Micro-Batman: Robin, they Shrunk the Comic Books!

An Autoethnography in Batmanology

After last week’s post, I thought a lot about what to write next. Like just about any writer (I assume at least), I often worry that my writing isn’t “good enough” to put out into the world. I feel like I have to be unique and compelling… and what if it’s already been done before? I mean, a lot has already been written about Batman, so it’s an inevitability that at some point I’m just rehashing someone else’s ideas without even realizing it. After all, none of us can read everything.

In these moments of overwhelm, I find myself coming back to my own experience. With last week’s writing on accessibility, I was reminded of some of the work that I undertook last year when thoughts of putting “pen to paper” were still not even in the brainstorming phase. While at the time just a bit of fun exploration to pass the time and learn about resources available locally, in hindsight, I can see that this experience provided a lot of interesting insights on accessibility.

In other words, my personal experience is what I can always bring to the table, and that’s much of what I am offering now. In many ways, my writing so far can be considered an autoethnography of my Batman research as a regular person, aka a mediocre, unimportant, and unaffiliated researcher. Which I find quite appropriate, as autoethnography is an appealing approach found in my previous field and one that I always appreciate.

Batmanology Begins: Do Batcaves Have Rabbitholes?

Alright, so I have to gush for a second: Glen Weldon is my Batman. In fact, step aside, Michael Uslan! Glen Weldon is Batman’s Batman. I’m sad that it took me so long to come across Weldon’s Batman content, because it changed my life. For whatever reason, whether that’s buying into the societal narrative that pop culture isn’t worthy of study, lack of interest, lack of time, or pure ignorance, I never picked up an academically tinged Batman book until 2023. I don’t remember how I came across it, but regardless, I was fascinated by this SLATE article. Adapted from parts of Weldon’s 2016 book The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, the article is focused on discussion of gay subtext in Batman media. From here there was no turning back.

As I alluded to in this post, queerness has been baked into my interest of Batman from a young age. As a queer person, it’s inevitable to see things through that lens. Honestly, it’s just the norm until you get old enough to put a label on it. Once I was faced with a largely toxic and largely homophobic fandom (just look at the discourse surrounding the last gay man to filter Batman through his lens in a major motion picture series), I kept my fandom largely to myself. Call it shame from internalized homophobia. But Weldon’s article helped me see I wasn’t alone in how I saw and related to things.

This preview left me ravenous for more and saw me immediately buying the book. The entire text was devoured within 24 hours… and at a time when I was so depressed I hadn’t finished a full book in about half a year! It helped me put a critical lens on something that was previously immune to the treatment. Weldon helped take the loneliness and shame out of my Batman fandom and assisted in normalizing the way I viewed things. After reading The Caped Crusade, I was not satisfied. The book led me down a hypomanic rabbit hole of information, starting with some of the resources Weldon himself used for the book.

From here I let myself follow whatever direction(s) my research and my interests took me to. Somewhere in this seemingly endless journey of research, I found myself on the Publication history of Batman Wikipedia page. In the page, it has the very first image of Batman. His first appearance wasn’t in Detective Comics #27, but in an advertisement for that issue found in Action Comics #12. All of a sudden, I wanted to see the ads found in all of these early comic books. While I don’t always appreciate advertisements pulling up while I’m trying to watch a YouTube video for example, in certain scenarios ads can be enlightening. Much like Batman, they provide a specific lens of the time they were produced and its people, the technology, and their interests. Ads are essentially the creation or manipulation of desire. What were they trying to get people to buy? How did the marketer try to convince people to buy it? What demographics were they targeting?

This single rectangle of a Batman ad sent my mind spinning. Was Batman in other ads? How was he depicted? Etc. There was a problem, though. The Golden Age Omnibus set that I own only contains covers and (Batman) stories. No ads or non-Batman content. It makes sense since it’s a Batman set, and most consumers don’t want to see old ads or periphery stories that would increase the size of the volumes and their price. A glance at the copies found on the DC Universe Infinite Ultra platform showed the same story: an edited version with no ads and only Batman stories. Facsimile editions do reprint everything cover to cover, though you’d be hard pressed to find facsimiles of an issue that isn’t a “key” issue like the first appearance of a character. This hodgepodge denies a researcher or dedicated fan the full picture.

Golden Age Digger

All this led me to wonder: how in the world could I see the real deal? Purchasing these issues is out of the question. Anyone familiar with comic books knows that these issues are expensive. I don’t know about my dear reader, but unless I win the lottery there is no way I can ever afford a Batman #1 for $2.2 million. Even the comparatively inexpensive non-key issues can cost thousands of dollars each. Just one of these is still out of reach for me. As I mentioned in my last post, I know I could probably find scans of some originals online. But I don’t even want to think about that route unless all other options are exhausted. Ethics and legality aside, the seeking/searching is half the fun.

