It’s a busy day at work, so I’ll leave it to another fine comic book to entertain you.
Long before Law and Order, CSI and their various spin-offs liberally took inspiration for their plotlines from news headlines, another methodical investigator’s stories were written the same way: Batman.
If you’re too young to have heard of the “Paul is Dead” hoax surrounding the Beatles, here’s the quick version: in late 1969, a rumour began to circulate that Paul McCartney had died in a traffic accident and that a look-alike had taken his place. For fans with an investigative bent, the Beatles are purported to have left clues all over their albums — in their lyrics, in the album art and even in backwards-masked vocals.
A few months later, this Batman comic book hit the stands:
Doesn’t the “World’s Greatest Detective” have better mysteries to solve?
In the comic book, the Beatles are now the Oliver Twists, whose singles include a number called Pink Submarine (which, to the modern reader — or someone like me, who’s watched waaaay too much Beavis and Butt-Head — seems disturbingly phallic, especially in light of the fact that we think Robin’s more than just Bruce Wayne’s ward). Paul McCartney’s fictional doppelganger is Saul Cartwright, who dressed as if he’s raided Magneto’s closet:
I think Marilyn Manson has that cape too.
Saul always carries his “mini recorder” in case musical inspiration strikes. Ah, the clunky flair of 1970’s technology!
Speaking of seventies clunkiness, check out this poor attempt at making Robin (who’s in college at this point) sound hip:
I groove crappy dialogue when I see it.
Batman doesn’t groove, Robin, he deduces
Want to see what happens? Is Saul really dead? Did successful businessmen wear orange shirts with black oxford stripes paired with blue ties in the 1970’s? Why do Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson “dress for dinner”? And why in the same room? And what’s up with this…?
My bum clenched involuntarily after I read this panel.
Download the comic [4.1 MB .zip file]. If you have one of those programs that can read .cbz files (like CDisplay for Windows or FFView for Mac OS X), change the filename extension of the file from .zip to .cbz.
8 replies on “Batman Meets the Beatles (or a reasonable facsimile thereof)”
Batman does not “groove,” Batman groks.
–arcane
Maybe the “Pink Submarine” reference is to Spinal Tap (though there is the riddle: Q: “What’s long, hard and filled with seamen” which of course, doesn’t work in print) and their classic “Big Bottom”
The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin
That’s what I said.
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read.
My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo.
I love to sink her with my pink torpedo.
I think the verb “grok” is better applied to guys like Reed Richards.
Ya think? Batman has this cosmic force about him that I think can only be expressed as “grokking.” Reed Richards is merely hyperintelligent (and chewy, we can’t forget chewy). He “geeks.”
(That was posted by me. I keep forgetting to sign things, so I finally got myself an account.)
I remember my older sisters discussing “clues” on the Sgt Pepper album. I was in 7th grade, which puts them in 9th and 11th, and they seemed convinced that if you put all the clues together, you’d know the exact time and place to be waiting for the Beatles to come and pick you up and take you to a wonderful island somewhere. The times of day in “She’s Leaving Home” were vital in some way, for instance.
Some time after that, the whole “Paul Is Dead” thing came along, and I took it about as seriously as anybody, despite having seen the same “clues” used earlier for a different bogus mystery. Obviously, I was a born sucker. (Good thing I’m perfect now.)
I post on a Beatle-centric website and thought the others there would enjoy this blog page. Unfortunately, access to this page is blocked when linking from the Network 54 location of the forum I frequent. Why?
Hello, how are you?
My name is Augusto, I’m brazilian and I have a blog about comics. A friend told my that he saw your post about Batman and Beatles. So, I came here, read and decided to wrote about it in my own blog: http://www.cabruuum.blogspot.com. See there, if you can do it. You did a wonderful discovery.
Thanks! And good work!