[Batman]

Jim Aparo





vs.

Tim Sale





I can't think of anything witty to say about this match-up . . . Wait! I've got it!

It's Tim Sale, the last dark horse to survive to the semi-finals, versus Jim Aparo, the workhorse of Batman artists.

Do you like how I found covers and interior art showing each artist tackling similar themes? Batman skulking around the graveyard, (as he is wont to do,) and the early days of Robin, respectively.

Mini-bios again, in case anyone's just joining us:

Jim Aparo's take on Batman is probably one of the best known and most iconic. This is partly because of just how awesome his art is, partly because it was used a great deal in merchandising, partly because he drew the highly-publicized storyline where the second Robin was killed, and partly because he was probably the artist with the longest tenure as a Batman artist. He drew one of the regular Batman titles, almost without any break, from 1972 to 2001.

Tim Sale drew two very well-received year-long storylines about Batman's early years, The Long Halloween in '96-'97 and Dark Victory in '99-2000. He has also done a number of covers for the regular Batman comics. He has earned some mainstream fame for being the real artist behind the art of the artist character "Isaac" on the TV show Heroes.

[Stu]

At what point did they actually start crediting creative teams on covers, because old covers don't tend to, from what I've seen.

[Batman]

It was the late eighties. At first it was just the direct-market comics--they'd put creator credits in the space where the UPC would go on news-stand comics.



A little later they started putting it on like we see now:



They went back and forth for a while, but nowadays comic book stores have laser-scanners, too, often enough, so direct-market comics have a UPC box, too, so they don't have that empty space to use anymore.

[Batman]

It's the Aparo interior-art cavalcade! Boy, that's not nearly as catchy as "cover cavalcade."































Haha! One punch!

[Batman]

A couple more:











And I just want to point out, with the exception of a couple of newer pages (the one with Robin and Nightwing in the first panel is inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, and the ones about the death of Robin were inked by Mike DeCarlo,) every page was pencilled, inked, and lettered by Aparo.

[creepy]

There were TWO Robins?

WTF?

[Batman]

No. Three.

Dick Grayson grew up and moved away and changed his superhero name to Nightwing.

Jason Todd was murdered by the Joker.

Tim Drake is the current Robin.

[creepy]

I had no idea.



This changes things...................

[Batman]

Changes what things? You mean you find it creepy that Batman keeps acquiring a new black-haired boy every time he loses one? Yeah, me too.

[Stu]

There were four robins actually. One was a girl, though she was only in the job, what...a week?

[Batman]

Yeah, I remembered her, I just wasn't counting her. If she doesn't get retconned out, what's the point of having retcons at all?

[Pun]

Isn't Jason Todd the Red Hood now?

[Batman]

Yeah, he came back from the dead. Doesn't everybody?

(Except Barry Allen.)

I hear they're going to re-name him "Red Robin" soon. [shrug.]

[Batman]

Jim Aparo goes on to meet Neal Adams in the finals.

Sale got his butt kicked this round, but he outperformed his seed more than any other artist in this showdown, toppling the #1 seed, Frank Miller, to be the only artist outside of the top four seeds to make the final four.