In 1966 and 1967, Batman comics were caught in the middle of a creative tug of war.
On one hand, the editors were trying to attract readers with spooky covers like Fright of the Scarecrow! (Batman 189, Feb. 1967), Mystery of the Missing Manhunters (Batman 184, Sept. 1966) and Death Knocks Three Times! (Batman 180, May 1966).
On the other hand, they were pandering to the success of the Adam West TV show with campy covers like Batman’s Baffling Turnabout (Batman 193, Aug. 1966), in which the Masked Manhunter seemingly refuses to fight crime because he’s too busy watching himself on television.
And then there was that guy who had a pencil eraser for a head (Batman 188, Dec. 1966)
“To paraphrase Robin, ‘How camp can you get?’” wrote reader Stephen Harell of Kansas City. “I knew and appreciated the difference between the campy caricatures of B&R on the TV screen and the ‘real’ B&R of your usually fine magazine … until you threw us The Eraser Who Tried to Rub Out Batman! The story was aptly named. Any more stories like that, and it may rub out Batman!”
Actually, the Eraser, complete with a rubber head mask, a vertically striped yellow suit, and pointed “pencil lead” shoes, wasn’t quite as absurd as the cover implied.
Written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff, the story introduced a criminal mastermind who erased all evidence at crime scenes.
Disguising himself as an organ grinder, Batman discovers that the Eraser is really Lenny Fiasco, his old college roommate!
“I have to admit, I liked the design,” Tom Harrington said. “But he can’t go around all the time with his toes pointed like that.”
Batman’s hit TV show — which had been on the air for 10 months — was having an unmistakably deleterious effect on the Batman of the comic books, transforming him from crimefighter to clown. And DC had a half-dozen Batman-related comics on the stands that month alone.
In Batman 188, the Dynamic Duo climbs up a building wall while joking, as on the TV show. Robin says, “Holy Bonfire!” The captured Batman is sealed in an ice carnival decoration.
“I never thought I’d wind up inside a cake frosting,” Batman laments.
When Robin frees Batman, they batter the crooks (ZOK! SOCK!) while humming music.
“It’s music to put them ON ICE by…” Batman says.
“You mean, in the COOLER,” Robin replies.
“An era when Batman was trying to find himself,” noted Nelson Fox. “No longer with science fiction aliens, but not yet the real Dark Knight Detective either.”
“A lot of the old JLA covers likewise featured outlandish, ‘menacing’ bad guys,” Vincent Sartain observed. “Eraser might have fit in better over there than in the Batman comics.”
J. David Spurlock wrote that artist Carmine Infantino’s “… job was to dream up interesting covers that would grab attention/sell. The editors would THEN have writers come up with a story to go with/explain the cover. This whole Eraser concept was likely one more of so many Infantino concepts that started with a cover design.”
“You know, I remember the cover, but I don’t remember the story much,” Paul Zuckerman said. “Kanigher had started to write for Batman in 1966, turning out several stories that either seemed out of kilter or were killer. And, in doing so, he created Poison Ivy in a story that appears to be very camp-ish!
Oddly enough, over at Marvel Comics, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had earlier created their own villainous Eraser, this one an alien who sent people into another dimension until Giant-Man stopped him (Tales to Astonish 49, Nov. 1963).
When writers and editors start coming up with plot ideas based on the things they see lying on the desk in front of them, they probably need to take a breather.
“At least we were spared Captain White-Out,” Paul Truster observed dryly.
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