4” and you’d have 60 on a page.”
However, a comparison of the mystery Batman cards with Plastino’s work on Superman in the Jungle is inconclusive. The artwork (to my mind) is not by the same man.
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| ©DC and Topps. Card #15 from Superman In The Jungle |
Following the negative experience on the Superman cards, Plastino got his friend and longtime Tarzan newspaper strip artist John Celardo a job at Topps illustrating the upcoming Land of the Giants card set, providing cartoon backs on cards with a photographic front. [Again, this card set was only test-marketed in the US, but made fully available in the UK from A&BC].
Although Plastino was regarded as a good mimic (see 13th Dimensions blog of Plastino’s work on the Batman newspaper strip) , I believe that John Celardo is the mystery artist on cards #14, #48, #49 and #50, with Norman Saunders doing colour separations and perhaps inks.
Celardo had drawn Dollman in the 1940s for the publishers Quality. In the early 1950s, Celardo moved from comics to draw (and eventually write) the Tarzan newspaper strip from 1954 until 1967 when he was replaced by Russ Manning.
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| John Celardo's work on Tarzan in 1954 |
Celardo returned to comics (and to DC) in 1969 as a penciller on Romance and Horror/Mystery titles, moving mostly to inking.
I’m inclined to say that Celardo drew the Batman cards in question in the period before joining DC, and it was this work, plus Plastino’s recommendation, that secured the follow-on work on Land of the Giants. Celardo’s angular style of drawing jawlines (see the comparison between this panel from his Tarzan strip and the Batman card #14 Nightly Patrol) makes him a more likely candidate than Plastino, or even the great Wally Wood himself, who rendered this image of Batman for Topps Comic Book Foldees Card #17 the same year of 1966.
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| Batman by Wally Wood, 1966 |
I could be way off base here, so please put me right in the comments section below if you know otherwise.
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| John Celardo |
© Ian Baker