Bob Kane (1915 – 1998)
Born Robert Kahn, was an American comic book writer and artist best known as the originator of the DC Comics character Batman.
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A lot of people don't give him [Kane] as much credit for his art, but I thought he had a flair. It was rudimentary, but in a way that worked to his benefit in the strip. He didn't know much about perspective and anatomy, so he had to improvise.
Bill Finger and I created the Joker. Bill was the writer. Jerry Robinson came to me with a playing card of the Joker. That's the way I sum it up. [The Joker] looks like Conrad Veidt — you know, the actor in The Man Who Laughs, [the 1928 movie based on the novel] by Victor Hugo. ... Bill Finger had a book with a photograph of Conrad Veidt and showed it to me and said, 'Here's the Joker'. Jerry Robinson had absolutely nothing to do with it. But he'll always say he created it till he dies. He brought in a playing card, which we used for a couple of issues for him [the Joker] to use as his playing card".
Bob and I got on very well during the years I worked on Batman. He was a mild-mannered individual who made no demands on Jerry [Robinson] and me, and in general, he was terrific to work for.
Robin was an outgrowth of a conversation I had with Bob. As I said, Batman was a combination of Fairbanks and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had his Watson. The thing that bothered me was that Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking. I found that as I went along Batman needed a Watson to talk to. That's how Robin came to be. Bob called me over and said he was going to put a boy in the strip to identify with Batman. I thought it was a great idea.
There were other Batman writers throughout the years but they could never capture the style and flavor of Bill's scripts. Bill was the best writer in the business and it seemed that he was destined to write Batman.
Bill Finger was a contributing force on Batman right from the beginning. He wrote most of the great stories and was influential in setting the style and genre other writers would emulate ... I made Batman a superhero-vigilante when I first created him. Bill turned him into a scientific detective.
Batman phenomena gives me great satisfaction to realise that i have millions of fans in the world, that i have created a hero that influenced so many people in the world and it gives me a wonderful spiritual satisfaction to know that and it really touches my heart i feel so gratified that i created a superhero who can reach all elements of our society, that's quite fullfilling.
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