Many,many thanks to Todd Hillmer of the great comics archive BARNACLE PRESS at http://www.barnaclepress.com/ for finding the debut of Galexo, the super hero who replaced Batman in his own newspaper comic strip in April of 1972! We wrote about the elusive character previously here: http://booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/2009/06/galexo-and-batman.htmlatman.html A quote from that piece--Although most papers dropped it much sooner, the strip actually limped on until 1974 during which time it took some fascinating turns! Not the least of these was givin
g up Batman and Robin a year or so before the end but retaining Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in support of a new hero called GALEXO! As this strip has never been reprinted...its very scarcity has made it intriguing to fans. Intriguing it has been and I know a number of great researchers have been helping me search from time to time and now here we have it. According to Todd, though, even the newspaper where he found these dropped it within a couple of weeks and yet it continued on for two more years so keep looking! We want more. This just seems so horribly wrong as to be weirdly great! Also seen here is my quick draw attempt (at 2 AM) at drawing the character based on what's seen here.
yikes
ReplyDeleteC'mon, don't leave us hanging! What newspaper ran the strip even this late? This is a great find!
ReplyDelete--Allan
Hey Allan, I was going to ask if you had any info on this strip! My stash came from Stars & Stripes, I believe. Whenever I've seen anything written on the last days of this Batman series, 1974 is given as an end date. That is really hard to swallow as these Galexo strips are beyond bad. I'd love to see what came next, the last one I have is April 29, 1972.
ReplyDeleteAnd Galexo himself? Even in this continuity, it's established the dynamic duo are friends with Superman, how are we supposed to be impressed with this guy??
--thrillmer!
Hi Thrillmer --
ReplyDeleteAll I can tell you is that supposedly some newspaper in Quebec continued to run the strip to the bitter end. I believe I read that in the Menomonee Falls Gazette. The strip was advertised by Ledger in 1973 so one assumes they were still producing it, but who knows what shenanigans were going on.
--Allan
Steve, got any more batman, I keep getting requests to add them to my site, got any good leads?
ReplyDelete