gattino
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2003
- Messages
- 2,525
I previously started a thread about the extraordinary coincidence of 2 comic strip characters of naughty kids in stripey jerseys, each with the name Dennis The Menace appearing for the first time on opposite sides of the Atlantic within days of each other back inthe 1950s.
No explanation beyond random chance coincidence has ever been established.
I'm wondering - if there's any process at work at all - if something similar can be said of the image sent into the letters page of this month's FT by one Alistair Moffat of Halifax (perhaps he's reading this and can elaborate on it). It's the cover of a 1934 British "boy's story paper" called the Ranger.
Alistair mentions the 1939 first appearance of Batman in his letter, but only in terms of winged characters regularly appearing in british comic strips prior to his creation. He doesn't appear to make a direct connection between the image and story he describes (the vampire of the title is, he tells us, a scientist with anti gravity machine and bat suit) and the creation of Batman across the ocean 5 years later. Yet not only the general conceit but the specific covers of both publications strike me as having an astonishing similarity. Try googling the Ranger and you'll almost certainly not find it...so if there is a direct influence, beyond coincidence, then its presumably a previously unknown one. See what you think.....Remember Batman - USA 1939, The Ranger issue UK 1934. Surely the chances of the American author/artist (Bob Kane and Bill Finger) having ever seen the throwaway british rag and stealing the image 5 years later are terribly small.
No explanation beyond random chance coincidence has ever been established.
I'm wondering - if there's any process at work at all - if something similar can be said of the image sent into the letters page of this month's FT by one Alistair Moffat of Halifax (perhaps he's reading this and can elaborate on it). It's the cover of a 1934 British "boy's story paper" called the Ranger.
Alistair mentions the 1939 first appearance of Batman in his letter, but only in terms of winged characters regularly appearing in british comic strips prior to his creation. He doesn't appear to make a direct connection between the image and story he describes (the vampire of the title is, he tells us, a scientist with anti gravity machine and bat suit) and the creation of Batman across the ocean 5 years later. Yet not only the general conceit but the specific covers of both publications strike me as having an astonishing similarity. Try googling the Ranger and you'll almost certainly not find it...so if there is a direct influence, beyond coincidence, then its presumably a previously unknown one. See what you think.....Remember Batman - USA 1939, The Ranger issue UK 1934. Surely the chances of the American author/artist (Bob Kane and Bill Finger) having ever seen the throwaway british rag and stealing the image 5 years later are terribly small.