To the Batcave! Once Batman sees the Bat-Signal in the sky, he’s out on the road again, chasing down The Riddler to save the day! Fisher Price ( Mattel ) is coming out with a new extension of their DC SUPER FRIENDS Toy Line called "Geo-Trax". Which, are sort of like a Train Set. The first item to come out will be the BATCAVE R/C Set! It will be sold exclusively at Toys R Us and the Fisher-Price Online Store. The retail price for will be around $66.00.
As an extension of their DC SUPER FRIENDS Toy Line, Fisher Price ( Mattel ) is adding a few New Play Sets with motorized vehicles called "GEO-TRAX". The main component will be the BATCAVE PLAY SET but there will be some extra pieces like these. Shown here are two expansion packs: GOTHAM CITY and The JOKER'S LAIR. They are sort of like Train Sets & each one comes with a vehicle & a figure. The GOTHAM CITY scenery has a bank to rob and a jail to break out of, ha! All of these are made to add to the deluxe BAT-CAVE PLAY SET. You know, to keep growing your collection. They will be sold exclusively at Toys R Us and the Fisher-Price Online Store. The Suggested Retail Price will be around $33.00 each.
Here's a cool video a friend sent us a link to. It's a basic presentation by a Mattel Spokeperson of some new IMAGINEXT DC SUPER FRIENDS TOYS coming out this year. These were presented at the last 2011 TOY FAIR. It looks like they're coming out with a brand-new multi-level Bat-Cave and a ton of new Batman Figures! Here, we get to see the Penguin & his Penguin-Sub, Another Batmobile Vehicle, Clayface, & Catwoman with her Cat-Cycle. Man, how many items are they making for this toy line? I'm gonna need 3 more jobs to buy all of this stuff, ha ha!
One of the things I love about collecting Batman stuff is that over the last 40+ years they have made a TON of merchandise that you can hunt down. So, you can never "have it all" or, in other words, you can collect it forever! It's sort of the main inspiration for me creating the Bat-Blog. Then, speaking of this site one thing I really love is connecting with other Bat-Collectors. I always like seeing other people's stuff, what they have & how it's displayed.
Shown here are a few photos of "Ryan's Batcave". as you can see he has some extremely awesome Batman Toys, Action Figures, Collector Plates, Statues, Framed Art Prints, Posters, etc... even a 1989 BATMAN MOVIE Video Game Vending Machine ( my favorite piece! ). Well, I really like the "Animated Series" Collector Plates too. Ryan seems to have focused a lot on the items from the WB Store. We used to have one here where I live & I really miss it. They had a lot of high-quality items. Well, anyway, please check out all the cool pics and I wanna thank Ryan for sharing his personal Bat-Collection, it's very very cool!
These 2 Bat-Wallpapers were made using graphics from some older Vintage 1966 Batman Coloring Books that some long-time Batman Collectors might recognize! The one showing Robin, in the Bat-Cave using the Bat-Computer, is my top favorite. Wait! The one with the Dynamic Duo aboard the Bat-Boat is my favorite... OK, I can't decide, they're BOTH cool, ha ha!
Here's a Vintage 2004 TV Commercial for the BATMAN C3 Construction Toys. It features the Batmobile Car, Bat-Wing Jet, & Wayne Manor Batcave Play Set! I remember when these came out ( before Lego started doing them ) & they were pretty cool! I bought a few play sets at Toys-R-Us when they hit clearance price. I always liked the design of the packaging. They had great clip art & used the "comic book logo" graphics. Plus, the way they featured the Minimates Figures in the window box, on the edge of the box, was kinda clever.
Here at the Bat-Blog we have a friend named Ed who writes a blog called "Toys & Stuff". Basically it covers his vintage toy collecting obsession. He is also totally into creating extremely detailed train set scenes. Well, recently he did a blog post all about "How to Make a Batcave". It's pretty interesting, if you would like to check it out then just click HERE! Also, be sure to watch the video I posted here down below. It shows a lot of the details to his train layout. You can see the 1966 Batmobile 1:43 Scale Corgi Car around the 2:20 mark.
Just in time for Christmas is this totally amazing DC SUPER FRIENDS TRIO Play Set! Our good friend "Batmobilly" spotted this treasure while shopping the other day at Target. It looks like Fisher Price has come out with a BATCAVE SUPER MEGA SET & it's totally AWESOME! Click on the picture up above for a larger version, it's beautiful! You get the Batcave, a Batmobile Car, the Joker-Bot, the Batwing Jet, 6 other accessories/mini-vehicles, and a TON of figures!! The characters include: The Joker, Robin, Batman, Superman, Penguin, Riddler, & Mr. Freeze. There are 11 figures in all with a few different variations of Batman, Robin, & the Prince of Crime, The Joker! WOW! This is CRAZY!! I'm gonna go out on a limb here & say that this is the coolest Batman Toy of 2010, yeah! Thanks for spotting this Batmobilly. If any other Bat-Blog Readers come across any new interesting Batman items while Xmas shopping this year then please let us know.
Check out this recent Batman Toy TV Commercial! It's for the DC SUPER FRIENDS: TRIO Building System made by Fisher-Price. We get to see the Batcave, Batmobile Car, & a few figures. I totally love these new Batman Toys & want to collect them all! Yes, they will ALL BE MINE, ha ha!