Alright, to my local library website!! A look at Batman in the research catalog at the New York Public Library (NYPL) pulled up some… Batman comic books on microfiche? Huh? Forgive my ignorance. As a younger millennial who grew up around the new technologies that made microform now “obsolete” I was not familiar with the technology.

During a trip to Washington DC shortly before this, I did carve a bit of time out to get my research card at the Library of Congress and go to the comic book and periodicals room. I was like a kid in a candy store. Where do I start? Do I pull up some single issues? Do I delve into some newspapers to investigate media coverage of the 1950s senate hearings on comic books (I am in the capital after all)? In an attempt to learn a new method of research, I decided to look at some items on microfilm. The librarian was kind enough to teach me how to use the microfilm machine and software. It was a thrill to use! But microfiche?!?!

For those like me who aren’t in the know, microfilm and microfiche are scans/copies of the original media shrunk and placed on material similar to camera film. The main difference between the fiche and film however is in the format/viewing. While microfilm is usually on a roll like camera film, microfiche is in single flat sheets or cards. In the case of my comic books, each 60+ page issue is on a single card produced by MicroColour in the 1990s. A bonus of this method is that it is easy to see all of the pages in a single book at a glance. 

Created and used primarily in an age before the internet, this method was preferred by the comic book companies at a time when they were opposed to digitization (Smith 2016). The method helps preserve fragile resources as materials like newspapers (and old comic books) weren’t printed to last. They are on cheap paper and use cheap ink and therefore can be difficult and expensive to preserve. Shrinking them also saves valuable physical space, a premium for libraries. Apparently, as noted by the Seattle Times in 1997, it’s not just libraries that snagged copies of comic book microfiche. Some collectors with enough money and space at home for the technology could purchase them directly from the unfortunately now defunct company that produced them. The blogger Sean Kleefeld has noted his experience with collecting these reproductions.

Microfiche, Major fail: Close, But No Color

Fast forward some decades and because a lot of the resources people need can be found online nowadays, it is clear that microform is rarely used by the public at large. This is not only illustrated by my lack of knowledge, but in my experience requesting the materials which was a headache. You can’t request microfiche with the click of a button on the NYPL online system like most materials. I had to put in multiple in-person requests for the microfiche sets I wanted, and there were quite a bit of hiccups and confusion along the way.*

Due to it being a rare request, the library employees seemed to be unfamiliar with the process and how it is recorded in the library’s systems. I would make the request and return a day later, only for a (different) employee to look bewildered as I had nothing recorded on my account. However, after some persistence the issues were ironed out, and I was able to get my hands on a beautiful stack of microfiche officially licensed by DC Comics. I started with Batman, but the library has a good number of titles. Each series they have (including Detective Comics and Wold’s Finest!) has the first 50 issues or so scanned and reproduced.

Upon first receipt of the materials, I asked the librarian for a bit of help with this new (to me) technology and their brand of machines. The last thing I want is to break something or ruin the cards. Like my experience requesting the material, his reaction was very telling. Although somewhat familiar with microfiche and therefore able to show me the ropes, he was amazed to see that they are in full color. Despite being an older gentleman who has probably been a librarian for a while, it seems like microfiche in full color was a new to him. At this point, he seemed to be just as excited as I was. As he was going through how to handle the machine, we were both confused and disappointed to see that although the sheets themselves are in full color, when using the machines, the full-size images that appeared on the computer screen were in black and white.

While perusing their contents independently, the librarian sent a tech guy over to look into the color issue. It turns out the machines that the NYPL has to view microfiche do not have color capabilities. Only one of the number of machines at the main branch is a newer model that should be able to do this in color… but for one reason or another (a license for the use of its color capabilities wasn’t purchased, the type of bulb in use isn’t capable of the function, etc.) you cannot view the microfiche in color. This is the only branch in the NYPL system to have microform machines that I’m aware of, and the system’s paper single issue collection has very few Golden Age books, so it seems I’m out of luck locally when it comes to legally accessing these books in (close to) the original. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to view them in color the next time I can make it out to the Library of Congress.

Although a bit sad that I couldn’t see the microfiche in their full glory, I was still pumped to have found and have access to these gems! The sheets in and of themselves are beautiful and fascinating, let alone the tactile experience of operating the machine to view this piece of history. It’s thought provoking to view a relic of history through another relic of history. Going through several stacks answered some curiosities and questions I had… but as with any kind of research, examining these old comics and this technology has brought a flood of new obsessions, thoughts, and questions to my mind. First and foremost, the importance of accessibility. But this entry is already long enough, so I’ll stop there and continue this track next week. To be continued…