“THE FORGOTTEN HERO OF BATMAN”
If you were
asked the question, “Who created the Batman?” what would your answer be? The
obvious answer is printed on the splash page of every Batman comic book, appears at the
end of every episode of various TV shows and in the credits of every Batman movie.
I’m betting that you answered Bob Kane. And you’d be right – sort of.
OK, so answer this one. Who created Alfred
Pennyworth, Catwoman, Penguin, Two-Face and The Riddler? Who came up with the names Bruce
Wayne, Robin and Gotham City? The obvious answer would once again be Bob Kane. But that
would be wrong. The answer this time is Bill Finger.
William Finger was born February 8th
1914 in the Bronx area of New York city and was showing signs of being a creative and
imaginative writer by the time he started at DeWitt Clinton High School a few years ahead
of a budding cartoonist called Robert Kahn. It’s debatable if the two knew of each
other at school, reports vary, but by the time William, now calling himself
“Bill,” started working as a shoe salesman they were firm friends with a shared
love of newspaper strips and the pulps.
Young Robert had dreams of becoming a big
time syndicated newspaper cartoonist. While he could think up some basic ideas, his
drawing skills were rudimentary at best and more suited to funny animals than illustrative
adventure style strips. So he turned to his friend Bill to help flesh out his ideas and
write stories for some sample strips to try and break in to the newspaper market. The
strips, now signed by “Robert Kane” eventually opened a door for them, but not
where they expected, instead of working in the rarified company of newspapers he found
himself involved in the fledgling comic book industry.
Robert Kane was soon landing himself enough
assignments to keep himself employed as a jobbing cartoonist, calling on his friend Bill
Finger for story assistance when he felt it was needed. Between 1936 and 1938 they
produced various stories for a variety of publishers before Robert Kane ended up working
for National Periodicals (which would eventually become DC Comics). After about seven
months with the company 18 year old Robert asked his editor Vince Sullivan if the creators
of Superman were making good money. Sullivan told him they were, and what’s more the
company was looking for another super-hero style character to cash in on the success of
Superman. Could Bob come up with one over the weekend.
According to some sources, Sullivan
suggested something using a bat-motif, according to Kane the idea was totally his.
Whatever happened the acknowledged result is that the following Monday Kane returned with
a sketch of a bat-man character. One in a garishly colored costume, a domino mask and
fixed stiff “bat wings” stuck behind the shoulder blades. Sullivan liked the
idea but pointed out that Kane needed a story to go along with the concept. Kane turned to
his old friend and collaborator, Bill Finger.
When Bill Finger saw Kane’s sketch he
felt it looked too much like Superman and suggested a few changes. Changes that would be
vital in defining the look and impact of the character.
"I got Webster's Dictionary off the shelf and was hoping
they had a drawing of a bat, and sure enough it did. I said, 'notice the ears, why don't
we duplicate the ears?' I suggested he draw what looked like a cowl... I had suggested he
bring the nosepiece down and make him mysterious and not show any eyes at all... I didn't
like the wings, so I suggested he make a cape and scallop the edges so it would flow out
behind him when he ran and would look like bat wings. He didn't have any gloves on. We
gave him gloves because naturally he'd leave fingerprints." – Bill Finger
Bill wrote that first story “The
Case Of The Chemical Syndicate” and named all of the major characters including Bruce
Wayne and James Gordon. As part of the character development, it was Finger who decided to
make Batman a detective – "My idea was to have Batman be a combination of
Douglas Fairbanks, Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, and Doc Savage as well."
Robert (now signing himself as “Bob”)
took the completed story back to Sullivan and the strip was scheduled to be published in
Detective Comics #27. And the rest, as they say, is history. Except that history treated
the two creators very differently.
As far as Vince Sullivan was concerned he
had asked Bob Kane to come up with a new hero and Kane had delivered. Sullivan didn’t
know Finger was involved and never met Finger over the coming years. Kane, on advice from
a family member, rapidly negotiated a 20-year contract to deliver a set number of Batman
stories a year along with the rider that such stories would only ever carry his name.
Bill Finger was glad of the steady work and
over the coming years would become the most prolific of the writers working on Batman
feeding stories for Kane’s increasing number of “ghost” artists. Eventually
Bill moved from working with (or for) Bob Kane directly and was contracted by DC, where we
went on to co-create Green Lantern and Wildcat among others.
Bob Kane’s contract was renewed in 1968
and given the popularity of Batman at the time he was given very favorable terms. He no
longer had to produce any Batman pages and he would allow other writers & artists to
get credit as long as he had a “created by” credit on every story, oh and he got
a regular slice of the grosses that Batman created for DC and its parent company in
exchange for not disputing ownership.
So where was Bill Finger in 1968? Being
fired by the same company that was giving out large checks to his erstwhile partner. While
Bill was a prolific writer, he wasn’t the most natural. He found writing to be hard
work, and deadlines were a real problem for him. He was also upset that when DC started a
program of reprinting large number of Golden Age stories in the sixties they didn’t
pay the original creators any re-print fees. As they only reprinted the best stories, a
large proportion of the reprints were Bill’s. But what got him, and several other
veteran creators, fired was asking about (not demanding, just asking) a health care
program.
While Bob Kane was starting to live the life
of the “millionaire playboy” he had always dreamed of, his old friend was out of
a job and what little work had been coming his way dried up.
Bill tried his hand at writing a few TV and
movie scripts (he’d even written a story for the Batman TV show a few years earlier)
with moderate success. By the early 70s he was back writing for DC on a free-lance basis.
His failing health was further impacting his ability to deliver scripts on time and by
1974 his health gave out and he passed away at the age of 60.
Many of the things that Bill fought for in
his lifetime, such as reprint fees and health plans, are now common practice in the
industry. It’s also now common practice for all creators to get proper by-lines and a
stake in characters they produce.
Amazing as it seems from today’s
perspective, Bill Finger never saw his name appear on a single Batman story during his
lifetime.
While it’s true that Bob Kane created a
bat-man, it was Bill Finger that refined the concept and gave us THE BATMAN. If
today’s standards had been applied in the early days of the industry we would be
seeing a different credit on the splash pages of our favorite Batman comics.
BATMAN created by Bill Finger & Bob
Kane.
[ POSTSCIPT - So what would Batman have looked
like without Bill Finger's involvment?
Maybe something like this ?
This is a quick sketch I did based on Bill
Finger's comments and a reproduction that was first published in Alter Ego magazine Vol 2
#5 ]
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