Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Artistic legend Jack Davis retires





Jack Davis, one of the most celebrated and versatile artists in American history, has finally retired.

You might not know the name, but you've DEFINITELY seen the work: From Time and TV Guide covers to Mad magazine and famous movie posters, David has done it ALL. He's one of the most significant cultural figures of the second half of the 20th century, though he remains oddly unaware of his impact.

You can read all-out Jack and view a GREAT gallery of art, some rarely seen, over at Wired.

Jim McLauchlin

illustration: Jack Davis drawing of Oakland As manager Bill Martin from a 1980 Borden Crunch Stix ad campaign

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Josh Dysart, just hours before he goes to Iraq

Josh Dysart is a helluva writer, and he puts his money where his mouth is. He's going to Kurdistan in Iraq to work with the World Food Programme and write a comic about the refugee camps there.

Josh Matters, with a capital M. Please read about him here.

Jim McLauchlin

photo courtesy Josh Dysart

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Writing/Riding on a Train: Bill Willingham

Bill Willingham, author of Fables, Down the Mysterly River, and more was the very first writer out of the box for Amtrak's Residency program. Read about his travels, and what he wrote and learned, at the BHTP Blog. Enjoy!

Jim McLauchlin

photo courtesy Bill Willingham

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Here's Everything Wrong with 'Comics Journalism'

The title kinda says it all, huh? Okay, if not, you can check out the WHOLE thing at Newsarama.

Jim McLauchlin

photo: Zach Pennington

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Big Hero 6 is coming: The producer

Hiro Hamada is the driving force in Disney's new animated feature, Big Hero 6, and producer Roy Conli reveals the Disney method over at Newsarama.com.

Enjoy!

Jim McLauchlin

photo: courtesy Disney

Big Hero 6 is coming: The directors

The Robot above is Baymax, and Big Hero 6 directors Don Hall and Chris Williams tell you about the vision and the themes of the movie over at Newsarama.com.

Enjoy!

Jim McLauchlin

photo: courtesy Disney

Thursday, October 9, 2014

The "mourning" after the death of Canary on Arrow





Writer and executive producer Marc Guggenheim said, "We start the year in a way we typically end a year." He's talking about the shocking death of Canary in the season premiere of Arrow on The CW network last night.


Go read the whole deal over at Newsarama.com

Jim McLauchlin

photo: The CW / Cate Cameron

Preview The Flash TV show from CW


The CW network's new The Flash is off to a running start—bwah!—and you can get the inside scoop from the show's writers and producers over at Newsarama.com.

Enjoy, and take a good close look at these pics of Barry Allen's "evidence board" as he tries to find the Reverse-Flash, the man who killed his mother, leaving his fater falsely accused.

Jim McLauchlin

photos: Jim McLauchlin


Saturday, October 4, 2014

Arrow TV season 3 Preview





Arrow season 3 starts Wed. Oct. 8 on the CW Network, and Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim spills (some of) the beans over at Newsarama.com.

Give it a peek! More to come!

Jim McLauchlin

photo courtesy The CW / Cate Cameron



Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Travelogues, graphically





There's travel writing, and then there's travel writing and drawing.

And so it comes to pass that Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (yes, Warren Buffett and the boys) has started "Graphic Journeys," travel stories done in easy-and-fun-to-read comic format. First outta the gate is a L.A.-to-San Diego trip by Yours Truly, ably aided and abetted by artist Tone Rodriguez, colorist Tom Ziuko, and letterer Troy Peteri.

You can read the whole sheebang HERE, and look for more at the mighty Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection blog!

Jim McLauchlin

Friday, August 15, 2014

The Behind-the-Curtain Economics of Comic Cons





Someone way more B.I.G than me once elucidated that "mo' money, mo' problems."

Well, they're happy problems to have, but when carpet runs you $40,000, that's a problem! Find out the behind-the-curtain economics of comic cons (and why cons are the new spinner racks) over at Newsarama.com.

Jim McLauchlin

photo: Zach Pennington

Thursday, July 31, 2014

TWO Todd McFarlane anecdotes you've never heard before






Todd McFarlane is an original. He's brash, always interesting, hyper-intelligent, and a wickedly successful businessman as well.

He'll also tell you exactly what he thinks, with occasional flourishes that involve F-bombs. Two Todd McFarlane anecdotes that I can pretty much gurantee you never heard are over at Newsarama. Enjoy!

