The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Neil ム 09:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Double Image (comics)[edit]

Double Image (comics) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

I am also nominating the following related pages because [insert reason here]:

The Dumpster Killings (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Ten Nights of The Beast (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Non-notable comics stories, consisting of two or four issues of a regular series with no particular wider coverage in the media, industry and arts in general, unlike, say Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, or Maus. ThuranX 22:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also - to suggest that stories must be longer the 4 issues to be notable is laughable - and frankly a misnomer to today's generation. In the past for a story to be longer than 4 issues was almost unheared of. In today's market stories like 'Batman Meets the Monk' or whatever requires a 6 part mini-series. The original version of that story was told in one issue of the rgular publication. Furthermore, in the 1980s it was not common practice to create 'mini-series' to tell Batman stories. So to suggest that just because these stories fall within a regular publication they are not notable is also not true.

To suggest that only stories over 4 issues and outside a regular run of Batman comics should get an article fails provide reasonable coverage for stories which were shorter than 4 issues and were published inside regular runs. I direct you to the Doctor Who articles - where every single stoyline gets just about equal coverage - as I believe they should.

Moreover, both the Dumpster Killings and Double Image storylines contain key moments within the development of the Robin character. Until these articles were created the events which happened in these stories were not mention in the Jason Todd article. Furthermore Double Image was the last Batman story written for regular publication by Mike W. Barr - and was the final appearance by Paul Sloane before his post-zero-hour retconn. These are notable pieces of information that can be added if these articles are not deleted.

BTW: The original editor has not steadfastly refused to wikify the article to meet minimal standards. I considered it to be wikified. And indeed made several changes in order to appease my fellow editors. If you do not feel it is wikified please provide greater detail as to what could be changed - or indeed chage it yourself. OO7Samurai 09:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reply First, refrain from the lousy attitude. A two part story is, does, and has occured in comics for decades, and my purpose in noting the length of the arcs was to show that the stories were not exceptionally notable for some percieved depth, which longer series like Watchmen, or Bone might be justified with. These were simple two part stories about non-notable events. As to the notability, most of that sounds like trivia relative to Batman, and only slightly more important in the Mike Barr and Two Face articles. Further, nowhere in there did I make any suggestion that "only stories over 4 issues and outside a regular run of Batman comics should get an article". What I DID imply was that these are non-notable two and four parters, which occur ALL the time in comics. If these are all notable, then EVERY story arc in every title is notable, because we lower the bar on notability. TO give that much free rein to the editors, to create that many articles, and it would be thousands, would leave a glut of unverified and likely unverifiable (in practical, not theoretical terms) articles on Wikipedia, hardly a desirable outome. These are ultimately stories of mild if any notability. ThuranX 11:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Reply 'Lousy attitude'? Sorry friend but that is subjective. I do not feel my attitude is 'lousy' - am I simply stating in my own terms the case for not deleting these articles. 'Please' refrain from making personal attacks on my personality - frankly this was uncalled for.

I do wonder why all the articles created by oo7samurai are up for deletion and not, say Broken City, Batman: Face the Face, Batman: The Man Who Falls, Batman: Nine Lives (in fact all the Elseworld stories which are mentioned - Elseworlds/Batman/Aliens are notable, but that doesn't make every etc. etc. 81.106.192.55 14:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Reply Actually Ten nights of the Beast is probably the most notable of all these stories. It was published as a stand alone TPB. at the time TNOTB was something of an event - I'm sure I can dig up some outside sources for this.

Regards other sources of information, I think it must be noted that during the 1980s there were significantly less trade publications, and no Internet. Very few people discussed comics. Should we delete all articles about Batman stories from the 70s and 80s because there was no TGN or Wizzard?

In fact, I would like to draw your attention to the Batman Storylines category. how many stories do you see from the 1970s? None I don't think. How many from the 1980s - about 4 or 5? for the 90's it goes up a bit and the 2000s pretty much loads.

The problem we seem to have here is that people mistake recent for relevant - and consider old to be irrelevant. I assue you, that at the time of publication these stories were as relevtnat as 'Hush', 'Broken City' 'Batman and Son' etc. Wikipedia is supposed to be timeless. We write eveything in the present tense - that which happened in 1987 is as important as that which happens in 2007.

