IT STARTED WITH A CONCEPT CAR...

I'm sure most of you will already know the origins of the TV Batmobile, but the following recap is for those who don't.  It was customised by George Barris from a 1955 Lincoln Futura, only one of which was ever made and purchased by Barris for a mere dollar.  Originally it was pearlescent white, but was repainted red when it appeared in a movie called It Started With A Kiss in 1959.

Anyway, that's the bare backstory of my new Johnny Lightning diecast car (above).  This time it's painted black, but it's a faithful scale model of the Lincoln Futura which, should I ever decide to carefully remove it from the packaging, will look nice displayed alongside my Mattel Batmobile in the same scale.  (See second pic below for an idea of what that would look like.)

So what do you think, readers - was the Batmobile one of the coolest cars ever created - or not?

THE RETURN OF DC'S FAMOUS FIRST EDITIONS...

Copyright DC COMICS

Here's a good one to have.  It's a reprint of the very first comicbook that DC ever published - New Fun.  This was intended to appear as one of the 'Millennium Editions' mags back in 2000, but it never appeared.  (The reason why is explained inside.)  Apart from the covers, it's entirely in black and white, just as the original was in 1935.  One minor niggle is that the cover colour is rendered in basic 'flat' tones, whereas there was a subtle hint of colour gradiation in a couple or so instances on the '35 printing, which you can see at the back of the book.

It's good to see the revival of the Famous 1st Edition format, which first appeared in 1974 and was last used in 1979.  This is a hardback book with dustjacket, and though the original '70s series was cardboard covered in the main, there were actually some editions released in hardback as well.  A nice piece of history that will look good on your bookshelf, and it would be great to see more in this series in the future, including the reissue of some of the '70s editions.