Yeah, that sounds like a good separation of Rogers' work into canonized volumes, without merging vastly different material into one volume. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant earlier, but it makes sense to me now.
I'd definitely buy the "Miscellaneous Rogers Batman", and STRANGE APPARITIONS in a new volume, if it were formatted nicely.
I'd assume you'd include the DETECTIVE 481 in the "miscellaneous Rogers BATMAN" volume.
I actually think DC got the idea of how to canonize the Neal Adams Batman stuff from a topic I posted on the DC boards in 2000-2001, suggesting a 3-volume "complete Neal Adams Batman" collection across 3 sequential Adams hardcovers:
stories chronologically in order, including all Adams Batman covers inserted chronologically between the Adams stories, separated into three volumes, (1) Adams' BRAVE & THE BOLD, (2) Adams' DETECTIVE COMICS run, and (3) Adams' BATMAN issues.
Except DC fucked it up by having Adams re-draw parts of the stories (probably at Adams' insistence), and in vol 3, they didn't include BATMAN 255 ("Moon of the Wolf"), and DETECTIVE 439 ("Night of the Stalker", the award-winning story by Englehart/Almendola/Giordano partly plotted by Adams, and manifesting Adams' enduring influence and torch-passing on to other creators, as Adams' influence has continued to do so since then for over 30 years).
What's the point of having a "complete Neal Adams Batman" if the third volume isn't complete ?
And the re-drawn art amounts to self-butchery on Adams' part, it diminishes work I truly love, to the point that despite my affection for it, I can't support it in that format, and I refused to buy the third volume.
I can still enjoy it, in all its greatness, in its original and unaltered form.
