Expert: Grant Hudson - 3/28/2004

Question
I was just wondering about some history on batman comic books. I know that these days there are several different titles and kinds of batman comic books. I was wondering what the original books were called when they first came out in the 1930's and 40's.Im thinking about geting DC archives books and i dont know which ones were the first batman comic out. there are different titles and volumes for the archive books. there is "batman", "dark knight", and "dynamic duo". im not sure which ones to get because i want the oldest and the original ones. thanks for reading this and i hope you know the answer.-Jameson

Answer
What you want to research is Detective Comics (which gave DC its name) -Batman first appeared in number 27, in May 1939, and the really classic stories are from that time. Many other Batman comics appeared in the '80s, and since then it's been hard to keep track.

You'll find more information on all of this in Wizard magazine, which you can get at comics specialist shops.

GH