Jim McLauchlin

Monday, July 21, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy is left-of-center in the Marvel Cinematic Universe


Guardians of the Galaxy hits theaters on August 1, and is a bit of palate-cleansing sherbert in the diet of Marvel movies. The cast and crew talk about what makes it different over at Newsarama.

Jim McLauchlin

photos: Marvel Studios

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Is Wonder Woman the gayest character ever?


How is it that a va-va-voom bombshell is somehow the perfectly articulated character for…gay men? We take a look at what must be called "the queer aspect" of Wonder Woman over at the mighty Newsarama.

Enjoy!

Jim McLauchlin

Photo by Dan Wickline; © D! Productions

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

The best thing about event travel? Getting OUT of the event!

Above: Three Rob Roys at San Diego's Bayfront Hilton. Yay!

Sometimes the best thing you can do when you travel to an event is get away from the event. What happens when you're away is called "life." More at the mighty Berkshire Hathaway Travel Blog.

Jim McLauchlin

Thursday, June 26, 2014

How the money flows in the comics biz


Contracts! Royalties! Reversions! Working for The Man! And where's my Elementals, dammit? All this and more stands revealed in the latest "Panel Discussions" column at Newsarama.com, which deals with one of the two most important things in life—money!

Enjoy! And polish your pennies!

Jim McLauchlin

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

DC Comics' new creator participation plan


For people in the comics business, it's big news: DC Comics is changing its creator participation plan and adding some wrinkles to be more in tune with today's market.

The all-important reaction from the pros whose skin is in the game HERE, and the text of DC's letter ALSO.

Enjoy.

Jim McLauchlin

Saturday, June 21, 2014

New column: Panel Discussions at Newsarama.com


In which we discuss real people, with the touchpoint being comic books.

It's not as odd as it might sound: Look at the T-shirts on people as you walk down the street, or the people in line at the movie theater next time an Avengers flick comes out. Comic books and superheroes are HUGE in the public consciousness right now.

The intro column is up right now over at Newsarama.com. Check it out!

Jim McLauchlin

Monday, June 16, 2014

Tony Gwynn, from the cutting room floor






Much has already been said about the untimely passing of Tony Gwynn, and likely almost all of that more eloquent that I could have mustered. So I'll just share this:

In 2010, I was writing a feature for Major League Baseball's All-Star Game program, and as the game that year was in Anaheim, my assignment was an article on the SoCal baseball culture. Gwynn grew up in Long Beach (Poly Jackrabbits!), went to college at San Diego State, played a 20-year Hall of Fame career for the Padres, and went back to be the coach at San Diego State. So, yeah, he was about as dyed-in-the-wool in that culture as you get.

Gwynn had just coached phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg at San Diego State, and although it wasn't germane to the feature, I had to pick his brain about Strasburg. The quotes below have never been published until now, but really show, I think, just how enthused Gwynn was to have such a great young player on his team, how much he learned every day from people who were 30 years his junior, and the charge he got out of sharing his love of baseball with the next generation.

In short, these quotes show just what kind of man Tony Gwynn was.

Jim McLauchlin



“I describe it as being in the presence of greatness. You just kinda knew. He had that ‘it’ quality in addition to the great stuff.

“But what impressed me more than anything—even more than his pitching!—was how he handled himself through all the stuff that was going on around him. We kind of saw it coming the middle of his sophomore year when he was throwing 98, 99 miles an hour consistently. We sat him down and said, ‘You are going to be the most talked-about college player of today, and perhaps the most talked-about in the history of college baseball. You need to prepare yourself for that. Now if it gets to be too much, let us know. We’ll play the bad guy for you.’ And…we never had to do anything. To see this all unfold right in front of your face and see him take everything in stride was amazing. And then to see the performance on top of it was double amazing. I mean, 13-1 with scrutiny I don’t know any college player ever had to endure. Amazing.

“Every city we went to, it was like having a rock star on tour. Me being the coach here, I was used to our bus pulling up, and maybe 2-3 people would be waiting to see me to get something signed. I’d sign some old baseball cards of theirs. But last year was great because they’d fly right past me and go straight to Stephen! It was a nice break! And there were way more people. And to see how he’d handle it all was great—fans, media, scrutiny, criticism—it didn’t matter. He was the most talked-about college player in the country, and took everything in stride.

