Jerry Robinson: Been There, Done That

Amplify’d from www.tcj.com

Next to Gil Kane, Jerry Robinson has been there and done that more than any comic artist I know. Like Kane, he was more than a drawer: He was a writer, historian, entrepreneur, photographer, political activist. His career spans virtually the entire history of the comic book, from the time he started working with Bob Kane on Batman on 1939 to today; currently, he’s the President and Editorial Director of Cartoonists International, Inc. and the Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate.

This interview brings us through the early ’60s (and on to the present) when he effectively ceased drawing comics and started what I consider his second career in as a newspaper strip cartoonist, historian, political activist, and owner of his own international strip syndicate. Robinson’s recollections of the early years of comic books is invaluable and his observations on the creative people who comprised the inchoate industry sharply etched. Of particular interest, in my opinion, is his recollection of the writer Bill Finger, his unheralded contribution to Batman, and his tragic decline. Robinson successfully lobbied the Eisner Awards to include the Finger Award (a not inappropriate name in more ways than one) to be given to an outstanding writer (which was won this year by Jerry Siegel and Arnold Drake). Read more at www.tcj.com

 

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