Production design porn from the Topps Batman Official Movie Souvenir Magazine

Long before movie studios promoted their tentpole releases through elaborate sites or postings of HD trailers on Apple's trailer site ("Watch the Avatar trailer a day before its premiere in theaters or James Cameron will shoot a puppy!"), there were these things called official movie souvenir magazines that were exactly like the studio sites promotional material-hungry film geeks can click to nowadays. When I was a kid, either Starlog Press or Topps would devote an entire one-shot mag to an upcoming blockbuster and fill the mag with a spoilerrific photo summary of the movie, fluffy cast interviews, slightly less fluffy crew interviews and the only part of the mag I liked, behind-the-scenes pictures and concept art. Starlog Press did tie-in mags for the Star Trek, Rocky and James Bond franchises, while Topps focused on blockbusters that it produced trading cards for, like Tim Burton's Batman and Touchstone Pictures' wannabe Batman, the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy reboot.

Do mag publishers still put out official movie souvenir mags? I wouldn't be surprised if High School Musical: The Musical or whatever it's called recently had one.

In 1989, Batman was my favorite movie. Twenty summers later, uh... not so much. But both score music-wise and production design-wise, the film remains one of the most impressive from that decade. Production designer Anton Furst's bleak vision of Gotham City won him an Oscar and was so pitch-perfect for this incarnation of Batman that DC incorporated the late Furst's architectural designs into the early '90s comics.

Here are several interesting photos and drawings from my well-preserved copy of the 1989 Batman Official Movie Souvenir Magazine, which I still like to occasionally leaf through even though the Pop Art-colored backgrounds and frothy late '80s fonts are a poor match with the photos from this darker-toned Batman movie--the mag looks like it was designed by the Saved by the Bell opening titles designer.


A visual effects crew member inspects the miniature Gotham set that was built for the Batwing attack sequence.


Was this where the Gotham Central police headquarters name and comic book series title came from?


The Batman shoot in England encompassed most of Pinewood Studios' 18 soundstages, including the stage where this opulent office for Jack Palance's Carl Grissom character was constructed, and Pinewood's 95-acre backlot.


Batman co-creator Bob Kane poses with either Michael Keaton or one of Keaton's 80 stunt doubles from the movie.


"Top speed... unknown"? Judging from the sequence in which Batman and Vicki Vale escape from the Flugelheim Museum in the Batmobile, it looked like its top speed was 40 mph. Batman's ride moved so slow it looked like Aunt Harriet was behind the wheel.


Burton and Furst sit atop the Furst-designed Batmobile. That's the first and last time we'll ever see a giant dildo in something published by Topps--unless the company does a series of cards for the Sex and the City sequel.


The Batmobile apparently has a detachable penis.


The nerdiest of nerds still can't look at pictures of the Furst-designed Batcave like the ones on these two pages without getting riled up over Alfred letting Vicki step into the Batcave to see Bruce Wayne. That moment actually doesn't bother me as much as the revelation that a pre-Joker Jack Napier murdered Bruce's parents (a last-minute script change that Batman co-screenwriter Sam Hamm hated and was unable to fight against) or the sight of Batman, who has a strict code against killing in the comics, continually slaughtering the Joker's thugs like he's Rambo in a funny-looking gimp suit.


Why wasn't it called the Batplane like in the comics? The Batwing sounds like something you find inside a box at Popeyes Bat and Biscuits.


How the hell did Batman get his thick cape to fit in that cockpit?

He looks like a cosplayer who wanted to mash up the Tom Baker Doctor with the Joker.


Kim Jong Il is... Batman.