“You know he’s gong to pitch in the big leagues. We knew that when he was a sophomore. His temperament is perfect. He’s a nice kid, very unassuming, and always works hard to get better. He just ‘gets it.’’

“When he left for spring training this year, he asked me a question I don’t think I’ve ever heard from a college player. He said, ‘Coach, what do I do when I want to make the team out of spring training, but I don’t think they’re going to let me?’ And I said ‘Stephen, the answer is really easy—you just pitch well. You go do what you do, you pitch well, and you accept whatever decision they make. But you pitch well, and good things are going to happen.’ That’s what he did! 3-0 in the spring, and down on the first cut. Now knowing him, I know he’s disappointed. But I also know he’s gonna work hard and keep pitching well. I think before the year is out, we’ll see him in the big leagues. We might see him by May! But I can tell you: Mentally, he’s prepared. He’s ready. I expect him to excel at the big league level.

“You don’t get into college coaching for the money. You do it because you want to help prepare guys for what’s out there. You want to teach. It was a privilege working with Stephen, teaching him. He was an easy study."

Friday, June 6, 2014

The five BEST chili dogs and burgers in Los Angeles!


If you're gonna eat five chili dogs and/or chili burgers, you'd best spread them out over two days, dig?

And so it has come to pass that the mighty Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection Blog has taken a break in the middle before hitting you with ALL the chili goodness that is the five BEST chili dogs and burgers in L.A.

We're covering The Valley, the Westside, Culver City and even the San Gabriel Valley. Grab a fork and GO with Part 1 and Part 2.

It is to yum!

Jim McLauchlin

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Captain America: The Winter Soldier presser news!



Over at Newsarama.com, the coverage on the Captain America: The Winter Soldier "big event," plus 1-on-1 interviews with Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier) and directors Anthony and Joe Russo (okay, that was a 2-on-1).

Enjoy!

Jim McLauchlin

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

How big money is making comic cons worse AND better at the same time



George PĂ©rez does LOTS of sketches at conventions. In fact, these days, he can make way more money at comic conventions than he can sitting down and drawing comics.

That's just one facet of the changing face of the comic con business, which, make no mistake, EASILY reaches the into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Check out the full scoop in this Newsarama article.

Jim McLauchlin

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

A Bill Finger Blast from the Past



I occasionally get asked about a Bill Finger article I wrote back in (that long already?) 2002 when I was at Wizard magazine. As thems was the days of print and there's no easily accessible Web version, well…here you go. Enjoy.

Bill is often referred to as "Batman's uncredited co-creator," a label that I think fits. Since this article was published, Shelly Moldoff, Martin Nodell and Jerry Robinson have all left us. I'm glad we were able to get their comments on the record before they passed away.






TITLE: THE MAN BEHIND BATMAN’S MASK
Sub: The comics all say ‘Batman created by Bob Kane.’ So why do so many people think Batman’s uncredited father was Bill Finger?

By Jim McLauchlin

The one mystery the Dark Knight Detective can’t solve? The riddle of his own creation.

Crack open the cover to any Batman comic—Batman, Detective Comics, World’s Finest, whatever—and you’ll find one commonality: The phrase “Batman created by Bob Kane.”

But there are those who will tell you that this simple statement of seeming fact is every bit as fictional as Bat-tale it introduces. At the very least, they’ll tell you the statement is incomplete. Oh, they’ll admit, sometimes grudgingly, that Kane should be there. But they’ll also tell you that you wouldn’t be reading the book today—Hell, you probably even wouldn’t have heard of Batman—were it not for the contributions of another man.
 
Bill Finger.

Haven’t heard of him? You’re not alone. Bill Finger’s cautionary tale is not well known, but it’s every bit as compelling as that of Batman himself.

“We’re all attracted to tragedy, and he’s a tragic figure,” says current Detective Comics writer Ed Brubaker. “He did so much so well for so long! He was the most inventive guy on the book, worked on it for decades, and in the end, it got him nothing.”

Just what did Finger do? At the very least, he wrote Batman tales for over 20 years, introducing the character in Detective Comics #27, penning the first Robin story in Detective #38, and introducing the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Bat-Mite, and the very Batcave itself. At the most, he may have insured that Batman existed at all.