These articles which are proposed for deletion are intended to shift some of the weighted bias that is apparent within this category. They are also intended to provide wikipedians with knowledge of that which went before. to delete them would be to support the practice of only positioning 'new' within this category - which surely can not be right?81.106.192.55 14:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reply As they stand, none of these three articles seem to meet notability guidelines ( WP:BK )in and of themselves; if they do, then the sources that show they do are missing. Your argument seems to be that because articles on more recent storylines exist, older ones should, which comes back to WP:OTHERSTUFF. MorganaFiolett 15:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply Ok - I've dug out one smallreference - let's see if this will help the case for the Dumpster Killings article.

Mark Cotta Vaz uses an extract from Batman #414 to demonstrate that the Batman of the 1980s (to quoute) "is no longer the grinning crime buster who wisecracked while landing haymaker punches". Below the extract Cotta Vaz writes; "In the inferno of Gotham, each tragedy is more than a statistic to Batman". This is published in 'Tales of The Dark Knight' (http://www.trademe.co.nz/Books/Nonfiction/Movies-TV/auction-116403301.htm) I can fully reference this with more time. 81.106.192.55 18:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]



  • Reply The problem with this argument is that there are very very few stories which are as notable as 'A Death in the Family'. And because this is such a notable story from the eighties, stories from that period are often overlooked (or deleted) despite their importance (in that period). To delete these articles would simply perpatuate the situation - and once important stories become relegated to insignificance / nothing at all. Very 1984. 81.106.192.55 17:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Actually, you just made our cse. There were very very few stories as notable as DitF, which is covered here, and frankly, gies us some gauge of where notability drops off. As to the length of the story arc, perhaps I said it poorly, but i wasn't saying length or arc exists in direct proportion to notability, length equals notable. What I meant was more like this: Not every single case Batman goes on is notable. Some cases cover 2 or three issues. that doesn't make them more or less notable, since a two to four issue arc is standard, more so the longer four and even six part stories now. Because there are fewer arcs now with deeper stories, the impact of single arcs may wiegh more on a character, but that belongs in the character's article. Here we have three cases, whose length shows that they weren't the more deeply written, convoluted, character changing tales we've grown accustomed to in the last ... 20 or so years since Year One. These were simple 'an adventure of batman and robin' style stories. Without good sources for why they're particularly notable, they aren't notable. As mentioned, the character article incorporates the relevance to Robin. beyond that, there's little but trivia in Double Image, and similar cases can easily be made for the other two. ThuranX 23:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with ThuranX. There are very few stories as notable as 'A Death in the Family', and there are relatively few stories that are notable enough to deserve inclusion in Wikipedia. Cogswobbletalk 16:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would just like to make people aware as to changes that have been made to two of these articles. Ten Nights of The Beast and The Dumpster Killings now have 'Critical Interpretation' sections detailing how Mark Cotta Vaz viewed these stories within his book (Tales of The Dark Night - check it on Amazon). Also I have added just a brief note about Mike Zecks covers to the Beast story arc. And also that the Dumpster Killings marked Jim Starlin's inaugural storytline. Also a couple of external links for TNOTB. Plus a readership resonse section.

I'm pretty sure if left up for a short time longer more people would be able to add more extranal sources verifying that these storylines as worth recording. Certainly Mark Cotta Vaz considered them significant enough to make direct reference to them in his works & I'm sure some people out there must have more sources than I. Yes they are not a widely discussed as DitF, but let not the light from that story blind us to the existance and importance of others.81.106.192.55 19:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I went to the 'new exxpanded version' of Dumpster Killings, and had to remove an entire section of OR psychoaalysis of a fictional character, so the 'improvements' aren't all positive, and some aren't scholarly encyclopedia writing at all. ThuranX 00:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply Seems strange to me that you mark articles for deleting before even having read them. The section you deleted was always in that article. It simply recounts some of the dialogue from the story-line and positions it within a wider context of the Batman mythos. No OR. How do you feel about the changes to TNOTB? 81.106.192.55 14:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. I read it. I was surprised that no one had removed it during the improvements. ThuranX 23:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW - Added reference to Bob Ingersoll's 'The Law is an Ass' article in the Dumpster Killer article. Ingersoll devoted the whole of installment #158 to this story lines and the legal issues dealt within. [1] I've also added a reference to this story arc made by Durwin S. Talon in his book on sequential art. [2]I hope everybody can see that these articles can be (and are being) expanded (and yes 'improved' - love the sarcastic speech marks :). They discuss significant story lines which have been discussed at some length in books and in journalistic articles, and that given time such references can be found and added. Just because 'you' might not already aware of their importance does not make them unimportant - the truth is out there (so let me put it on here).

