Official Batman Annual 1985


By Gerry Conway, Don Kraar, Roy Thomas, Alan Moore, Jamie Delano, José Luis García-López, Alan Davis, Garry Leach & various (London Editions)
ISBN: 7235-6733-6

Generally I save the Christmas annuals for the nostalgia-drenched Festive Season but this is a little gem I recently re-examined and found to be an item which I had no illogical or purely emotional attachment to. It’s simply an extremely good-looking, thoroughly entertaining package which might be unknown to and of some interest to fans and collectors.

By the end of the 1970s the Superman and Batman Christmas books were a slim and slight shadow of their former bumper selves, but during the mid 1980s a new crop of editors and designers found a way to invigorate and add value to the tired tomes.

Now full-colour throughout but reduced to 64 pages this example stems from the days when I was just starting out in the business and a few of my more talented and famous colleagues and acquaintances on groundbreaking independent comic Warrior, star-studded 2000AD and at gradually expanding Marvel UK were offered a little side-work from Manchester-based London Editions Comics…

Behind the Bryan Talbot cover, ‘The Falcons Lair!’ written by Don Kraar and illustrated by Adrian Gonzales & Mike DeCarlo (originally seen in US comicbook Brave and the Bold #185, April 1982) opened proceedings with a boisterous action-romp teaming the Caped Crusader and Emerald Archer Green Arrow against the wiliest of criminal birds The Penguin, after which a brief prose piece by Jamie Delano lavishly illustrated by Alan & Damian Davis tantalisingly whetted the Fights ‘n’ Tights taste-buds with the wry and salutary tale of a foredoomed pickpocket ”Birdsong’ Mickey’s Day Out’…

The editors were equally canny in selecting the US reprints. ‘Last Laugh!’ first appeared in Batman #353 (November 1982): a dynamite stand alone tale pitting the Gotham Guardian against the archest of villains The Joker; a spectacular and audacious thriller by Gerry Conway magnificently illustrated by the incredibly talented and inexplicably underrated José Luis García-López.

Possibly one of the neatest and most impressive text tales in UK Annuals history ‘The Gun’ reunited Marvelman co-conspirators Alan Moore & Garry Leach (who painted the beguiling pictures which accompany the twisted trail of the weapon which killed Thomas and Martha Wayne) and the seasonal sensationalism concluded with ‘Where Walks a Snowman!’ (Batman #337, July 1981) wherein Gerry Conway& Roy Thomas recounted the horrific history of a chilling killer stalking Gotham in another lost art-masterpiece by García-López & Steve Mitchell.

Being a British Christmas book there’s even a traditional send-off with a brace of

‘Batman’s Puzzles’ pages comprising word games and “spot the difference” panels.

This impressive tome might well be of more interest to comics completists than chronic nostalgists like me, but such items often turn up in jumble sales and charity shops and are frequently well worth the price of admission

© 1984 DC Comics Inc. and London Editions Limited. All characters © 1984 DC Comics Inc.