There's an old New Year's tradition where I'm from of putting a penny on every window sill on new year's day to earn fortune. Or keep the devil away. Or instead of sauerkraut. Something like that.
So I'm going to observe that tradition this year with YOU and the most famous penny of all: The Giant Penny in the Batcave!
As we have discussed before (in what is apparently a seminal article, since every time I do research on the Batcave, the internet keeps taking me back to it), the Giant Penny comes from a very obscure, early Batman & Robin story (World's Finest Comics #30, 1947; reprinted in the 100-page giant comic Batman #256, 1974; and again in the marvelous trade paperback anthology Secrets of the Batcave, 2007) with an old-school, one-shot foe: Joe Coyne, the Penny Plunderer.
We've admired Joe's inspiration and his poetic prowess, but we've never really read his story together and what better time than Giant Penny Week?
What do you think, Joe?
Um...Ooooo-kay, Joe. I'll take that as a "yes".
So get your vinegar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt together, and get ready for ...
Giant Penny Week.
Enter at your peril!
I am excited already, Happy Numismatist Year!
ReplyDeleteThis reply is CSI style:
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean you're putting in ... [slowly putting sunglasses on] ... your two cents?
YEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH!
Or if Joe Coyne were played by David Caruso:
ReplyDelete"Come and get me ..." [sunglasses] "... copper!"
YEAAAAAHHHH
Oh...joy!
ReplyDeleteI do have to wonder however...how on earth did he MAKE that thing?
Oh, that's easy, Sally. He bought $68,000 worth of pennies, rented an armored car, borrowed a foundry, melted down all his little pennies and cast the giant penny. Of course, in 1947 that was equivalent to millions of dollars, and he could have retired to the French Riviera instead of getting beat up by Batman. Joe was a poet, not a financial wizard.
ReplyDeleteActually, Sally, the answer IS:
ReplyDeletehe didn't.
As we will see, the Giant Penny is just one of the giant props on hand all over Gotham for decorating your convention, public exhibit, or other highly attackable civic function. In point of fact, it's not even the only giant penny in town. But more on that later...
I loved that Steve Englehart made sense of the giant props by having Silver St Cloud hire them for conventions
ReplyDeleteBryan, for reasons that will become clear later in the week, I happen to know the process you describe would in fact require $970,000 in pennies (which in 1947 dollars would be a value of $9,215,000).
ReplyDeleteBut your point remains valid: Joe was a poet, not a financial wizard.
Martin, it does lend credence to the idea that the giant props are not made by the places that use them, but are all the product of a company that specializes in them and rents them out.
ReplyDeleteI should have known you'd already done the math, Scipio. I am glad my conclusion stands, regardless of my guesswork.
ReplyDeleteJoe Coyne may not have been the smartest of Batman's enemies...but he certainly had the most cents!
ReplyDeleteBuilding on what Scipio said, Golden-Age Batman had a tendency to run into giant props. I think it was during his second encounter with two-face that he ended up battling thugs on a giant billiards table, complete with boulder-sized balls.
ReplyDeleteIt was a Two-Face story, but a later one (1954). Best thing about the giant pool table is that it was in someone's HOUSE.
ReplyDeleteFor a full list of ALL giant props in Batman stories see the Comic Treadmill at
http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2010/2010_Individual/2010_02/002024.php
I assume that all of those abandoned warehouses in Gotham were originally designed to MAKE those giant props...it apparently being quite the coming thing in 1948 or so. Too bad the bottom dropped out. But their loss...was Villainy's gain!
ReplyDelete