THE VOICE OF REASON
DC Comics (then called National Periodical Publications) saw it had a hit on its hands when Superman debuted in 1938. The order came down to editors Whitney Ellsworth and Vin Sullivan: Bring us another long underwear-type. Bob Kane, a 22-year-old cartoonist doing some humor strips for the publisher at the time, drew up something called “The Batman.” Kane’s design was influenced by Superman, Zorro, a silent film called “The Bat,” and a Leonardo da Vinci design of a flying machine. Kane’s original Batman wore red tights with a Zorro-styled mask, and had two stiff-looking wings mounted to the back of the costume. The mish-mashed combination didn’t wow anyone, Kane included.

Kane wasn’t sure if his design would pass muster, so he decided to call an old high school classmate for a friendly chat and a second opinion, a man he knew to be a creative sort. He called Bill Finger.

The 25-year-old Finger came over to Kane’s apartment and agreed the design needed work. He set to that work immediately. Pulling a dictionary off Kane’s shelf, he opened to a picture of a bat. “Bill said, ‘Why not make him look more like a bat and put a hood on him, and take the eyeballs out and just put slits for eyes to make him look more mysterious?’” Kane recounts in his 1989 autobiography, Batman & Me.

Batman’s domino mask changed into a full cowl. Finger also suggested making the color scheme darker. “Color it dark gray to make it look more ominous,” Kane recalls him saying. Finger also got rid of the wings, evolving them into Batman’s now-famous cape. In mere hours, the Batman we all know today was born of Finger’s tinkering with Kane’s awkward design. If Kane was indeed Batman’s father, Finger was at least the doctor who delivered the baby—and probably prevented a stillbirth.

THE FATEFUL CONTRACT
DC loved Batman and immediately commissioned Kane to produce it. Kane, knowing Finger was up to the task and knowing Finger desperately wanted to be a writer, sub-contracted Finger to write Batman’s first story for Detective Comics #27. Kane also did something else: He got a contract.

Kane came from a well-to-do family with enough money to employ lawyers to nail down Kane’s interest in the character. Kane secured an ownership percentage in Batman, and an ironclad legal guarantee that for now and forever, all Batman tales would start with the tag “Batman created by Bob Kane.”

Finger came from a poor background, and in fact had been bedridden for months with a case of scarlet fever as a child. It was there in bed, with nowhere to go, that he fell in love with reading. He devoured books by the dozens, and it became his lifelong dream to one day become a writer himself. When Kane made his fateful call to Finger, Finger was barely scraping by with a low-paying job as a shoe salesman. Given the opportunity to write for a living, he leapt at the chance. For the first six Batman stories, Finger was Kane’s employee, nothing more. It wasn’t until the seventh script that Finger got paid via DC. They may not have even known he existed at the time.

THE BAT-BOOM
Batman was booming and Kane, realizing where his financial interests lay, hired a stable of artists to produce more material. The work was very collaborative. One day, Kane mentioned to Finger that Batman needed a boy sidekick. Finger said that he’d dream one up, and went out for a sandwich. By the time he returned, Kane and inker Jerry Robinson had already nailed a name: Robin. Finger then wrote the first Robin tale.

Similarly, Finger “found” the Joker for Kane to draw. Accounts vary as to if Kane or Robinson came up with the notion of the psychotic villain, but it was definitely Finger who delivered the visual. “Bill came in with a photograph of Conrad Veidt, who played in a movie called ‘The Man Who Laughs,’” Kane relays in Batman & Me. “‘Here’s a picture of the Joker character,’ Bill exclaimed. ‘Copy it and I’ll write the first Joker story.’”

Kane, “a superb copyist” in his own words, copied; and Bill Finger wrote the Joker’s first two stories, in Batman #1 and #2. But every story, regardless of who wrote it, drew it, or came up with a new character, came out with the same byline: “By Bob Kane,” as per Kane’s contract.

“In the early days, only the originators put their names on strips, regardless of whether they had ghost-writers or ghost-artists doing their features,” Kane says in Batman & Me. “I never thought of giving [Finger] a byline, and he never asked for one.” Still, as the originator and a co-owner, Kane enjoyed healthy bonuses based on sales. Finger made his script rate of $12 a page, and still lived with his parents, helping his poor family make ends meet.

Finger wanted too desperately to be a writer, and would do anything to remain in his position, and rise above poverty. “He was so overwhelmed that he was getting steady jobs that he never thought of anything else,” says Sheldon Moldoff, an artist who ghosted for Kane for 16 years. “He just wanted to be a writer. Bill was so happy he was working, he didn’t think about royalties, rights, any of that. He was very grateful to Bob.”

