"Ride, Bat-Hombre, Ride!"

[nightwing]

If you think Sprang drew Ace funny, how about Boring's version of Krypto! He looked like some kind of devil beast.  :shock:

I don't remember how Sprang was trained, but in the years before his death a lot of great articles were written about him in magazines like Alter Ego and Comic Book Marketplace, so the info's out there if you want to dig it up.  I do know he spent his post-comics career painting Western scenes and doing archeology work in Arizona.

He certainly did have an eye for detail.  One of my (and his) favorite tales was the World's Finest story where Superman, Batman and Robin fill in for the injured Three Musketeers.  The castles, costumes and especially the swords were absolutely beautiful and dead-on accurate.  Part of the fun with Sprang, I think, is that he created a certain reality all his own.  Unlike say Neal Adams, who pretty much literally interpreted the world around us, Sprang -- like Kirby -- fashioned a world with its own internal visual logic and physical laws.  It's recognizable but at the same time not quite the world we know.

[Glammazon]

What is interesting about this story is that El Papagayo is the only other bird-influenced villain besides the Penguin to ever appear in the Batman chronicles - and he makes only one appearance, which is in this story.  In fact, he could well have been intended as a substitute for the Penguin, since that villain could have been originally intended to appear.