If you have small children who love BATMAN then you're gonna want to keep an eye out for these brand-new toys by Fisher Price. They're called TRIO DC SUPER FRIENDS & they're basically a building block game with small figures. The 1st two out of the gate will be THE BATMAN BATCAVE Play Set & The JOKER-BOT!! These are totally awesome! As you can see by the sample photos, they can be built in many different ways. I'm really loving these because they not only extend their already existing IMAGINEXT Action Figure toy line, but they also add a lot of game play & use of imagination...very clever. The BATCAVE has an approx. retail price of $35.00 & The JOKER-BOT is $18.00. These should be in store very soon if they are not already.
I recently came across the website of an artist named Janet MacGregor. She lives in Vancouver, Washington & makes her living doing Custom Painted Murals for people. Her artwork is really nice & I was very impressed with this "Batman Room" she did ( Please click on the small photo up above for a larger photo with more detail ). One entire wall has a huge "Batcave Scene", complete with the Batmobile Car. It has the style of the "Batman: The Animated Series" cartoon, that's so awesome! The neat thing is that there is a secret door, that when closed, you can't see. You know I'm a HUGE fan of creativity & I thought everybody would get a kick out of seeing this! She has a lot of other non-Batman-related artwork that is just as cool. Please be sure to visit her site sometime, it's kinda fun. You can do so by clicking HERE!
A Bat-Blog Reader named Noah sent us some really great pics recently that we shared but I saved these for a separate posting. The other ones were all "costume-related" & you might remember the fun photo of his cute little kid dressed as Batgirl! Well, here's some photos of one of his favorite pieces in his bat-collection. It's an extremely RARE 1966 ROBIN IN THE BATCAVE WITH BATMAN Coloring Book ( That's gotta be the record for the longest name for a coloring book, ha ha! ). Anyway, he sent some very nice pictures of it. The cover artwork is totally amazing & the inside pictures, like the TV series, are just totally goofy! My favorite one has a caption that reads, "BATMAN WILL NEVER BE CAT FOOD!" I have this book in my collection too & it's actually a pretty hard one to find. Be sure to click on the photos for larger, more detailed, pics...especially the cover!
The Bat-Blog has a friend named Don who recently made this extremely elaborate Batman Fan website using Flash-Macromedia animation. It has great graphics with a lot of interaction & is pretty cool! Please be sure to click on the many buttons to visit different "rooms of The Batcave". I like the Bat-Trophies the best but visiting the Bat-Garage is neat too. Thanks Don for sending the link & congrats on doing such a great job. Readers, You can visit his website by clicking on the "Invitation letter" up above...enjoy!
The Bat-Blog has a good friend in Germany, named Guenter, who's son was recently visiting New York. While there he came across this real-life fire truck with this Batman "BATCAVE" emblem on it!! It's for the FD NY Engine #26! Now, how extremely AWESOME is that!! Thank you Guenter for sending this amazing photo. Please tell your son thanks too because this is just so cool! Readers, please be sure to click on the photo up above for a larger, more detailed, picture...it's great!!
The Funny or Die website has this totally hilarious "Batman skit" video featuring Adam West...heck yeah! It's titled "Batman Garage Sale with Adam West" & if you watch it then you'll probably love it!
Everybody knows how I like it when Bat-Fan Artists get totally creative & use Batman in their art in some way. Well, here's an amazing example! A guy on eBay, named Jeb8, recently posted this "Batcave Atomic Pile & Cave" Backdrop you can get to help display your 1/18th Scale 1966 Batmobile Car. Basically it's an extremely well-made, highly detailed, "model kit" that has been made to look like "a piece of scenery" from the Classic 1966 Batman TV Show. Just looking at the photos up above you can see the attention to accurate detail is totally insane! I bet this item will become pretty popular with hardcore Batman Fans! If there are any readers out there who make custom dolls, toys, action figures...whatever, then please send us some photos to share. Our e-mail button is always at the top right-hand side of this page.
OK, I know it's about 2 months away but I'm really excited about a new book coming out by TwoMorrow's Publishing called THE BATCAVE COMPANION! The delays are over, and it’s finally in print! Michael Eury, the writer/editor of the critically acclaimed The Krypton Companion, and Michael Kronenberg, the designer of the eye-popping Spies, Vixens, and Masters of Kung Fu: The Art of Paul Gulacy, team up to explore the Silver and Bronze Ages of Batman comic books in The Batcave Companion! Two distinct sections of this book examine the Dark Knight’s progression from his campy “New Look” of the mid-1960s to his “creature of the night” reinvention of the 1970s. Features include issue-by-issue indexes, interviews with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, DENNIS O’NEIL, and NEAL ADAMS, and guest essays by MIKE W. BARR and WILL MURRAY. Contributors include SHELDON MOLDOFF, LEN WEIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, and TERRY AUSTIN, with a special tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS. With its incisive introduction by Dennis O’Neil and its iconic cover painting by Neal Adams, The Batcave Companion is a must-have for every Bat-Fanatic & comics fan! It's due to be released around April 15th, 2009. Here's a link for more information:
Every Bat-Blog Reader knows that every single Wednesday is "Wacky Wallpaper Wednesday", ha ha! So, this week I thought I would post 2 Batman Desktop Backgrounds that have a "1989 Batman Movie" theme. Basically, it's the same exact photo of Michael Keaton as Batman in the Batcave ( I always thought his Bat-Computer was groovy ) but one is a full-shot & the other is a close-up...sort of 2 variations. I kinda picked this photo for a few reasons: One, This is the movie that totally hooked me into becoming extremely serious about being a Batman Toy Collector. Two, visually it looks pretty cool and Three, some friends & I were talking the other night about how amazing it is that next year ( 2009 ) will be the 20th Anniversary of that now-classic movie. Wow! Twenty years ago! ( That makes me feel kinda old now, ha ha! ).