I move the TNOTB and the Dumpster Killings articles be removed from this proposal for deletion. Through recent changes to these articles it has been shown the that events, themes, and the art of these story arcs are all of publishable noteriety. These story arcs are referenced in multiple publications - journalistic and scholarly - and on multiple Internet sources. Several external sources have been added to these articles in order to verify this. The claim that these are 'Non-notable comics stories' has thusly be proven to be incorrect.

I've only just begun digging up references for the third article proposed for deletion. so far I've only found one recent (2006) blog reference to the story arc. However, more should be forthcoming. Already though, the story is found to be of some note to people. Still, until I can dig up more check this >[3]

One last point - The Batman Storylines category was set up as part of the 'WikiProject Comics' which is (quote) "a collaborative effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to comics on Wikipedia". When I last checked a dictionary (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law - no less) I found 'comprehensive' to mean "covering completely or broadly", thats c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y (or broadly)81.106.192.55 22:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But Wikipedia is also not a miscellaneous collection of stuff, either, hence Notability guidelines. ALthough you have added some citations about the discussion of the issues, and they are individually trivial, and slightly more important together, you fail to tie them together in any way which coheres the ideas to the notability. Perhaps if you can find some way to introduce the themes of the stories to their notability, it might squeak through notability. That some folks in the industry point to it ina some minor discussions seems only slightly more notable than pointing them out in an art class on writing or scripting. There's no wider notability going on yet. Although I do see some improvements, I remain unconvinced that these are truly notable stories yet. Of the three, DK is the one I'm most willing to reconsider my nomination on, if it continues to improve, but I continue to stand unwavering on the other two. Finally, I note that one of the external links added seems to basically be a fan site. ThuranX 23:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So that is now a weak delete for DK from you. The way I read the above MorganaFiolett ultimately gave a weak don't delete on the grounds that these are new articles and should be given time to prove themselves (a slow - but clearly active process) - certainly for DK and DI. Only one out and out delete by Cogswobble. And one out and out don't delete from myself. So far I'd say its at best a 'weak call to delete'.

Anyhoo. I honestly find it amazing that people don't consider TNOTB to be notable. I have no sources to back me up here, but when this came out it sold out in seconds. I collected at the time and couldn't find a copy of any part anywhere in the UK - eventually I bought the complete collection for about £30 - which was a lot of money for 4 comics in the early 1990s. It was, at the time, (and in terms of when it was originally published in the comics)the first (earliest) Batman story set in 'present day' (i.e. not Years One and Two) to become a TPB (I guess Strange Apperitions now takes that gong). Due to popular demand it became a TPB some 6 years after it originally ran in Batman - Reagan was no longer president, but the themes of the story still resonated with consumers. It dealt with real political issues of the time, Star Wars, etc. and actually featured the then president (notably Reagan had also recently appeared in DKR - coincidence?) It introduced a new major villain. Spawned a direct sequel in the NKVDemon story arc. It ended with the strong suggestiong that Batman had finally killed a man in cold blood. It was an EVENT. I don't have many books about batman, and I never read industry magazines at the time. But i will be damned if there is not a wealth of notable writings about this story somewhere. Maybe I won't be able to add them in the next few days or weeks. But eventually somebody will. Unless the article is deleted ofcourse. 81.106.192.55 19:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you created an account, you could always work on them in your userspace. shoy 19:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's till a solid delete. I see some minor progress. I see that it may be possible to expand it further. I don't think that's going to occur. I'm a solid delete across the board, do NOT put words in my mouth. ThuranX 21:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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