Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Solo

Mike Allred — Batusi?

Original Art and The Artists

Batman ’66 Meets Steed and Mrs. Peel #5, January 2017

I’ve expressed my appreciation for Mike Allred way back when I started this blog. (Here and here.) His style is lively, clear, clean and “retro” — absolutely perfect for some great covers on DC’s Batman ’66 publishing program.

Batman ’66 seems to have now gone the way of all defunct universes, but before they wrapped up creating new content, they created quite a few fun crossovers with other similarly adventourous 60s TV shows, including The Green Hornet, Man From U.N.C.L.E., and the British TV favorite “The Avengers.”

DC couldn’t call them that of course, so its Batman ’66 meets Steed and Mrs. Peel.

Whatever you want to call them, a full cover Adam West Batman and cast hypnotically doing the Batusi seems like a great addition to a collection.

The Batusi? Well, in 1966, you just had to be there I guess.

The Batusi is performed by making a horizontal V-sign with one’s index and middle fingers of both hands, and drawing them across in front of the eyes, away from the center of the face simultaneously, with the eyes roughly between the fingers. This is performed in time with the music, and is improved upon by continuing to dance with the lower half of the body, simultaneously. — From Wikipedia

The “Batusi” first appeared in Batman’s launch episode of the TV series featuring the Riddler. It appeared again in the episode “The Pharaoh’s in a Rut” that aired a few months later. It has reappeared in other TV shows and films from time to time including the Simpsons and Everybody Loves Raymond. The late, great Adam West took credit for developing the unique moves. Who wants to argue with that?
Mike is obviously fascinated by the Batusi and related dance moves. Years prior to Batman ’66 he featured Wonder Girl making her moves on his issue of Solo, and, when the award-winning series was collected into an omnibus, Batman danced the night away.