Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Interesting discussion about Bob Kane and his "inspiration".

Much has been written about Bob Kane's use of ghosts in the early Batman strips and Kane is often dismissed as an artist who did little or no actual drawing himself (he was perhaps more skilled as a "funny" cartoonist).  Now the source for one of Kane's most famous images, the panel from the Batman origin story in which Bruce Wayne meditates on the cowardly and superstitious criminals he must terrorize.  It seems the the drawing of Bruce in his smoking jacket, hand on chin, was swiped wholesale (a not uncommon practice for cartoonists then and now) from an illustration by Henry Valley that appeared in the Gang Busters in Action Big Little Book, published in 1938.

Mark Evanier discusses the news here:
http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2006_06_05.html#011593

The original image is here:
http://henryvallely.blogspot.com/2006/05/gang-busters.html

And Eddie Campbell talks about Kane as an artist here:
http://www.tcj.com/messboard/ubb/Forum1/HTML/011678.html

Darn link dont work

Lets try this one:

http://henryvallely.blogspot.com/

its on the upper left and the story is a scroll down

However, Bob Kane didn't swipe it, since Bob Kane never ever drew ANY Batman comic ever in his life.

He also didn't actually create a darn thing, but just ask to create something by DC Comics, what he came up with was terrible, his Bat-Man sucked, he said so himself! So he got Bill Finger to fix it up.

If Bob Kane was anything he was a great producer and promoter, since he got his army of ghost artists to draw and design everything and his ghost writers to write and come up with all the ideas, while he sat back and got famous.

Bob Kane finally at long last gave Bill Finger his just credit, after Bill Finger died of course, in his book:

See belove for Bob Kane quotes of him finally coming clean with the truth:

http://www.thebatsquad.net/finger.htm

Evanier begs to differ on the Kane drawing thing.  And Kane at least came up with the name "Batman," didn't he?

not really, he was asked to create a Superman type of hero,

thus the Man in the name.

The Bat part came from an old film called, now get this THE BAT!

here is the plot: Plot Outline: A masked criminal who dresses like a giant bat terrorizes the guests at an old house rented by a mystery writer. The title character, the `Bat,' is a master criminal with a flair for the gymnastic; a thief who swoops and swirls, rappels down the sides of tall buildings and skitters across broad skylights.

it was released in 1926.

Yes, I've heard all of this history before.  Nevertheless, he took the Bat and he took the Man and made Batman.  Then he hired a bunch of artists and writers to help with the rest.

Bob Kane's original innovation was called Bird-Man, and Bill Finger came up with the Bat idea and they both expanded on it, per:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14931-1649234,00.html

Boy, people really like to shoot down Bob Kane!  He may have his faults, but without him, there would be no Batman.  You really have to give Bob Kane and Bill Finger co-creator credit.

:s:

Ive seen the Bat and there's even a bat signal but you know what-- if I could have a Bob Kane drawing in my collection Id darn well would!  (even if its by Shelly Moldoff)

Hey Ive got strips out there with my created by cred - Im not drawing or writing them but theyre based on characters I first wrote about in the Weekly World News aided and abetted by own personal Julie Schwartz!   I even call my cred a "Bob Kane" and really whats the difference between what BK and what  the newspaper cartoonists did?

It's hard to believe there's not a Bat-Boy by Bob Kane story out there.

 :D

I agree it's not right to deny Kane at least some credit.  On the other hand, he spent most of his life denying that anyone BUT him deserved credit for anything related to Batman, so you could argue he started it!

Mark Waid, Evanier and others have done a good job over the years pointing out all the ways Kane "ripped off" various pulps and earlier comics, but there seems to be some underlying assumption that a concept like Batman has to be somehow totally original to be of worth.  In fact, there's been almost no characters in the history of comics who couldn't trace their origins back to some predecessor in mythology, pulp fiction, comics, movies, etc...including Superman.  Shelley Moldoff, a great artist of the Golden Age, swiped most of his Hawkman art from Flash Gordon, and Joe Shuster's Superman is pretty much Roy Crane's Captain Easy.  What makes Kane's case different is that he was the only creator to stubbornly insist his inspiration came not from stories he read in the immediate past, but from a direct transmission from the Almighty, making "Batman" the first divine writings since the Gospels.  And it's hard to find much to admire in a guy who lived off the work of others without at least acknowledging their contributions...in fact steadfastly denying them!

It's interesting to see where those famous panels came from, just as it was interesting to learn the cover to Detective #27 was swiped from an Alex Raymond "Flash Gordon" panel.  In time we'll no doubt figure out where every panel Kane 'drew" was swiped from.  But in fairness it should be remembered that no one in 1939 imagined for a moment that comic books would have a shelf life beyond the month they were published.  It was work to be turned out fast, and then forgotten.  Kane swiped stuff not only because he had to (he was a humor artist assigned to produce a dramatic strip, and thus in over his head) but also to meet a deadline.  If he'd known we'd still be reading this stuff 70 years later, maybe he'd have taken the time to do something truly original.  But odds are it wouldn't have looked as good even if he had.

And while I'm no expert, Super-Monkey, there's plenty of comics historians who are, and they remain in agreement that Kane contributed art to at least the first year or so of Detective strips, the first few issues of Batman and a number of the newspaper strips (since it was his dream job, as it was any artist of the day).  Also, a few 60s stories are credited to Kane, and unless they had a nine-year old on staff at DC at the time, I can't imagine anyone else I'd credit that artwork to.

It's neat to see the facts come out over time... I have Kane's autobiography "Batman & Me" and he makes it sound like he either created every Bat-character or oversaw it's creation and took the credit.  In his defense, though, if I created an icon like Batman, I may do the same!

I enjoy the book a bit, but Kane sounded pompous and full of himself.

Say it, brother! 

Anyway, if you want some good insight into what Bob Kane was like and what motivated him check out Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book.  Great book and the paperback has more on Jerry Siegel than the harcover did.

Just wait until you read about the clown paintings that Kane "did".  Funny stuff.