Detective Comics #168 Original Art
After a five-year pursuit, I finally acquired the original cover art to my favorite book of all time. A combination of the cover and splash page, no other art in comic book history captivates my love for the Joker and comic books altogether like this one does. It is rare that a Golden Age piece has survived all these years, let alone being the cover for this book in particular, when less-significant issues of the same run printed before and after it are nowhere to be found. What are the odds?
Signed by Lew Schwartz and possibly Bob Kane, this piece is the original cover art to Detective Comics #168, the book that explains the origin of the Joker as The Red Hood, the villain he was for about a decade before he became the Joker. As he escapes Batman at the Ace Chemicals plant, he leaps into a toxic river to swim back to his hideout. He removes his helmet to see that the acid from the river has burned his skin pale-white, his lips a burning red, and his hair dyed green. And what does he do? He erupts in laughter as the Joker is born.
This piece has been in hiding for over 30 years until I was finally able to pry it from the previous owner's hand, which was no easy task and required that I sacrifice much to make it happen. But here it is now, my prized possession.