Lew Sayre Schwartz
Last week, blogger 'Sivercat17' (found via JLRoberson at the TCJ board) did us the favour of scanning a whole 1953 Batman story (minus the title page) from Detective #193, March 1953: The Joker's Journal
It's one of some 120 Batman stories ghosted for Bob Kane by Lew Sayre Schwartz, one of my favourite artists from way back long before I ever knew his name. I've been fond of his work since when I was ten or eleven and used to colour it with crayons in some black and white reprints that i still keep. I wrote a long essay on the subject, though note that the crayon coloured pages shown there are by Moldoff. In 2001 I interviewed Lew for the first issue of my magazine Egomania (still avalable for five bucks) and he identified The Joker's Journal as his, recalling that he put himself in one panel (see left smoking pipe).
The most recent volume (#6, 2005) of Batman Archives, reprinting all the Batman stories from Detective Comics, have the first ones (six of them) that Schwartz drew (always uncredited), but in my opinion have failed to correctly identify the very first (#122, April 1947): 
Both DC and the Grand Comicbook Database give the art to Kane, but that would be the default position anyway. The work is too good to possibly have been drawn by Kane; i'm particularly enamored of this charming circus scene:
The trouble is that the job also looks superior to the immediately subsequent stories that Schwartz drew. The first time I saw this cinematic sweep of the Statue of Liberty I was baffled as to who the artist could possibly be and as late as ten years ago I still had it filed it under 'not yet identifiable'.
But don't we all try much harder on the first outing, in the hope of securing regular employment?
Labels: classic strips(2)
posted by Eddie Campbell at
18:05
6 Comments:
That's really nice work on the Statue of Liberty, I can see that even at this resolution.
Oh, and Welcome Back! :}D>
don't we all try much harder on the first outing
so hard that in most cases - at least here, with comics albums and magazines - the work discontinues after about three publications. mostly due to a wrong management of energy and resources.
nice to see you around, btw :)
When I first learned what a corrupt capitalist Bob Kane was, I used to constantly wonder about the nameless artists who had to let him put his name to their work.
That would be a problem with the deadlines of periodical work. The work is bound to be irregular in a small or big way.
Maestro,
Is Lew going to be in SD this year? Another panel talk with you two would be fun to see...
Wayne
Dear Eddie,
My name is Andrew Schwartz, son of Lew Sayre Schwartz. I've been trying to find a way of contacting you directly regarding my father's passing away, and this is the only one I can currently find. Please feel free to contact me at andrew@schwartz2020.com for more information. My Mother wanted me to let you know as Lew was so fond of his relationship with you. I do hope you are still monitoring this blog post. Regards, Andrew.
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