Last month I pointed out how various Batman comics have featured nods to the 1960s’ Batman TV show. I spotlighted some of the most obvious ones, but of course there have been plenty more sprinkled here and there throughout the years. One artist who seems particularly fond of them is Klaus Janson.
Check out this sequence:
Detective Comics #554
I’m not positive that Batman and Robin playing chess is necessarily a homage to their game at the beginning of the episode ‘A Riddle A Day Keeps The Riddler Away’ (not to mention the quadruple-decker chess game in ‘The Purr-fect Crime’) but that last page sure has the TV show all over it. The Dutch angle, the upbeat Dynamic Duo, the Lincoln Futura Batmobile, the fire bursting out the back as they leave the Batcave…
Although with a more somber tone, Klaus Janson also seems to have drawn inspiration from the show’s look in this page from Gothic, most notably by dressing Bruce Wayne in typical Adam West attire:
Legends of the Dark Knight #6
Finally, when tasked with drawing the Penguin, Klaus Janson took the opportunity to make him look like actor Burgess Meredith in the TV series:
