by Ian Baker
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| ©DC. Page 1 of Batman #226 |
I became quite a fan of Irv Novick as he adopted his artwork style to emulate Neal Adams' rendition of Batman in the early 1970s, but I was stopped in my tracks recently when I realized that his splash page to Batman #226 "The Man With Ten Eyes" (Cover date Nov 1970) blatantly swiped from not one but two previous Adams renditions.
Take a look at the splash page above, and then compare first to the cover of Brave & Bold #79 (Cover dated Sept 1968)
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| ©DC. Brave & Bold #79 |
....and then this panel from page 4 of Detective #397 (Cover dated March 1970).
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| ©DC. Panel from page 4, Detective Comics #397 |
Well, they say if you're going to copy, copy from the best. I decided to take a closer look at Irv's work on Batman in the period when he amended his style, to see if they yielded further swipes. I started to take a closer look.
Neal Adams' work on Brave & Bold #79-#86 had been nothing less than revolutionary in re-defining the Dark Knight. Over on the Batman comic, Frank Robbins and Irv Novick had been rendering a less campy Batman than previously presented during the rage of the Batman TV series. However, the fans, on seeing Adams' work, wanted that same level of depiction in the flagship Batman comic.
Irvick's first exploration of Adams' style was in introducing variety to panel design, as shown in Batman #209, where Irv adopts for the first time the angled panel layout so favoured by Adams in his first run on Brave & Bold (#79-#86).
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| ©DC. Batman #209. Novick introduces angled panel design. |
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| ©DC. Batman #211. |
Batman #215 really marked a turning point in Novick's depiction of Batman, marked by the smallest of changes. He starts to adopt changing Batman's cowl design to include a little indentation on the cheekbone at the top of Batman's mask opening, the same way that Adams drew it.
Here's an example from the final page of Batman #215, showing Adams' influence:
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| ©DC Batman #215. The nick on the cheekbone of the cowl. |
By Batman #216 (Cover dated November 1969), the style changes had been established, and Novick once again swipes Batman's grimace from the cover of Brave & Bold #79.
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| ©DC. Page 2 of Batman #216. |
I'm sure a bit of research will uncover other examples of Novick going back to Adams' work for "inspiration". I'll leave you with this panel from Batman #216....clearly Adams-inspired.
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| ©DC. Batman #216 Page 18. An Adams-inspired pose |
