by Carrie Wood, Amanda Sheriff, and Robert M. Overstreet

416 pages. $30.00 softcover

KC Carlson (right)

Review by KC Carlson

The Overstreet Price Guide to Batman

I’ve been very interested in seeing The Overstreet Price Guide to Batman, ever since it was solicited a few months back. The original Overstreet Price Guide for Comic Books is a pretty definitive volume on the ins and outs of comic book collecting, with a huge amount of each book being taken up with the price guide itself. I’m not a normal collector, in that I’ve pretty much collected what I’ve wanted to over the years, and I’ve never really had the money to do too much serious back issue collecting. (As opposed to accumulating items to read.)

I started buying (and reading) comic books around six years old. I had a grandmother who didn’t have a lot of a lot of money to spend on Christmas presents, but way back then (in the early 1960s), comic book subscriptions were only about a dollar for a year’s worth of comics — a very affordable price for a grandmother who wanted to keep encouraging my interest in reading. So, for many years (well into college), every year in my Christmas stocking was a card telling me that another year’s worth of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories would be in my mailbox over the next 12 months.

Before long, I discovered the The Comic Book Price Guide in 1975. The cover featured Tarzan by Joe Kubert. (It wouldn’t become the Overstreet Price Guide until the following year — with a Spirit cover by Will Eisner.) I pretty much bought every subsequent volume after that until recently — when I skipped every other year, as my back issue hunting had pretty much ended, since I had pretty much bought up all the back issues that I could find (or afford). I wound up giving away my older Price Guides, mostly because it was beginning to be a minor problem storing all those ultra-thick books!

NA, NA, N… OOPS, DID THAT ALREADY…

The Overstreet Price Guide to Batman features a character who’s not a favorite character of mine, but it’s a great choice for an individual character Price Guide, given his long history and long-running appeal.

Batman Annual #7

You might suspect (from the title of the book) there would be an actual price guide within. Surprise! There’s actually two! First up, there’s something called Batman Comics Overstreet Values which offers “the listings and prices of Batman comics” from the current 49th Edition of the regular Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide in a 76-page section of the book. Later on, there’s a Cover Gallery (with prices) of the earliest issues of Detective Comics featuring Batman, so Detective Comics #27-300 and Batman #1-250 (plus Batman Annual #1-7) — with a bonus pin-up!

But there’s much more to the Overstreet Price Guide to Batman than that! There are various introductions/overviews and spotlights on key (early) creators (Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson), as well as creators who left a legacy: Gardner Fox, Dennis O’Neil, Neal Adams, Frank Miller, Chuck Dixon, and Paul Dini.

There’s also a guide to the many Robins, starting with Dick Grayson (one of the few comic book characters who was actually allowed to substantially age), Batgirl, Batwoman, the Bat-Family, Commissioner James Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, key villains including the Joker, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, the Riddler, Bane, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Ra’s al Ghul, Scarecrow, and even more characters.

One of the times Batman appeared on the cover of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide

As well, included are an essay about the various Batman newspaper comic strips, a look at Bat-Manga!, extensive looks at Batman in the media — including blockbuster movies, TV shows, and acclaimed animation, video games, radio and other audio dramas, toys and action figures, and books/novels — and a gallery of all of Batman’s appearances on the cover of the Overstreet Price Guide (more than you might think!).

I’m not sure how much I’ll actually use The Overstreet Price Guide to Batman as a price guide, but it’s certainly a book that I’ll keep handy as an important reference — kinda sorta how I use the master Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide these days. I wonder how long it will be before we see individual Price Guides for Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and other key characters.

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KC CARLSON — NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA — Merry Kringle!

WESTFIELD COMICS is not responsible for the stupid things that KC says. Especially that thing that really irritated you. There’s absolutely nothing irritating me these days. Santa’s coming soon, and I don’t want another rock in my stocking! (It took almost two months for my foot to heal up last year!)