Come on baby, do the logo-motion

That Thor cover in yesterday's post really did remind me how much I love comic book logos. I don't think we think too much about the masthead logos of periodicals in general: with the exception of historical icons like Time or Life, most folks probably don't remember distinctly what the logo of a magazine looks like.

Comic book fans are different. We not only recognize and remember the logos of our favorites, but we have distinct tastes about which ones we like and which ones "don't work". That odd uncomfortable feeling you got lookin' at that "Thor!" logo? That's our logo-sensibilities at work, telling you that's not a Thor logo. That's not even a weird 1990s Thor logo. It's like Peter Parker's spider-sense, tingling to tell us all's not right in the four-color world.

I'm a big fan of interesting and unusual comic book logos that I haven't seen before. Most of these are DCs from the 1970s or before (I've been a Marvel fanbull for a long time but I'm not as up on my DC history), so sometimes it's a fun discovery when I first see an elegantly-designed, elaborate and symbolic logo like this, from a DC comic I didn't even really know existed:



Cool, huh?

Lotsa comics logos are almost as familiar to us as the superheroes inside the books. Who doesn't know this logo?:



...which, aside from a relatively recent temporary, intentional, and kinda ill-advised metamorphosis...



...remains pretty much the same in 2006 that it was in 1938:



On the other hand, DC's other big superhero has an iconic look that is recognized the world-round. But unlike Superman, he hasn't had a consistent logo to his comic over the past 67 years. This original logo persisted with a few subtle variations for several decades:



This 1970 logo revamp (six years after the 1964 debut of the "New Look" Batman) worked the same concept but with a much more modern design:



But by 1972, it had evolved into this version which was the familiar standard for the next fifteen years. It's similar to the 1939 original yet modern and dramatic:



This somewhat generic 1987 post-Crisis logo was clear and bold, but not especially Batmanesque:



Premiering just a few months before the 1989 Batman movie, this gothic redesign reflects the Anton Fursting of Gotham City and the Dark Knight:



An across-the-line logo overhaul in 2000 reflected a new noir look for the series that tied all the various Batman books together:



The big bat silhouette reappeared in 2002 and has been the standard right through Infinite Crisis:



Even with all these logos, I'll bet that that Batman logo most recognized by the general public is the one that doesn't come from a comic book at all:



Golly, that's weird and kinda-bad typography by design standards...but it works, it's instantly recognizable from across the room, and it elicits an immediate response-c'mon, who didn't think to themselves when seeing that logo "Na na na na na na na na...Batman!"

Next up, sometime this weekend: a look at the design and evolution of a classic Marvel Comics logo...and why, as Ben Grimm might say, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

(Images from The Grand Comic Book Database)