You know Warhol did a Batman film in 1964?

You know Warhol did a Batman film in 1964? So this was it. Batman/Dracula, filmed on rooftops near the Factory with underground film-maker Jack Smith in the lead. Unfinished. What of it?

WARHOL/WAYNE/WEST BY ZYG FURMANIUK 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 109

The dame sauntered into my office with the fluid grace of a ballerina, wearing enough designer clothing to be wealthy enough to engage me. Her bishoujo legs didn’t hurt either.

We started with the usual small talk. Her call. She told me of her admiration of Andy Warhol’s Empire. Six hours. Morphing film into sculpture.

I take your point but I haven’t been able to sit through it myself.

What have you seen?

Chelsea Girls. It’s got that razor edge of creativity. Forcing you to watch one screen or the other. It’s a literal dialectic on drama itself—which story will I follow? And what is my role—consumer or participant? And I’ve always wanted to do a double bill of that and Rock ’n’ Roll High School or Eating Raoul.

Mary Woronov fan?

She’s got an edge.

You know Warhol did a Batman film in 1964?

So this was it. I should have thrown her out.

Batman/Dracula, filmed on rooftops near the Factory with underground film-maker Jack Smith in the lead. Unfinished. Thought lost then some footage surfaced in a documentary. What of it?

She lowered her gaze, I have to KNOW. The nerd equivalent of a mission from the gods. Her tone enfolded insatiable curiosity and serious intent.

Maybe she was just too good an actress to let me off easy—there were enough warning signs there that I should have followed that path a little further. But what the hell—now I needed to know too.

I eyed her. What kind of shamus would I be if I had to ask everything? They only know you’re a wizard when you do magic.

It’s too dangerous for you to take the glam cosplay route unless you go full armor and mask. Not your style. You could go norm—wear jeans and no make-up. Also not your style. So I’m guessing you do the slumdog geek route?

Your reputation is well-deserved. Bought an Avengers #4 looking like an ersatz Siouxsie Sioux.

Geek is my business. Right then business was good. But I had to keep it professional. That sounded so hot.

Other than how much can you pay me the only question that matters is: You sure you really want this?

Transcendent purpose animated her corporeal platonic form. She unleashed her broadside of divine fire: Andy Warhol—the master magician of transformation. Turning the inside to the outside and vice versa. Groceries became Art. Physical, beautiful, unusable. Yet speaking volumes about the viewer and our society. He morphed silk-screened photographs of tragedy into meditations on celebrity and pathos—variations in every iteration like a Punk Monet—a painting style every teenager knows. Dynamic media used to examine static structures… Images repeat echoing the endless stream of media cycles… Even then it was becoming too much.

She stopped. Composed herself.

They’re the biggest movies on the planet.

Stan was leveraging Marvel into every place he could at the same time.

And the result was lame animation on kids shows and mediocre radio. In the 1960s it was Batman on TV, the collective retina of the Cold War Free World focused on DC not Marvel… Not yet.

The pause… There’s always the pause.

Did Warhol START this? Did he MEAN this?

I turned it over in my mind like some collectible I suspected faked in a back-room Taipei plastics shop.

I doubt it. Everything about Andy screamed “observer”. He wouldn’t unleash anything he couldn’t watch, analyze, and re-package. And I mean in a few minutes or hours—not decades later.

You must admit there are some weird synchronicities here.

That I did. Who was I kidding? I was in too deep now.

This could go to some dark places. You know that.

A nod.

My question is: Are you prepared for that?

The same nod.

I should have run away.