Perhaps too grateful. Golden Age artist Martin Nodell once visited Kane’s apartment with Finger in tow. “We rang the bell, and Bob Kane came to the door,” Nodell recalls. “When Bill entered the room, it was if he was greeting the king. Bill was bowing down, his hands out, just to say hello. That, in essence, was the way it was. Bill felt as if he had to condescend before Kane.”

The love was not returned. “Bob Kane never was a nice guy,” Moldoff says flatly. “He had a tremendous ego. If I came up with an idea, he had no problem stealing it and claiming it as his own. Was Bob generous to Bill Finger? No. Was he nice with him? No. Bob wasn’t nice to anybody.”

THE NICE GUY
Finger, on the other hand, was known for his kindness and generosity. Jerry Robinson was only 17 years old, consumed by school all day and drawing all night, when he started in the Kane studio. Finger took the youngster under his wing. “Bill was very much my cultural mentor,” Robinson remembers. “He exposed me to potential. He brought me to museums, to fine movies, that inspired us both.”

Finger’s love of learning, born of his bedridden childhood, never stopped. “I don’t think he had a college education of any kind, but he was very auto-didactic, always self-teaching,” said 15-year Batman Editor Denny O’Neil, who credits Finger with mentoring him when O’Neil began his career in 1965. “He made notes constantly. He was very observational.”

Finger was famous for taking his job seriously. He kept huge files of articles clipped from newspapers and Popular Science. Whenever Batman needed a way out of a tough situation, Finger could refer to his files and find one. The technical wonders of the Batcave, with its computers, submarine pens, and Giant Penny, sprang from the imagination and files of Finger. Other comic writers of the time surely knew his importance. A Golden Age Green Lantern villain with a huge book of tricks he pulled his crimes from was named “William Hand,” an obvious riff on Bill Finger’s name.

But Finger was more than just a book of tricks. “He was one of the guys who showed us how to do this work in this new medium,” O’Neil maintains. “Comics were really brand-new at the time—The umbilical cord hadn’t even been cut. And Bill really understood, almost instinctually, how to do it. He really had a handle on writing for comics. I’ve seen some of [Superman co-creator] Jerry Siegel’s original scripts, and it was these two guys, Siegel and Finger, who really first understood writing for comics. They taught the next generation.”

THE WORK HORSE
But that which made Finger great was also his downfall. Finger cared too much about his work, and refused to turn in a script until it was perfect. For a poor man who never made much money…this was a problem.

“Bill was the greatest comics writer of his time, and maybe since,” says Jerry Robinson. “But he was not a natural writer. Things didn’t flow from his pen. He really struggled every time.”

Finger once delivered a first page of a script stapled to a bunch of blank pages to an editor, hurriedly grabbing his check and bolting the office before his editor could see that the work wasn’t finished. Missing deadlines led to lack of income, which led to paralyzing fear, alcoholism, and more missed deadlines. By the mid-1950s, Kane had moved to California and was comfortably out of comics, with a massive studio producing work in his name. Finger still struggled, with both deadlines and money.

“The second Batman story he ever did for me [in the early ’60s], I made him sign a little note that went roughly as follows: ‘I, William Finger, will not ask for the check for this story until I’ve completed it,’” says longtime DC Editor Julius Schwartz. “He had a habit of always needing money, and before he’d finish a story, he’d ask for a check. And he was invariably late.”

By the mid-1960s, things were changing. New editors were coming in at DC, and Kane hadn’t been personally involved for years. Finger’s assignments dwindled away, and he fell off editors’ radar. Finger, once known as the best writer in comics, became almost an urban legend to new editors. He’d occasionally be seen haunting a bar, but no one would give him an assignment, fearing certain deadline problems. By 1965, Finger was out of comics. He resurfaced very briefly writing mystery stories at DC in the early ’70s, but at the time of his death in 1974, Bill Finger had lost the only thing that really mattered to him. He wasn’t a writer anymore.

THE LEGACY
All that’s left today of Finger is his place in history—a place that’s largely misplaced. His contributions are lost to the mists of time, and the fact that Bob Kane had the power of an ironclad contract on his side.

