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Bob Kane (nee Robert Kahn, October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998) is an American comic book artist and writer credited as the creator of Batman.
Biography
Early life and career
Robert Kahn legally changed his name to the Bob Kane at age 18. He entered comics in 1936, and for Detective Comics Inc. — one of the companies that, with National Periodicals and All-American Publications, merged to form the eventual DC Comics — created a called The Bat-Man. Kane said his influences for the character included actor Douglas Fairbanks' movie portrayal of the swashbuckler Zorro, and author Mary Rinehart's mysterious villain The Bat.Batman
His collaborator/studio writer Bill Finger, remembered how he became involved with the project: "He had an idea for a character called "Batman", and he'd like me to see the drawings. I went over to Kane's, and he had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of...reddish tights, I believe,with bootslllno gloves,no gauntlets...with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope. He had two stiff wings that were sticking our,looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign...BATMAN."* Finger offered such suggestions as giving the character a cowl,and a scalloped cape instead of wings; adding gloves; and removing the bright red sections of the original costume, suggesting a gray-and-black color scheme. He went on to mention that his suggestions were influenced by Lee Falk's character The Phantom,one that Kane was familiar with as well, right down to leaving eyeholes in the cowl blank to connote mystery. :Finger wrote the first Batman story, while Kane provided art. Because Kane had already submitted the proposal for Batman to his editors at DC Comics, he is the only person given official credit for the creation of Batman.The character was a breakout hit and editors suggested that the character receive a youthful sidekick whom the readers could use as an audience surrogate. Kane, partly inspired by the Junior character from the Dick Tracy comic strip, initially suggested an impish character named Mercury, while Finger suggested a more down-to-earth character. The name "Robin" was suggested by Jerry Robinson (Kane's inker) after the then-popular Errol Flynn movie The Adventures of Robin Hood. Robinson also created the basic concept of Batman's archenemy the Joker, introduced in Batman #1. "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." -JERRY ROBINSON-The Comics Journal #271 Part of that improvisation stemmed from many sources:newspaper strips,pulp magazines and movies of various genres,including the musicals of director Busby Berkeley.
When DC wanted more product than Kane's studio could deliver, the company assigned Dick Sprang and other in-house pencilers as ghost artists, drawing uncredited under Kane's supervision. Kane himself, unknown to DC, used Sheldon Moldoff Moldoff, in a 1994 interview given while Kane was alive, described his own clandestine arrangement:
"I worked for Bob Kane as a ghost from ' 53 to ' 67. DC didn't know that I was involved; that was the handshake agreement I had with Bob: 'You do the work don't say anything, Shelly, and you've got steady work'. No, he didn't pay great, but it was steady work, it was security. I knew that we had to do a minimum of 350 to 260 pages a year. Also, I was doing other work at the same time for * Jack Schiff amd Murray Boltinoff at DC. They didn't know I was working on Batman for Bob. ... So I was busy. Between the two, I never had a dull year, which is the compensation I got for being Bob's ghost, for keeping myself anonymous". (1994 Sheldon Moldoff interview, first published in Alter Ego #59, June 2006, p. 15)
from 1953-1967, as well as Lew S. Schwartz.
- From "The History of the Comics Vol.1" by Jim Steranko
Later life and career
As Kane's comic work tapered off in the 1960s, Kane parlayed his Batman status into minor celebrity. He enjoyed a post-comic book career as a painter, showing his work in art galleries, although even some of these paintings were produced by ghost artists. In 1989, he published his autobiography, Batman and Me, with a second volume Batman and Me, The Saga Continues in 1996.He was set to have a cameo in the 1989 movie Batman as the newspaper artist who prepares the drawing of the "Bat-man" for Alexander Knox, but scheduling conflicts prevented this. Kane's trademark square signature can still be seen clearly on the drawing.
Kane is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles, California.
Footnotes
1915 births | 1998 deaths | Eisner Award winners | Batman | Batman writers | Batman artists | American comics artists | American comics writers | Golden Age comics creators | Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park
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"Bob Kane"