Bob Kane, Part One: The Co-Creator ~~A “Comical Wednesday” Post

The above-promised "true story" of Batman and Robin (from 1946), is anything but true! (I'll be posting that entire five-page story later on in this lengthy article!) And to add insult to injury, it was published in a DC comic book called Real Fact Comics. (I guess what we're dealing with here are "alternative facts," right, Kellyanne?)

I learned to read at a relatively early age, and the first proper names I ever read were encountered in comic books. Names like Batman, Robin, Superman, and... Bob Kane!

Who?

Well, you see, as a small child many years ago, I never really thought about the people who "made" the comic books I was reading. Somewhere in the back of my mind, of course, I knew that there actually were people who wrote and drew these colorful heroes, but I had no idea who any of them were.

With one exception.

Bob Kane.

For the first few years of my life, I thought Bob Kane was the only person who had anything to do with the creation of Batman & Robin and the telling of their adventures in the pages of both Detective Comics and Batman.

Why?

Well, because Bob Kane's name was on the first page of every Batman story.

None of the other characters I encountered, whether superhero, funny animals, whatever, had their creators' names showcased like that, except all the stuff credited to Walt Disney. (I assumed that this Disney fellow was a really prolific guy, since he evidently drew all the comics featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the rest, as well as making all those movies and TV shows!)

A young Bob Kane, in the early 1940s.

When I was about fourteen or so (in the early 1970s), I read the first volume in a series of books called The Steranko History of Comics, one of the first books I ever read that dealt with comics' origins. Jim Steranko was an innovative comic artist who came to prominence in the mid to late 1960s. Volume One of  The Steranko History of Comics covered the earliest years of comic books, including a lengthy discussion on the comic strips that more or less spawned them, and the pulp magazines that also inspired them. Steranko followed up by covering a relative few of the zillions of characters that debuted in the late 1930s and 1940s, focusing on such notables as Superman, Batman, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, the original Human Torch, and others.

Jim Steranko selling autographed copies of his book for a whopping three dollars!

A later photo of Steranko with a handful of his fantastic comic book covers!

This ad for Volume One of  The Steranko History of Comics claims that it covers

"comics from the golden age to the present," but the only two volumes ever

published only dealt with some of the comics published before 1950!

The amazing wraparound cover for The Steranko History of Comics, illustrated (of course) by the author!

It was in the chapter on the early years of Batman that I first learned how much a writer named Bill Finger had to do with the creation of the "caped crusader." But before I tell you about that, let me present the first three pages of the five-page "true" story of Batman and Robin.

The main problem with those first three pages is the load of crapola about the Batman costume that Bob Kane's mom supposedly made, based on Bob's design. The "Bat-Man" that Bob Kane (born Robert Kahn) came up with looked nothing like that at first!

Kane had already had stories published in comic books by 1939, the year of Batman's debut. His original style was much more cartoony. One of his features was Peter Pupp.

An early adventure strip by Kane was Rusty and his Pals. Kane admittedly based the feature and his drawing style for Rusty and his Pals on Milt Caniff's popular comic strip, Terry and the Pirates. (I'll discuss Kane's tendency to "borrow" the art style of several others in my next chapter!)

The "Bat-Man" that Kane envisioned looked very different from the version that premiered in Detective Comics #27. Kane put him in a bright red costume. The character wore a domino mask rather than the long-eared cowl which has been famous for almost eighty years. He wore no gloves. And rather than a cape, he had two bat wings. No Kane drawings remain of this take on the character, but illustrator/author Arlen Schumer drew a recreation of sorts, based on Kane's Batman illustration on the cover of Detective Comics #27.

Recreation by author and illustrator Arlen Schumer.

And this was the world's very first look at the Batman!

Enter writer Milton "Bill" Finger, who made several suggestions that Kane incorporated into the new character. (Well, maybe "enter" isn't quite the right word. Finger was already working for Kane, ghost-writing Rusty and his Pals and another Kane adventure strip, Clip Carson.) Anyway, it was Bill Finger who proposed the cowl with the all-white eyes, and the cape with scalloped edges rather than the two stiff bat wings. He also suggested gloves, so Batman wouldn't leave fingerprints.

One of the unfortunately-few photos of Bill Finger in existence!

In 2012, writer Marc Tyler Nobleman and illustrator Ty Templeton came out with a biography of Bill Finger called Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. (The book was informative, but if I may be permitted to post a mini-review, I thought its writing seemed geared to younger readers.)

