Batman and Animation Art

 

The DC Comics superhero Batman (originally and still sometimes referred to as The Batman) is a fictional character who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. His "true" identity is Bruce Wayne, billionaire industrialist, playboy, and philanthropist. Although the character was co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, only Kane receives official credit for the character. Batman was, at first, just one of several characters featured in Detective Comics. He has since become the lead (or co-lead) character of a number of comic book series, including a number of titles featuring related characters (e.g. Robin, Batgirl).

Publication history

Detective Comics #27, May 1939. The first appearance of Batman. Art by Bob Kane.

In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics prompted editors at the comic book division of National Publications (later DC Comics, D.C. is short for Detective Comics, now a subsidiary of Time Warner) to request more superheroes for their titles. In response, Bob Kane created a character called "the Bat-Man". His collaborator Bill Finger offered such suggestions as giving the character a cowl instead of a simple domino mask, wearing a cape instead of wings, wearing gloves, and removing the red sections from the original costume. Finger wrote the first Batman story and Kane provided the art. Because Kane had already submitted the proposal for a Batman character to his editors at DC Comics, Kane was the only person given official credit at the time for the creation of Batman, and is still the sole creator listed to this day.

A number of other sources have been cited as inspirations for Batman's personality, character history, and visual design and equipment, including Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks, 1926's The Bat, Dracula, The Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, Spring Heeled Jack and even the technical drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci.

The Batman was a breakout hit, with sales on Detective Comics soaring to the point that National's comic book division was renamed "Detective Comics, Inc." After one year, Dick Grayson/Robin (named after Robin Hood) was introduced based on Finger's suggestion to Kane that Batman needed a "Watson".

Kane, the more business-savvy of the Kane-Finger creative team, negotiated a contract with National, signing away any ownership that he might have in the character in exchange for, among other compensations, a mandatory byline on all Batman comics stating "Batman created by Bob Kane", regardless of whether or not Kane had been involved with that story at all. At the time, no comic books and few company-owned comic strips were explicitly credited to their creative teams. Bill Finger's contract, by comparison, left him with a monetary pittance and no credit even on the stories that he wrote without Kane. Finger, like Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, and many other creators during and after the Golden Age of Comic Books, would resent National for cheating him of the money and dignity that he was owed for his creations. By the time Finger died in 1974, he had never once been officially credited for his work. In comparison, Kane parlayed his official sole creator status into a low level of celebrity, enjoying a post-comic book career as a painter. Ironically, much of Kane's later comics work, and even some of his non-comics art, was written or illustrated by other, uncredited writers or artists, ghostwriting under Kane's name. However, it has been reported that Kane regretted the fact that Finger never received any recognition for his contributions to Batman.

Evolution of the concept

In Batman's original comics, Batman stories were often presented in the tone of film noir and gothic horror films of the day, with a particularly grim emphasis; a few stories even present Batman making use of firearms, as well as showing little remorse over an enemy's death. Following this style, the body count in the first dozen or so published Batman stories was quite high.

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