Prologue
In the spring of 1972, federal agents entered the converted warehouse on West Third Street in Cleveland that housed the editorial offices of Batom Comics. They were looking for Barry Martin, Batom’s publisher and they found him busy at work in a small corner office just off a large open room with creaking wooden floors and tall mullioned windows. Hung high on the opposite wall and running the length of the room were giant panels featuring the comic book heroes from Batom Comics glory days.
They were all there: The Lunar Cadets, Charlie & Chuck, The Black Ghost, The Arizona Ranger, Tank Thompson, The Amazing Mr. Sponge and Absorbing Junior, The Cockroach, the majestic Blue Astra and of course Batom’s stellar hero Starbuck Jones. It was The Cockroach the company’s last creation who had proved Batom’s undoing. Its long legal battle with its aptly named rival Mega Comics had finally ended in the Fall of the previous year with a Federal Court upholding a lower court ruling that The Cockroach substantially violated Mega Comics copyright on Arachnid-Man. To fulfill the damages awarded by the court, Batom Comics, which had always run on a paper thin profit margin as it hung on against the industry giants, now essentially belonged to Mega-Comics.
The star crossed history of Batom Comics had finally come to an end although its comics would continued to be fondly remembered and collected by the comic book cognoscente. Though Batom had always been a hole in the wall company operating in the Mid-West far from the New York City spotlight, to a certain faithful and fanatic following, it loomed as large as any of the other comic book publishing giants. It was the little comic book company that could and this is its story.
Stay tuned for more of the history of Batom Comics on upcoming Starbuck Saturdays.
