I love Spook Show Posters and I dig Batman so I don't know why I didn't think of this before-- but I've created this homage to both the original Batman, Lewis Wilson, and Spook Shows of the period. Lugosi was often doing these personal appearance type of events and I would imagine if someone had suggested it to Wilson and mentioned it would be a chance to raise money for War Bonds he would have done it.
There's a lot of Chicken Fat to the poster too- the addition of real life spook host Francisco-- The Catwoman over Batman's shoulder is actually Hedy Lamarr who was the real life inspiration for the character-- The Joker in the bottom left is Lon Chaney Sr and if I were the promoter and it was 1944 you bet your life I would have added the Frankenstein Monster to the lineup and have a staged battle between him and Batman!
I also did a red version-- these posters at the time would have been done on the ultra cheap, silkscreened on cardstock, the colors would be off registration and red might have been used for no other reason than to make them stand out.
I may do these as handbills too-- which would be just regular paper, but you can get your own copy of the blue or the extremely limited RED edition right here in my store in either 11x17 or 13x19 size (Red only in 11x17).
My store is updated almost daily with new artwork-- and the link is above and to the left. So check it out! Or order a poster right here:
