Pete Poplaski — Bat-Blast From The Past
Batman: The Dailies, 1944-1945 (TPB, 1990, Kitchen Sink)
Here’s yet another great piece of art by the extraordinarily talented Pete Poplaski.
Poplaski has been called an “artist’s artist” by many of his peers. He might not have a household name among art buffs, but his talent is formidable and undeniable.
Pete, who broke into comics in the 70s underground movement, ultimately became Kitchen Sink’s art director, and, among many accomplishments helped give some of Robert Crumb’s projects just the right design touch.
Kitchen had the rights to reprint the DC Batman and Superman Golden Age comic strips in the early 1990s, and Pete created brand new covers that evoked the classic style of those strips.
When we acquired those rights at IDW in 2012, we went back to Pete to see if he would be interested in picking up where he left off, and fortunately he was.
Dick Sprang. Al Plastino. Carmine Infantino. You name it. Pete’s remarkable ability to create brand new material in any and all of these classic styles is astonishing.
Interestingly enough, many if not most of Pete’s covers (front and back) feature hand drawn lettering, but this one does not. Also, the final crop for the book cover is tighter, so the end result of both of these elements is that there much more art visible on the original than in the final published version.
I’m fortunate enough to own a few of these covers — and many of them are prominently displayed.
