Here's a go-go checkered Detective Comics cover from a period I don't particularly care for. It's possible this issue may actually pre-date the TV show - I'm too busy right now to look up and compare the two dates - but they're similar enough in style that it doesn't really matter which came first. This is the kind of crap that inspired, and then was in turn inspired by, that 'camp classic television program' that so many people - present company excluded - are still fond of. Can't you almost hear that annoying voice-over actor from the 1960s Batman show saying, "Watch out, Batman! This villain is tricky!" when you look at this?
Batman never worked for me as a silly, comedic character. Fortunately, he was being treated more seriously by the time I reached the age where I outgrew the Bam! Pow! Whap! antics of that period, and he's been pretty cool ever since. This type of cover just reminds me that, sadly, 'twasn't always thus!
As an aside, that whole Sound Effects treatment of the material in the TV show continues to haunt comic fans 40 years later. One of the ways you can tell a decent newspaper or magazine article about comics, for example, is by the omission of some campy title like "Pow! Zap! Comics Make A Difference!" It's still the case that most puff pieces about the genre still employ that approach to the material, meaning that often the title alone can tell you whether it's worth reading or not. Funny, eh?
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