Talk:Detective Comics

When was Joker's first appearence in Detective.
The Joker's first appearence in Detective is not listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.117.64.79 (talk • contribs)


 * Because he didn't debut in Detective. Doczilla 19:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * True, he debuted in Batman #1, but his first appearance in ''Detective Comics" was in #45 (Nov. 1940). Newyorkbrad 21:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

What relevance is mentioning his first appearance in DC? Generally, the first appearance period is the reason to include a character. I don't see why it would be important to include the character in DC. Ccm043 04:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it has any great relevance; was just answering the user's question. Newyorkbrad 04:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. That was in reference to the first statement. Ccm043 04:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing and I noticed the Arkham Knight is listed, while it is clearly not the Arkham Knight's first ever appearance in a comic. I assume it is referencing Astrid Arkham? If so that should probably be specified and link directly to her section on the Arkham Knight page. Alisio Star (talk) 11:38, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I think a reasonable compromise to the "not the first appearance" argument and the "first appearance in the series" argument would be to include the first appearance in Detective Comics of The Joker in the table, but specify that it is not his first appearance ever (with an asterisk maybe, or perhaps edit the table description to explicitly state that this table includes the first appearance in the series of the characters listed, but not necessarily their first appearance ever.) 174.23.4.95 (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I vote for including the Jokers first appearence in Detective Comics.
 * Detective was one of the two most important comics at the time, and the Joker is arguably the most important villain in the DC universe.
 * At the least he is the most well-known DC villain even for the casual readers and non-comics-fans.


 * Additionally, people reading the article - especially people normally not reading (DC) comics - will expect the Joker here, and probably be confused when they don't find him.


 * All in all, imHo the Joker should be listed in Batman and Detective, with an asterix and explanation.
 * Regards, Mottengott

Batman exclusivity
Does anyone know when Detective began to focus exclusively on Batman? You'd think this would be an important part to the article, or at least an interesting one. I've been doing Google searches and I've come up with nothing more than a personal blog entry that mentioned the comic beginning its Batman exclusivity in the late 80s, which seems dubious to me, and unsupported by my memory of buying pre-80s issues of the comic.DT29 (talk) 01:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Like most of the early comic books, Detective started out as an anthology title where (beginning in #27) Batman was just one of several features, just like Action Comics had Superman along with other feature stories. The comics were thicker (64 pages), and the stories shorter than today.  Gradually over time, the size of the comics were reduced to the current 32 page size (the page width was also gradually reduced to save paper costs, which is why there are separate "Golden", "Silver", and "Modern" age sizes of comic bags and boards) to keep from raising the price from 10 cents (but finally around 1962 it went up to 12 cents, beginning the steady upward march of cover prices that continues to this day).  Somewhere in the '60s, as stories became longer, comics started often having just one story (sometimes continued to the next issue to make an even longer storyline), crowding out other content, though through the '70s it was still fairly common to have a short backup story in the comics.  By the '80s, book-length stories were pretty much universal with only rare exceptions. *Dan T.* (talk) 03:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't have a real answer either. Dtobias is right, until the late 70's and early 80's an issue consists of many short stories with different (main) characters... and this changes somewhere during the 5xx issues. The first issue i own that contains 1 Batman story only is #568 (the legends tie-in); this surely does "not" mean it's the first Batman only story but I think there's no mixed issues after that anymore, at least not on a regular schedule. Hope, it may help. --116.118.88.215 (talk) 03:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Sales performance
Could we get how much this comic sells, how many monthly copies on average? I heard 100,000 and would like to know. 201.80.230.48 (talk) 02:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge Proposal
I have seen there is a new article called Batwoman: Detective Comics. I don't believe it is necessary because it's not a different series and has the continued numbering of the title. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.116.4.185 (talk) 01:48, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Schedule
This information (as given in the article) is totally wrong. Neither the information in the "publication information" (box) is right (quote: "Monthly (bi-monthly from 1973–1975)") nor the one in the copy text under "Batman" (quote: "Detective Comics became a bi-monthly book from issues #435–#445 (June/July 1973 – Feb./March 1975)"). First of all, this cannot be generalized. Mostly, Detective Comics Vol. 1 had have a monthly release schedule, but there had been many occasion where it was not on monthly schedule as follows:
 * The following list may still be incomplete:

So the article needs to be altered. I recommend something like "mostly monthly (see below)" in the info box, anchor to a new paragraph called "Publication Schedule" with more detail information, or just saying it's "mostly monthly" plus anchor link to references or link to an external site with complete listing, if available. However, feel free to copy and paste the text/list above keeping the remark that it's still not a complete list. I would do it myself but I don't know how to do the anchor (link) - I am not a regular/member on wikipedia, sorry. --116.118.88.215 (talk) 03:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * bi-monthly from mid 1973 to early 1975,
 * bi-monthly during summertime months from 1977-1979,
 * 2 extra issues 1988/89 (one for the "Invasion!" event),
 * 2 issues/month; during summertime from 1989 throughout the 90's (different months per year and not all years),
 * a short hiatus before "Elegy" kicked off (so before #854),
 * 2 issues/month in Sept 2011 before final issue in Oct 2011


 * The 1988/89 case (#594 & #595) isn't actually extra issues but rather a realignment of cover dates. For vaious historic reasons DC (and Marvel) had both seen cover dates get several months ahead of when the issues were published and at the end of the 1980s steps were taken to bring dates closer to reality. DC made a couple of issues on each series "Winter" and "Holiday" so they could eat up excess months. (Marvel used a "Mid-Month" cover date to achieve the same effect.)
 * By contrast the early 1990s sounds like the common industry practice of putting out additional issues of popular books during the summer. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:44, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Top Importance?
There's a discussion on which comic-related articles should be listed as "Top Importance" on the importance scale, and I feel this article should not be included. If any user disagrees or wishes to contribute, please do so there. Argento Surfer (talk) 14:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Detective Comics #27 (May 1939)
Here are some citations I found while responding to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics.


 * The United States Copyright Office's official record, the Catalog of Copyright Entries 1939 Periodicals New Series Vol 34 Pt 2 page 164 (online version available at the Internet Archive) gives a copyright date of March 30, 1939 for the May issue of Detective Comics. I would certainly give credence to a contemporaneous legal record.


 * In addition, the Grand Comics Database entry for Detective Comics #27 uses the date of March 30, 1939 with the notation "The on-sale date is the publication date reported in the U. S. Copyright Office filing."


 * DC's "Official Press Release" Warner Bros. Entertainment and DC Entertainment Celebrate Batman's 75th Anniversary states "First appearing in the comic book Detective Comics #27, which hit newsstands on March 30, 1939..."


 * Articles by Variety, Bleeding Cool, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times also cite March 30, 1939. Mtminchi08 (talk) 01:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Image question
How does an article about Detective Comics not have a single illustration of Detective with a Batman cover? That's the series' signature character, and having only a cover featuring an ersatz Fu Manchu does not convey encyclopedically what the series is best known for (though obviously the highly historic first issue needs to be here.)--Tenebrae (talk) 00:35, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

More neutral wording
"In later years, the start of this series has been marred by its racism and xenophobia."

Should be replaced with "has been accused of racism and xenophobia" since that is a subjective perception.--77.182.5.4 (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2019 (UTC)


 * It's a verifiable statement. You're free to include the other side of this so-called subjective perception. --Cold Season (talk) 16:20, 23 July 2019 (UTC)