Retro Thursday: Marshall Rogers and Steve Englehart

Trying out a new thing here, where I will post an article from the Matt Price archive from before I had a blog here at NewsOK.  Today’s article is from April 8, 2005, in which writer Steve Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers discussed their take on Batman at the Planet Comicon in Overland Park, Kan.  At the time of the article, the team was working on “Dark Detective,” a sequel to their classic 1970s “Detective Comics” run.

Marshall Rogers died March 25, 2007, one of the greatest Batman artists of his era.  Englehart can be found online here.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The creative team behind the upcoming “Batman” miniseries “Dark Detective” talked about its work on the project, as well as its groundbreaking work on “Batman” more than two decades ago. The Dark Knight will face off against his Rogues Gallery while meeting up again with his former love, Silver St. Cloud.

Writer Steve Englehart, penciller Marshall Rogers and inker Terry Austin will again team to bring life to the Batman. They spoke at last weekend’s Planet Comicon about their first run on the Dark Knight.

Englehart had just left Marvel Comics “on bad terms” and gone to DC Comics. He planned to work one year there before leaving comics entirely. DC asked him to revamp the Justice League; Englehart asked specifically for Batman. His “Detective Comics” run, issue Nos. 469 to 476, started with artists Walt Simonson and Al Milgrom. After two issues, they were replaced with relative newcomers Rogers and Austin.

The Englehart-Rogers run contained the now-classic Joker tales “The Laughing Fish” and “The Sign of the Joker.” Englehart was inspired by the early Batman tales in his “Detective Comics” run.