Here's the beginning of their telling of Batman's creation from Bill the Boy Wonder:

But Nobleman and Templeton's biography isn't the only version of the story out there! In 1989, Bob Kane came out with a ghost-written autobiography, Batman and Me, which included his version of Batman's creation.

That book included this infamous sketch, dated 1934:

BUT! It's been proven that the above sketch wasn't drawn until many years after 1934.

Back to Bill Finger: Not only did Bill's suggestions greatly influence the look of the Batman, but he ended up writing the very first Batman story and most of Batman's earliest adventures, although some were scripted by Gardner Fox (no relation to Yours Truly, The Silver Fox!). Finger is credited with contributing facets of the Batman legend such as the Batmobile, the Batcave, the names "Bruce Wayne" and "Gotham City," and writing scores of Batman stories over the years, including those which introduced the Joker, the Catwoman, the Riddler...! He did many of what are called "giant prop" stories, where Batman and Robin fought their foes on or around giant typewriters, sewing machines, even a giant Lincoln penny!

Oh, by the way -- and here's where it starts getting uncomfortable -- when I say "Finger is credited," I mean "credited" only in a figurative sense. You see, when young Bob Kane negotiated the rights to the Batman character with National Comics (later DC Comics), he sold ownership of the character for various compensations, including the condition that only Bob Kane's byline would be allowed on the Batman comics and all other adaptations.

So in terms of being a co-creator of one of the most popular superheroes ever, Bill Finger was left out in the cold.

Here are pages four and five of that "true" story of Batman! No mention of Bill Finger or of Gardner Fox (who, among other things, had come up with the idea of a utility belt for Batman). And I'll save the Joker controversy for a future chapter!

So! As the narrator in my own story "Gonif" once said, "Everythin's there. Course, s'all bullshit, but..."

You may be wondering whatever became of Bill Finger. He wrote Batman stories for many years, but didn't stop there. He was a co-creator of DC's Wildcat, a longtime writer of Green Lantern from GL's first script, and he created the character of Lana Lang, friend and occasional love interest of  Superboy/Superman. But he wrote more than just comics. He wrote a few screenplays. He even wrote a two-part episode of the Batman TV series in the 1960s. And obviously, I'm leaving out a lot.

He was known for being meticulous in his research, giving artists all sorts of visual references for the story points about which he wrote. On the other hand, he was also known for constantly being late handing in his projects.

Bill Finger died in 1974, just a month short of his sixtieth birthday. And although DC noted his passing at the time and gave him a brief eulogy in The Amazing World of DC Comics, one year later a rather shameful comic story appeared in that same magazine. The story, "Through the Wringer," written by the late David V. Reed (also a onetime Batman scripter!), parodied Finger -- transparently named "Phil Binger" -- by ridiculing his penchant for being late, and his tendency to ask for pay advances. If you want to read the full story, feel free. It's here.

Due primarily to Bob Kane's original contract with National Comics, Bill Finger wasn't given proper credit for his part in Batman's creation for seventy-five years. It's only for the last two years that DC Comics, after negotiations with Bill's granddaughter Athena, has finally begun listing credits in Batman comics and movies as "Batman created by Bob Kane, with Bill Finger."

Now, as far as Mr. Kane goes, I'm just getting warmed up! Part Two of this series will be called "Bob Kane: The Swiper" and Part Three will be "Bob Kane: The Glory-Hog." Back when I first envisioned this series as a single post, my working title was "Bob Kane, the Lying Sack of Shit," but I decided to save that designation for another time, in case I ever decide to write a post dealing with a politician.

And one last thing for now: Check out these five illustrations! 

It looks like Bob Kane couldn't get those "bat wings" out of his system!

Thanks for your time.

*  *  *  *  *

In a series of articles discussing creative theft, I feel that I absolutely must include the following acknowledgements and disclaimers in each chapter: I could not have written this three-parter without availing myself of the research and/or “borrowed” photos and illustrations of many others, including (but not limited to) Marc Tyler Nobleman and Ty Templeton (Bill the Boy Wonder), Arlen Schumer, Steven Thompson (Four-Color Shadows and Days of Adventure), and yes, even Bob Kane himself (Batman and Me)! And I especially want to single out Kirk Kimball (aka “Robby Reed”) of Dial B for Blog, the incredible and highly-recommended blog which supplied me with much information and the composite sketch of Bob Kane swipes.

Batman, Robin, Clip Carson, Adventure Comics, the Joker, Bruce Wayne, Real Fact Comics, "The True Story of Batman and Robin," Green Lantern, Detective Comics, Rusty and his Pals, plus almost anything else I've forgotten are copyright © DC Comics, and are used for historical purposes only!