plogg: February 2021

"Dracula vs. Bat-Man and Robin" (1974) was written and drawn on a whim, just for laughs -- 16 pages produced in only 15 minutes, if you can believe it. (Believe me, you'll have no trouble believing it, after you've read it.) The last page states: "Next ish on sale in 4 hours!"

I was 9 or 10 years old. The first page of the story, with Dracula standing on a wooden beam above Batman and Robin, was inspired by the cover of DRACULA LIVES! #4 (January 1974), but certainly drawn a few months later.

The publisher, Scarry Comix, was originally "scarey", before I wrote over it. It may have been pointed out to me that I'd misspelled scary, and deliberately changed it to "scarry", just to add to the nonsense. Even as I was writing the price, I altered the 1 to a 4, so that it became 4 pennies -- worth every cent.

The date is a deliberate anachronism. I had written 1906, then changed it to 1936. I was quite aware that Batman made his debut in 1939, and that Robin came a little later.

My original intention may have been to create a Dracula comic; if so, I must have changed my mind. The Dracula story is only 2 pages, and I killed him off on page two. The "added attraction" of "Rob-Man + Batin" is 10 pages. You also get a "fun page" (with balloons) and a pin-up of a kite.

I used eight sheets of 10" x 16 1/2" perforated paper, folded, so that the pages were 8 1/4" x 10". Due to the perforations, the sheets tore easily after a little wear, and I lost a few sections. Fortunately, a couple of decades later, I discovered the missing pieces under the flaps of an old cardboard box in which I kept some of my earlier drawings. I restored the valuable, ancient tome to its original glory, using Scotch tape and staples. And now, new generations of comic book fans the world over can enjoy and cherish this much sought-after, extremely rare Batman collectors' item.