“It’s impossible to tell exactly who created what anymore,” says Denny O’Neil. “The truth is, it’s 60 years since, and nobody really kept notes then. But I’ve spent a lot of time looking at Batman history. It was my main professional concern for 15 years. And near as I have been able to learn, Bill’s contributions were considerable.”

Even Michael Uslan, the producer of the “Batman” movies and a close personal friend of Kane’s, agrees. “It was such a great creative effort by so many people over so many decades that really ‘created’ Batman,” Uslan says. “But you still have to look at Bill Finger as one of the two essentials. It’s Kane-and-Finger—and I say that in one breath—who were there at the beginning.”

Even Kane could give Finger his due. “I must admit that Bill never received the fame and recognition he deserved. He was an unsung hero,” Kane wrote in Batman & Me, which he dedicated, among others, to Bill Finger. “I ran into Bill a year before he died in 1974. Bill was disheartened by the lack of major accomplishments in his career. He felt that he had not used his creative potential to its fullest and that success had passed him by.”

But crafting Batman is a major accomplishment, and more people are learning of the man behind Batman’s mask. Julius Schwartz has long been an advocate of getting Finger the credit he is due. O’Neil, too. “I certainly think he deserved more that what he got, both in terms of credit and in terms of money,” O’Neil says. “There was no way for me to get him money, because of the legalities involved. It may not be fair, but it is the law.”

Official credit may be out of the question. “Short of adding his name to the credits, which I don’t think can legally be done, I don’t think there’s anything DC can do,” says comic writer and historian Mark Waid. “The Bob Kane estate is protected. Bob Kane’s selfishness continues from beyond the grave.”

Kane grew rich off of Batman and lived a comfortable life until he passed away in 1998. Finger died an unfulfilled man, never enjoying the late-life accolades or money that did eventually come to Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

“Siegel and Shuster are looked at as these guys who really got screwed until later in life. Bill Finger is like them, except he never got un-screwed,” says Ed Brubaker.

And Finger has left something more behind than just Batman for other creators to follow. “It’s a different scene,” Brubaker says. “If you write Batman right now and create a new character, regardless of the fact that Bob Kane created the comic, you would get money for that character. Chuck Dixon got money when they used Bane in the ‘Batman and Robin’ movie. These things are in place now because of creators like Bill Finger. The business is more human now.”

Finger also has a final, more chilling legacy, according to Brubaker. “The greatest thing, but also the most f---ed thing about Bill Finger is that if you’re ever in a situation where you’re worried that you’re not getting proper credit for what you’re doing, you can say to your editor, ‘Hey, I’m feeling like Bill Finger over here. And I don’t want to get Fingered.’ And they’ll understand. Everybody gets it. I guarantee it.”


Jim McLauchlin urges you to think about Bill Finger, just a little bit, next time you read a Batman comic.

“Bill Finger” sidebar

TITLE: THE LAST LINK
Sub: ‘Batman’ inker Jerry Robinson, there in 1939, is still going strong today

It’s been 55 years since Jerry Robinson drew Batman. But it feels as fresh as yesterday.

“I’ve gone through a number of stages in my career,” the 80-year-old artist says today. “But that stage endures, as Batman does.”

Robinson got a job inking Bob Kane’s pencils at the tender age of 17 in 1939, when he entered Columbia University as a freshman. He continued working on Batman until 1947, collaborating with Kane, Bill Finger, and others—even though the creators had little idea just what they were creating.

“We certainly didn’t have any thought that this would be popular in 60 years, or even if it would endure at all,” Robinson recollects. “But we did have the feeling that were creating a new means of communication with comics.”

Robinson has communicated in many venues in his career. He worked at Atlas Comics in the ’50s, and in 1960, started a 30-year stint as a political cartoonist with the nationally syndicated “Still Life” and “Life With Robinson.” He also taught at New York’s School of Visual Arts and Pratt Institute for 10 years. But people always know him as “the Batman guy.”

“I’ve been invited around the world to many comic conventions and festivals,” he says. “A lot of it stems from my Batman days, of course.”

Robinson has visited 43 countries, and in 1978, formed Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate, a firm that represents 550 artists in 50 different countries, syndicating their work worldwide. One creator in particular, he has special fondness for.

“Bill Finger deserves co-credit for the creation of Batman, simple as that,” he states. “It’s nice to see that more people are learning about him today. But I wish something could have happened for him in his lifetime.” —JM